Let’s get geeky

Editor’s note: This column first was first published Feb 1, 2004, by the fine folks at the Times Record. However, the first clean link to the paper with this column is from a Dec. 19, 2005 reprint — which was reprinted then as a nod to the 37th anniversary of Apollo 8 circling the Moon. My words are placed here now to offer another nod to the hundreds of thousands of Americans on whose shoulders Messrs. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins stood to reach Tranquility Base.

Down deep, I’m a geek.

While friends were learning to load a shotgun, hunt, fish, tear down and rebuild motors, spit and fight, I was watching “Star Trek,” reading any book remotely tied to aviation, building model rockets (the ones that really launch), turning large boxes into space capsules (used various kitchen utensils, old gauges off cars and tractors and old radios to create the cockpit), building model airplanes, taping bottle rockets to the model airplanes (How’d that work? Not too well.), and, by age 16 and without the assistance of bottle rockets, learning to fly a real airplane.

I attended Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. — twice. In fact, I was in the first Space Camp group and was invited back to be in the first Space Camp II program.

Unlike most of my male high school friends, I never knew (still don’t) the difference between a 1965 and 1970 Corvette. I would feign amazement at the fact so-and-so installed a Hemi or new headers on his truck. I didn’t know a hemi from shinola. Still don’t.

But I could identify most World War II planes — Axis and Allies — from just their silhouettes; knew the names of all the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo AND Skylab (remember Skylab?) astronauts; could give you a good rundown on the jets then being flown off our Navy carriers; and, at the time, knew in detail the background of John Young and Robert Crippen, the astronauts who first flew a space shuttle — the lost Columbia — into orbit.

During the first five years of the shuttle program, the only time I missed television coverage of a shuttle launch or landing was a cold January morning in 1986. The shuttle launch had been delayed several times and, with a teacher on board the flight, I left for school hoping to watch the launch there. I missed the launch, but was privately told the sad news by a kind English teacher who knew of my interests.

Nature effectively quashed my hopes of being a military pilot or astronaut. Folks with less than perfect eyesight, I was told, need not apply. Go to school, get an engineering degree and work in the design and building of airplanes and space ships, I was encouraged.

But I’d already learned from my friends who knew hemis from headers from shinola that half the fun of tinkering and building was in the jumping in, holding on and hauling fast. If I was to be involved, I wanted to be IN-volved.

Today I view with admiration and respect — and, honestly, a tinge of regret for not considering the alternatives to being IN-volved — the success of our Mars Rovers and the teams of scientists and engineers responsible for the success. What a wonderful collection of geeks they are. If Madison Avenue could turn them into role models, we’d be a better society for it.

And today I wonder about the frontiers of tomorrow my two young daughters might view with admiration and respect — possibly viewing from behind the visor of a Moon or Mars space suit.

The criticism of the president’s plan to go back to the moon and then on to Mars appears to be narrow and political. Too risky. Too costly. We don’t have the technology that can safely get us to Mars and back. We have domestic needs (health care, education, poverty, etc.) that should be addressed before spending money on space travel. If alive today, President Kennedy would recognize the criticism.

Edmond Wilson, professor of physical science and a Mars scientist at Harding University in Searcy, understands.

“The exploration of space will come, and I want my country to play the pre-eminent role in the exploration. The funds requested from Congress are modest, but can accomplish Bush’s goals. It is important to point out that NASA’s total budget is only about 1 percent of the federal budget. The rewards in better technology, knowledge of Earth’s behavior and improvement in education are part of the dividends that result from such an investment.”

The science advancements required to reach the Moon were tremendous. If miniaturization were the only spin-off from the space program we acknowledged, we would proclaim incredible the benefits in health care, communications, safety devices, modern appliances and energy conservation.

If it’s not too much, I’d respectfully ask that you, Kind Reader, allow yourself to avoid the narrow focus of restricted vision and become, down deep, a geek. Not a geek like me, however, because the world would be a dangerous place with a horde of 10-year-olds taping bottle rockets to model airplanes.

And unlike that young boy with poor eyesight, I hope this country has the vision to pursue its dreams.