Does America have what it takes for a Sputnik moment?

Sadly, no. I think we are too politically divided to make it happen. I am not sure we are personally divided (neighbors are neighbors) but politically, we don’t have the will to compromise, realize that the other side might have a good idea and cobble together a plan to move forward.

Also, I think the space program had a very goal, singular goal – get to the moon. This is less clear. The role the government plays is less clear – is it reduced regulation or protections or the government helping to fund certain select areas or a combination? As long as those options are so politically charged we have no hope of moving forward as a country.

I doubt it. We lack a common moral direction, due to our post-modern societal views. When every belief is equal to every other one, then we are all going in separate directions and commonality becomes a thing of the past.

Can the U.S. rise to the challenge of a Sputnik moment? Not anymore.

That would assume that we are doing everything we can to provide the best education possible to our children and young adults. Alas, that is certainly not the case.

We have become the United States of Kronos. You remember the Greek god who devoured his young? Well, that’s what our society does.

We should make higher education accessible for all our young people. Instead the costs of higher education have continually escalated, and an entire industry of lending has developed that exploits our young, who frequently finish college–if they finish–with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. They become initiated to a life of debt. So we rank ninth in the world in the number of college graduates. Surprise! Surprise!

The countries of Western Europe make higher education accessible. In many of these countries, higher education is virtually free. But those countries are committed to their young.

We might also think about properly funding our public school system, but we might have to raise taxes on the wealthy and we wouldn’t want to do that. Nor would we want to address the problems of poverty that young children bring to their public school with them because, well, that might entail raising taxes on the wealthy.

The Republican Party is going to make sure we never properly fund education at any level. We don’t want to punish the rich by increasing taxes. Tch tch. Let’s keep our priorities in order.

Besides, if we properly funded our public schools, colleges, and universities, we might create a level playing field between all the members of our society, and the Republican Party will never stand for that.

Not anymore–every report on America I hear points to a general diminishing of all the character qualities that made America great. We don’t want to work, sacrifice, wait, give, or put others first–how will our country do anything worthwhile? Politics has nothing to do with our problems. It’s selfishness and laziness, plain and simple.

I dont think there’s a unity to create a Sputnik moment for us…

Are the tools and ideas there? Absolutely. We have the capability to build the next big physics lab, or conduct the next big space mission (man on Mars); but do we want to? No. Too much spending and nothing in it for the average American.

A recent editorial in the Star Tribune called for making teaching a career that attracted “the best and the brightest” by not further eroding pay for teachers. The outpouring of anti-teacher, anti-intellectual, anti-education commentary that ensued may be particularly virulent because it was in the Strib comments section, but I think it’s fair to say that it does represent one of the major obstacles to a national “Sputnik moment”: there is a a widespread contempt, both locally and nationally, for the educators and education in the U.S. right now that demands simultaneously that teachers fix our social problems AND that they do it while being treated with contempt by the public. Our kids, K-college, are caught in the middle, and are suffering the consequences. You want better education? Start by modeling respect for teachers.

One way to find a common goal around which to rally education might be to make as a priority the creation of solutions to problems of energy use and sustainability, a goal that will require science education AND creativity. But that would require that we go up against the well-funded lobbyists of big agriculture and big energy corporations. So we need both a common cause AND a new value placed on the common goals of education, one that in the current political stalement will not come within the next two years. That doesn’t mean we can’t work for it to happen as individuals and groups, but don’t expect it from Washington anytime soon.

Not from Obama who all but KILLED our Manned Space Program.

It’s sad that he uses space exploration as a metaphor but doesn’t see it as a challenge / opportunity.

All cultures grew when they explored. Spanish, Dutch, English, Chinese, USA etc.. and they ALL declined when they stopped.

The Chinese, Indians and Russians are all going to outer space, beyond low Earth orbit, to reap the rewards of exploration, we should too or we WILL become a ‘has been’ country.

–Ben

Sadly, there is little of the “we,” that it would take to have another Sputnik moment. The government saved the auto industry a couple of years ago, and most Americans seemed as if they would have been just fine had “they” gone out of business. Consequences? Bah.As long as it’s all about the almighty dollar and the short-term bottom line, our investments will be too puny to create anything like we saw in the 50’s and 60’s. It’s as much about values as it is about innovation. Our values as a society are, in my opinion, not in synch what it would take for another Sputkik moment. I hope I am wrong.

No, there will be no more “Sputnik moments” for the United States anymore if we are not willing to invest more money in math, science, writing and realistic communications skills – and less in school sports. How many schools spend as much money in clubs such as Math Clubs, Science Clubs and Chess Clubs as they do in their sports teams? How many parents spend more time and money in their childrens sports as they spend in making sure their children science and math and writing education?

We are now a people of “how can I get the most while doing the least to earn it”? How can I get someone else to do it – so I don’t have to worry about it?- And don’t raise my taxes while doing it for me! We are now a nation of “my political views – my religious beliefs – my heritage – My – My -MY. There is no longer a “ONE NATION”. How can we have any “Sputnik moments” when we as a nation do not want to work together to get that pride back again.

If our leaders can’t lead by example – we deserve the leaders we elected as they seem to be concerned only with theri own ambitions rather than the betterment of the “Nation”.

A previous comment said it all. The corporate feudalization since 1960 denies any chance of great moments. The corporate feudal lords battle for power, while peasants invest their dollars in the latest corporate scam.

Even the space race was a reaction to a perceived crisis of power, proving our lack of innovation and insight then.

Forty years of businsess school endoctrination has succeeded: a fist full of dollars.

Only through the legalization of Cannabis/Hemp/Ganja/Marijuana, the world’s most useful and versatile plant.

Please watch The Union:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9077214414651731007#

and consider:

Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica. – Abraham Lincoln, U.S. President, from a letter written by Lincoln during his presidency to the head of the Hohner Harmonica Company in Germany

Prohibition… goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes… A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. – Abraham Lincoln

Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere! – George Washington, U.S. President

The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world. – Carl Sagan

Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.

– Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

Some of my finest hours have been spent on the back of my veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as the eye can see. – Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

If the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.

– Terence McKenna

We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption. – John Adams, U.S. President

Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?

– Henry Ford

Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could. – William F. Buckley, Jr

‎The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents. – William F. Buckley, 1983

Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use… Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana. – Jimmy Carter, U.S. President: Message to Congress, August 2, 1977.

‎After two years of doctor-and-patient testimony, the D.E.A.s chief administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, ruled that ‘marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substance known to man’. – Nick Jones

“Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.” – Bob Marley.

“I think we consume far more dangerous drugs that are legal: cigarette smoking, nicotine and alcohol. I feel they cause much more devastating effects physically. We need to lift the prohibition on marijuana.” former Surgeon General of the United States, Joycelyn Elders voicing her support for legalization of marijuana

The criminalization of the world’s most useful and versatile plant, Cannabis/Hemp/Marijuana/Ganja, was Unconstitutional … a crime against humanity and nature. ~ DNA

‎”The war may not be quite over but any stigma still left lingering around cannabis consumption today is largely restricted to out of date and increasingly unenforced pieces of legislation. So indelibly stamped on our culture has cannabis become that it must now rank as the most popular and controversial plant on the planet.” – Nick Jones

The war on drugs has been an utter failure. We need to rethink and decriminalize our nation’s marijuana laws. – Barack Obama, U.S. President