Dear friends and family,
I’m sorry about missing the weekly serial of my dad’s articles last week. It was a busy weekend and I felt I needed a break. It takes a couple of hours to put this together, believe it or not.
I could repeat these words almost verbatim and make them my own. Minus some of the religious thoughts, I feel exactly the same way as dad. Yes. It’s difficult to balance the budgets of the world’s economies but, after budgeting money for world hunger, etc., there should always be something substantial set aside to continue exploring our universe.
Hey dad!!! I didn’t know we had relatives who fought in the Mexican/American War and drove cattle across the country! I guess those would be the Texas Tschirharts, many who live in the Castro, TX area. Dad and mom had attended a huge family reunion there. Yup! We’re all over the map!
Dad probably could have been a professor of history. Instead he chose to become a writer. He probably made more money and reached many more people with his wonderful way of bringing history into a personal light.
I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did . . .
Happy Holidays,
David T
p.s. Comments are more than welcome at the end of the article.
“Space Probes Important”
By Don Tschirhart
Excerpted from the unpublished book “It’s a Wonderful World II: A Retired Reporter Looks At Life“
Space Probes Important
I don’t know why officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have difficulty explaining their efforts to explore space including the latest probe landing on Mars.
The other morning a NASA official was asked on the Today TV show about the importance of landing a roving probe on Mars at a huge expense. All he could think of was that scientists want to know if there was ever life, aka little green men, on the Red Planet.
Why they don’t come right out and say it I’ll never know: Landing a rover package on Mars is a voyage of discovery. Voyages of discovery add to the common knowledge of humanity in this world and is important for the nation’s and world’s morale.
This is a logical explanation that makes this and future expensive journeys into space and in the ocean depths worth spending billions of tax dollars.
The United States and, indeed, the world would not be as knowledgeable about medicine, history, economics, religion, geography and society in general without someone exploring the limits of the universe, archeology, anthropology, medicine, the meaning of life and all the other scientific disciplines.
I’m a fiscal conservative who wants tax dollars spent in the most frugal way possible. But I can’t imagine a world without a continued quest for knowledge.
Remember the old saying, “You have to spend dollars to make dollars.”? It’s true.
I was born the year that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in less than 34 hours. It’s now possible to fly around the world in half that time.
I’ve survived a triple heart bypass and the removal of my cancerous left lung 18 months apart, respectively. I thank dozens of medical researchers who worked on the problems 30-40 years ago.
To those skeptics who think NASA money is ill spent I wondered what they think the world would be like without the following:
Queen Isabelle donating her crown jewels to finance Chris Columbus’ journey on the Santa Maria.
Tom Jefferson using tax dollars to purchase the Louisiana territory and then spending another few bucks to send Lewis and Clark across the country to explore the nation’s new acquisition.
Abe Lincoln telling southern states they can’t secede from the union and forming an army to stop them.
Curiosity as well as thoughts of riches compelled Magellan to circumnavigate the world in the early 16th century.
A heroic Admiral Byrd spent a difficult year buried in snow at the South Pole in the 1920’s, an inspirational story that can be seen at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, MI.
Since studying ‘America’s Westward Movement’ as part of my college major, I’ve asked myself what it must have been like for thousands of the pioneer men and women to travel by wagon train across the deserts and mountains of the west in the mid-1800’s.
I burst with pride when I remember that one of my relatives fought the Mexican Army in Texas and another who fought Indians and rustlers with Charles Goodnight as they drove cattle from Texas to the Kansas railroad.
Franklin Roosevelt challenged the nation to invent an atom bomb. It saved the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians and ended World War II.
John F. Kennedy had special insight into the American psyche when he challenged us to put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s.
The Hubble Telescope, the space laboratory and rocket probes to Jupiter, Saturn and other planets have given civilization special knowledge of our universe, turned research into practical items for home and industry and proves to theologians that God was indeed a wondrous architect and engineer.
Researchers and ordinary people did all these things because, quoting Edmund Hillary when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest: “Because it’s there.”
Certainly there’s hunger and thirst in this world. I believe rich nations of the world should help the downtrodden and we US citizens do. We should consider it a challenge to motivate world leaders to educate the poor and solve food distribution problems We can find solutions if we put our collective minds to it.
Meanwhile, our nation’s spirit requires that we emulate past explorers, scientists and chance takers to investigate the world God gave us including its oceans and its universe.
Our nation must set its exploration goals high. Not foolishly. But high. All of which will make our world a better place. What do you think?
