Guns and Butter

Last month I was driving past Boeing field on I-5. As I was admiring the aircraft collection that could be seen from the freeway (yes I was still paying attention to the road) I noticed the Concorde sitting on the tarmac. It suddenly occurred to me that an era had passed in that we no longer had a supersonic airliner available to serve the public. The 1990's remake of the Parent Trap in which father and daughter leave California and were able to beat the English side of the family home, via a Concorde flight, was no longer possible.

Around the same time that my musings on the Concorde were taking place, I learned that the Obama administration was cancelling the Orion and Constellation space program that was to have put our astronauts back on the moon in 10 years. Ostensibly this decision was made due to cost overruns and other technical problems.

What I can't help feeling, however, is this nagging feeling that the nation and the world (in the case of the Concorde) is drifting backwards in terms of its technological capability. Once the shuttle fleet is mothballed we no longer have a manned space flight capability. We will be relying on the Russians to take us to the space station. While the Chinese and Indians are advancing their space programs we are going backwards.

Clearly the Obama administration is focused on its domestic agenda. Foreign policy and more particularly the projection of American power in the world is distasteful to this administration. Along the same lines, I can't help but feel that the the pride most of us have felt from our successes in space, make the President and his associates uncomfortable.

I hope I am wrong in my assessment. Perhaps the Constellation program was simply so flawed that it didn't make economic sense. However, to cancel the program and not have a viable alternative up and running was at best short sighted. At worst it was a reflection of an administration that despises any trappings of American exceptionalism.

This seems to be a consistent pattern for this president. His domestic policies, whether health care or cap and trade are not designed to grow the economy but rather weaken it. I've heard some suspect that the president is ignorant of economic theory. I don't subscribe to that notion and instead see the president's last 14 months in office as a mad dash to dismantle the nation's ability to sustain its superpower status.

Unfortunately for us, the President's apparent hatred of what we are as a nation diminishes us and our technology. The President is currently flush with victory on the health care front but where is he otherwise leading us as a nation? Clearly not to the moon or Mars.

Is this how the Romans felt as they noticed their society and technology slipping away as internal political struggles and invasion robbed them of their unique place in the world? When would you liked to have lived, 3rd Century Rome or 8th century Europe? I know which time I'd choose.

A great nation should be able to accomplish its rational domestic goals and still put people on the moon. Shame on the current administration for "forgetting" that.

This nation is still capable of producing guns and butter simultaneously. At the rate we are going, I'm not sure how long that is going to last.