Frontiers

I’m writing this column on Sunday evening. After seeing the successful launch of the Space X rocket from a NASA facility in Florida and a successful docking with the International Space Station, I was hopeful for a moment. And hope is something we badly need.

Sadly, our media buried the story of the first private-enterprise-funded venture into space. It seems the only really important news centers on burning, looting, screaming, beating and the bewildering belief that illegally taking possession of the latest 4K Samsung 52-inch TV has something to do with racial inequality.

I’m old enough to remember the night my mom got me out of bed and sat me in front of our state-of-the-art analog black-and-white TV in the den to watch Neil Armstrong put the first human footprints on the moon. Mom was beside herself with anxiety waiting for him to descend the later as she prayed out loud for his safety. When he spoke from the moon of one giant leap for mankind, she wept for joy and thanked Jesus. That night was a big deal.

The weekend’s space adventures with astronauts Bob and Doug was a big deal too. Don’t forget the whole reason Elon Musk is funding this effort is to colonize Mars because he’s pretty much given up on things here on Earth (can’t imagine why). And Richard Branson hopes to offer “space tourism” later this year where, for a fee, you can take a trip to the outer edges of the atmosphere and back in a day. If Musk and Branson are successful, we’ll see more private citizens designing and building spaceships.

Did you know there’s already an operational spaceport in New Mexico? Yup. And the FAA has already issued 12 spaceport licenses in the U.S. in anticipation of spaceships needed a place to land.

If we can stop burning down cities long enough to dream of a future among the stars, I foresee a day when private spaceships taking laps around the solar system could be as common as private planes. No, no one will be making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs in the 100 years, but tourism on space stations and moon bases is something my kids and grandkids could see if we haven’t blown each other away by then.

I sure hope some local officials are taking notice because I’ve advocated for some time that Cheyenne County and Sidney have unique characteristics making this area ideal for space and aerospace research. We have space, we have technical infrastructure in place, we have access to sparsely populated areas, we have empty buildings, we have extreme weather and also a good number of skilled workers. They need to be on the phone with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Virgin Orbit, Space X and others on the cutting edge of space and aerospace technology advocating for bringing some of this action here.

In spite of the chaos going on there are those dreamers and visionaries pushing the technology envelope to new frontiers. Let’s do what we can to make sure there’s still a world left to serve as home base for them.