Perseverance On Mars

 

The NASA Mars rover Perseverance safely landed on Mars last week.  It is without a doubt a major scientific achievement hurtling machinery from Earth across the void of space successfully aim it at another planet without wrecking it in the process.

But part of me wonders if we shouldn't be further along in our exploration of space. 

The main American impetus for putting humans on the moon in the 1960s was to be sure the Soviet Union didn't get there first. Once we proved that yes we can get to the moon and damn it, we did it first, the wind seemed to go out of our sails. 

Once we made it to the moon, we pulled back our goals to explore the space just outside of our atmosphere. And even then, we endured losses that were tragic, the loss of lives with two shuttle accidents. 

Then even those modest attempts were curtailed. We mothballed our shuttle fleet. 

Yep, we sent people into space to the International Space Station but we were hitching rides from the Russians. 

Again, getting Perseverance safely to Mars is no small accomplishment and is worthy of praise and respect.

But am I wrong to think we should've been here before now?  Did we lose our collective will to explore? Did we lose our sense of wonder? 

Do our Earth bound problems rooted in poverty, racism, ignorance and more root us too firmly to the Earth that we cannot see the value of imagination, of exploration?