I was born in a time of hope and in a world of hope. By the time I came into being, humankind already landed on the moon, and was planning to go back - for good. I grew up in a communist Romania, where television was nothing but communist propaganda - except for Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series. I grew up waiting for Thursday nights, when "Cosmos" would be screened, playing with model spaceships, pretending to be an astronaut. Christmas mornings were bringing me new model spaceships and new books about space travel. And the night before Christmas, I was raising my hand, touching the star on the tree - knowing that one day, as the grown ups promised, I would touch a real one. I was hurrying up, I was longing to trade the precious innocence of the childhood with the privilege of living in the year 2000, when the future would happen, when I'll see with my own eyes people living on the moon, or go there myself.
And, as I was growing up, I was leaving that blissful ignorance of the childhood, and coming to terms with the reality. No, there is no Santa Claus. No, my parents weren't really immortal as I thought, they will pass away one day. And, no, the future won't happen, at least not the way we all imagined: the stars were no longer the aim.
The world of today is more advanced in technology and richer in resources. But it is far poorer in imagination than the one I was born into. Michael Collins was right when stating that what the space program needs more English majors, and that future flights should include poets. And Christa McAuliffe did not err when claiming that space is for everybody, and not just for a few people in science or math. I am not a mathematician, nor am I a scientist. In space exploration, the rule of the thumb puts technology third, economics second, and politics first. I am a specialist in space law and policy, hence I have an important contribution to make, and, even more, I have a duty. I know that, in order to go to the stars, we need first to rediscover that wish - and to make the politicians rediscover it, and act upon it.
Imagination is the best rocket fuel possible, and acting upon it is the most important countdown. Time will come - soon - when I will have children of my own. They will learn, at their turn, that dad won't live forever; they will learn, gathered round the Christmas tree, that there is no Santa Claus. But I won't allow them to learn that they can't touch the stars. Because it's up to my generation to fulfill a promise that was made to me, and to countless other children, by the grown ups of that time.
Mr.
Virgiliu
Pop
PhD Candidate, University of Glasgow
International Institute of Space Law
Professional Category:
Legal
|
|
