Ah, NASA. They're canny assessors of the human condition down there on the Cape.

Some claim that space exploration is fruitless. They say that it's foolish to continue to funnel billions into a dangerous enterprise that yields little more than information on the effects of weightlessness, as though that matters to a grossly obese nation. They say that that NASA's budget would be better spent on things like our decaying public schools and bombs to fling at folks that haven't met Jesus.

Obviously these ruffians don't understand a little something called "art." Sure, NASA works on a large scale, but so did Michelangelo. One of today's best loved artists, Mr. Tom Hanks, recognizes the genius of NASA. In fact, he masturbated all over that genius in both Apollo 13 and a 74 hour-long maxi-series called From the Earth to the Moon. It chronicled the Apollo program -- a NASA mission that you might recall resulted in way more than trillions of dollars spent, a few deaths, a starched flag in the moon, and a memorable quote. It remains one of the great and enduring metaphors of our nation's struggles and triumphs.

The missions are juxtaposed with the idealistic and volatile 1960's -- an inspired choice on NASA's part. Landing on the moon initially seemed to us, the audience, a rarefied and impossible goal. It was a fitting symbol for other goals of the age such as peace and racial equality. As we struggled, so did Apollo. But the men and the program ultimately triumphed -- Armstrong walked on the moon.

The triumph, of course, yielded nothing. We've never returned to the moon and don't plan to. Thus, NASA showed us that triumph is fleeting, much like the hippies' idealism and MLK's dreams of racial harmony.

Though NASA's most popular work, and probably its most accessible, the artistry doesn't end with Apollo. Only recently, NASA provided the world with a fine symbol of America as a crumbling superpower, unwilling to admit its own shortcomings and unable to perform as it once did. When the aging Columbia disintegrated in a streak across the sky, we looked to the Russians -- practitioners of a catch as catch can, Mad Max style of space travel -- to supply and evacuate the space station we once thought too pedestrian for our involvement.

And now, punctuating the Columbia piece with a brilliant bit of satire speaking to the ascendence of the buffoon in today's America, NASA has promoted the man in charge of the ill-fated shuttle's safety. Of his promotion, the man said, "Sometimes as human beings, we often learn more from our failures than from our successes." Sometimes we often, indeed. America -- failing our way to the finish line.

Bravo, NASA. Bravo.

Analogcabin @ 2:09 PM
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