2001: A SPACE TRAJEDY

One of my favorite films of all time is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, which was released in 1968. Based on a short story by the iconic  Sci-Fi author, Arthur C. Clarke, it depicts a 21st century where flying to the moon is as routine as hopping a plane to LA. Enormous space stations orbit the earth, and the moon itself is fully colonized. Such was the vision of life in the coming turn of the century.

I have viewed the movie countless times. The first time was in 1968 along with two of my buddies at the old McVickers theatre in  downtown Chicago. It was a mindblowing experience, partly because we were watching the movie stoned. But even straight, it was an exhilirating experience thanks to the Oscar winning special effects.

I watched SPACE ODYSSEY again a couple of weeks ago on one of the cable channels. This time, instead of exhiliration, I felt a sadness--sadness over what could have been compared to what is.

Kubrick, Clarke and other visionaries of their day were wrong. Flights to the moon are not commonplace. We have not colonized the lunar landscape. There are no massive space stations orbitting earth. And to think we had such a great start in the 60's.

At the beginning of the 1960's, President Kennedy made a famous speech in which he declared that by the end of the decade we would put a man on the moon. With the finest scientific minds in the country and a sufficient budget, we achieved the goal in less than a decade. That first moon landing was followed by five more, the final one taking place in April of 1972. Subsequently, we built space shuttles ande a space station. There was still talk of colonizing the moon and setting foot on Mars.

We are now 14 years past 2001, and there is no space odyssey. No human has set foot on the moon in 43 years. We have yet to step foot on Mars. Thanks to President Obama's policies, we no longer have any space shuttles, and the only working space station belongs to the Russians.

So what happened to the dreams and visions of the 60's and 70's? In a word: government. Nasa took control  of the space program, and when that occured, space exploration went from a scientific endeavor to a political endeavor. Budgets became political footballs. Goals and strategies became political footballs. No one had to worry about success and achievement to further their careers because careers were propped up by political pull and bureaucratic inertia.

In the interim, we have seen a virtual explosion in other technologies,  such as computers, the internet, cellphones, tablets, smart TV's, streaming, texting, etc. Buy a computer, smartphone or MP3 player, and within a few years it becomes obsolete because of lightning advances in the technology. And in every single instance, these innovations were the creations of free enterprise and individual entrepeneurs--not a government agency like Nasa or the FCC.

The lesson to be learned is simple. Endeavors by private enterprise are dynamic, efficient, goal oriented. Endeavors by government agencies, on the other hand, are ponderous, inefficient and stunted by political whims and in-fighting.

Had our leaders in Washington thrown space exploration to the private sector a half century ago instead of relegating it to a bureaucracy that stifles innovation and long-range planning, I dare say we would be having those routine flights to the moon, and colonies on Mars.

That is why it saddens me to watch Kubrick's masterpiece of filmmaking. Thanks to government, our space odyssey has become as empty as space itself, our dreams and visions trapped in a vacuum.

Open the podbay doors, Hal...