BBC News: NASA’s 50 years in Space (Videos)
The dogmatic search for a better future was the driving force of the 20th century.
Let’s go back to the Age of Enlightenment that was driven by new insights and lofty goals for humanity. It was the time of colonialism, conquests and the true start of globalization. Although under the brutal direction of European Colonials the world was for the first time completely explored, connected and aware of each other.
Excuse me, we are nice colonists and are looking for a place to build a spaceport.
But it was also the Age of Humanitarianism, when we realized that King & Country were not eternal and that humanity needed better tools and ideals to guide itself into the future. One outcome of this new Idealism was the French Revolution as well as the United States of America – a totally new way to govern modern societies.
Compared to the former religious societies our Forefathers suddenly had “mental space” for a different and better future. Under Religion and Royals there was no “improving” future as we know it today. There was only the continuation of yesterday until Judgement Day. Any change driven by human ideas was considered blasphemy and unnecessary – since everything was nicely arranged in God’s perfect plan.
Move aside God – we need space for the future …
The Industrial Age of the 19th Century with it’s incredible social and scientific achievements where the ultimate proof that “God was dead” (Nietzsche) and that the nation state transcended Religion and Kings. The eternal plan was scraped, finally there was a Future and the mental space for real progress.
Already in the early Industrial Age authors like Jules Verne established many modern visions of a technological future: underwater cities, submarines, flying machines, rockets and interplanetary travel. All based on the work of daring scientists and engineers.
New political and social sciences radically changed western cultures: Psychology, Socialism, Mass Production, Consumerism and Individualism transformed the old Democracies into new powerful nation states.
He didn’t built any rockets, but he was one of many important fathers of modern science.
All new political ideas like Socialism, Communism and a new modern (Market) Capitalism were based new insights and sciences available at the time. Even Fascism got many of it’s ideas from science, especially from Darwinism and most of all Social Darwinism – which lead to the dreadful science of Eugenics.
Small side note: Social Darwinism has actually not invented by him – it was rather based on Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton work. It was first just a very convenient way to justify Colonialism and the Class System.
Sorry, your nose is too big to be an Aryan or an Astronaut.
Nevertheless – Science was established as the ultimate method to build a better life. Our future depended on better science and technology. Our Forefathers were delighted and enchanted by all the exciting new discoveries.
Already in the 1920’s and 1930’s a new kind of Futurism swept through America, Europe and some parts of Asia. Freud’s psychology fascinated people all over the western world and the although the great Depression was a terrible event for everybody modern Consumerism started to thrive in that time too.
Modern Consumerism always demanded High Tech.
But there was also a cultural Futurism (not to be confused with the Italian Futurism). Thanks to new forms of Mass Media (especially comics, radio and cinemas) science fiction presented a glorious technological future to the masses. Hero’s like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and many others showed the way to the Future – first as comics, then as radio serials and later as movies.
Interestingly enough: early science fiction (in literature and on the screen) adopted Democracy and Humanitarianism as the ultimate choice for any lifeform. Technology and science as tools to archive the best way of life. This message is ultimately portrayed in the movie “Things to Come” (1936).
I am sure evil Ming’s military never faced NASA’s budget cuts!
The terrible conflicts of ideas first dismantled the old colonial powers in WWI and WWII. Both wars showed that science and technology was the ultimate weapon. The future belonged to flying machines, atomic power and electronics.
Many weapons invented in WWII are still stranger then (science) fiction like flying saucers. But the Cold War fathered even stranger and more futuristic machinery: like the atomic bomber, killer satellites or stealth fighters.
The space age already started with Wernher von Braun and his terrible V-2 rocket in 1942. But this was really only the beginning …
There is one small reason for NASA’s existence: Sputnik.
In the 1950’s rockets and spacemen were already deeply embedded into the public’s mind through science fiction and popular science. But on October 4, 1957 it all become real with the launch of Sputnik. Hardly a year later the Americans founded NASA on July 29, 1958. The space age finally took off with full power.
Once again the chimps got there before us!
From the 1950’s till the mid 1980’s popular culture and media was shaped by science, technology and science fiction. From Sputnik to the Space Shuttle and from Captain Kirk to Star Wars – it was the Age of happy technology and unlimited possibilities.
Star Wars 1977 not only my personal turning point in my childhood …
Every boys dream was to become an Astronaut. Being smart or even being a Scientist was considered cool. Building stuff that actually worked was even cooler. Toys like chemistry sets, rocket kits or ever complex LEGO machinery were best sellers.
Totally out of fashion today: being an Astronaut. Not as cool as being a Rapper or Supermodel.
I was born 1967 – I was two years old when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Too young to really watch it. But I do remember that I watched every bit of “space anything”, science fiction or scientific program on the telly.
Until the mid 1980’s my generation grew up on a positive vision of the future, science and technology. Sure – already in the 1970’s the Hippies questioned our modern lifestyle – but it was not until the start and success of the green movement that this positive and uncritical vision was replaced with a more darker, distrusting and often strangely esoteric vision of the future.
I am still in my heart a spaceman, but I guess that era is over.
