Today is the 56th anniversary of the first manned landing on the Moon. It is arguably one of mankind's greatest achievements, and was part of the long rise of the US from a small set of colonies to a world leader. The feat has never been duplicated despite massive improvements in technology since then.
The central strength of the US on the world stage has always been the ability to innovate. The Wright Brothers invented the first crude, unstable airplane, and the US quickly realized the potential - and funded a huge amount of research into airfoils, controls, and engines. And with that, the US quickly gained air superiority - a superiority based on having better technology, systems and processes than anyone else.
That was all rooted in America's ability to innovate, supported by the scientists, engineers and technicians that we trained at our universities and gathered from across the world.
After World War II we got ourselves a very important immigrant - Werner von Braun. Despite being an enemy combatant, we were smart enough to realize what a genius he was, and allow him to continue his work here.
And thus the US space program began. Building on the work of von Braun and the work of physics professor Robert Goddard, the US began building first ballistic missiles for war, and then using those same missiles to start a manned space program. The Redstone missile launched the first person into space, and the Atlas missile put the first American in orbit. We were running behind the Russians at this point and there was a lot of national pride involved.
Then John F Kennedy challenged the US to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His assassination only increased the determination of the US, and by the end of the decade, the US had built the largest working launch vehicle in the world from scratch. The LEM - the first manned vehicle ever designed to work away from the Earth - was designed and built and worked the first time. And by the end of the decade, Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon.
After that, everyone knew we would go on to bigger and better things. Longer Moon missions were planned, and the first plans for human exploration of Mars began. We built a spaceplane (the Space Shuttle) and flew experiments on it, and later used it to build the International Space Station.
During this time we realized the value of spending on STEM programs for kids, so we could continue the innovation that got us to the Moon. Programs ranging from middle school science programs to funding for college level research turned out a generation of brilliant engineers, doctors, scientists, mathematicians and technicians, and these people went on to develop everything from the Internet to the laser to cures for cancer.
I was fortunate enough to benefit from these programs directy. Twice I got to the finals of the NASA/NSTA Space Shuttle Student Involvement Program, although my experiments were never chosen for an actual flight. But the experience - meeting researchers, scientists and astronauts - was pretty amazing.
The future looked bright.
Today our country is in an intellectual and innovative decline. 10% of Americans now believe the Earth is flat, and NASA is part of a conspiracy to promulgate the "globist" hoax. 12% believe the Moon landings were faked. 9% believe that COVID vaccines contain secret 5G microchip trackers. 16% think vaccines cause cancer. 12% think mRNA vaccines cause cancer. 25% don't think the Earth is billions of years old, and 40% don't think humans evolved. 15% think climate change is a hoax.
And almost all of these numbers are rising rapidly.
A big part of this is the onslaught of misinformation from media sources that gain monetary or political advantage from ignorance. "Climate change is a Chinese hoax" for example was a bit of political misinformation designed to steer public perception of China to the politician's advantage. Complex issues like immigration, climate change and antibiotic resistance are dumbed down into phrases like "my doctor wouldn't give me the medicine my child needed!" or "MS-13 will kill your family!"
Another part of it is a sort of worship of ignorance; that people like scientists, engineers and doctors comprise an out-of-touch elite that are working together to deceive Americans. Doctors don't cure you; they just make you sick to collect your money! Scientists agree with whoever is funding them. Mathematicians don't do anything other than waste their time with theories no one cares about. Fund trade schools instead of universities! Disband the Department of Education! Defund the universities doing science because science is woke! And cancel all the research into climate change and future pandemics, because if we ignore all that, it will go away.
And with this new celebration of ignorance we are losing our edge. Companies once started in the US because that's where the engineers, scientists and technicians were - and they were the best and the brightest. After a decade or so Japan, India or China would start to copy us and sell the same thing for cheaper. But that was fine, because by that time we would have the next big thing ready to go, and we'd stay in the lead.
Today, instead of funding innovation, we try to use ruinous tariffs to keep noncompetitive US companies in business, while China develops all the new technology. We attack new technologies like EV's, renewable energy, energy storage systems and AI because we prefer the old, less efficient, more costly ways of doing things. And the world moves from getting their new technology from us to looking to China for leadership.
And as the world becomes more complicated, and we intentionally scale back our own higher educational systems, we have fewer and fewer people who can understand it all to begin with. Instead, people fall back on conspiracy theories and vague descriptions of mortal enemies that we must fight; only when these chimeras are defeated can we really be great again.
Carl Sagan predicted all of this 30 years ago:
"I have a foreboding of America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time. When the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all of the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; with our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
"The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less, lowest-common-denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."
The central strength of the US on the world stage has always been the ability to innovate. The Wright Brothers invented the first crude, unstable airplane, and the US quickly realized the potential - and funded a huge amount of research into airfoils, controls, and engines. And with that, the US quickly gained air superiority - a superiority based on having better technology, systems and processes than anyone else.
That was all rooted in America's ability to innovate, supported by the scientists, engineers and technicians that we trained at our universities and gathered from across the world.
After World War II we got ourselves a very important immigrant - Werner von Braun. Despite being an enemy combatant, we were smart enough to realize what a genius he was, and allow him to continue his work here.
And thus the US space program began. Building on the work of von Braun and the work of physics professor Robert Goddard, the US began building first ballistic missiles for war, and then using those same missiles to start a manned space program. The Redstone missile launched the first person into space, and the Atlas missile put the first American in orbit. We were running behind the Russians at this point and there was a lot of national pride involved.
Then John F Kennedy challenged the US to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His assassination only increased the determination of the US, and by the end of the decade, the US had built the largest working launch vehicle in the world from scratch. The LEM - the first manned vehicle ever designed to work away from the Earth - was designed and built and worked the first time. And by the end of the decade, Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon.
After that, everyone knew we would go on to bigger and better things. Longer Moon missions were planned, and the first plans for human exploration of Mars began. We built a spaceplane (the Space Shuttle) and flew experiments on it, and later used it to build the International Space Station.
During this time we realized the value of spending on STEM programs for kids, so we could continue the innovation that got us to the Moon. Programs ranging from middle school science programs to funding for college level research turned out a generation of brilliant engineers, doctors, scientists, mathematicians and technicians, and these people went on to develop everything from the Internet to the laser to cures for cancer.
I was fortunate enough to benefit from these programs directy. Twice I got to the finals of the NASA/NSTA Space Shuttle Student Involvement Program, although my experiments were never chosen for an actual flight. But the experience - meeting researchers, scientists and astronauts - was pretty amazing.
The future looked bright.
Today our country is in an intellectual and innovative decline. 10% of Americans now believe the Earth is flat, and NASA is part of a conspiracy to promulgate the "globist" hoax. 12% believe the Moon landings were faked. 9% believe that COVID vaccines contain secret 5G microchip trackers. 16% think vaccines cause cancer. 12% think mRNA vaccines cause cancer. 25% don't think the Earth is billions of years old, and 40% don't think humans evolved. 15% think climate change is a hoax.
And almost all of these numbers are rising rapidly.
A big part of this is the onslaught of misinformation from media sources that gain monetary or political advantage from ignorance. "Climate change is a Chinese hoax" for example was a bit of political misinformation designed to steer public perception of China to the politician's advantage. Complex issues like immigration, climate change and antibiotic resistance are dumbed down into phrases like "my doctor wouldn't give me the medicine my child needed!" or "MS-13 will kill your family!"
Another part of it is a sort of worship of ignorance; that people like scientists, engineers and doctors comprise an out-of-touch elite that are working together to deceive Americans. Doctors don't cure you; they just make you sick to collect your money! Scientists agree with whoever is funding them. Mathematicians don't do anything other than waste their time with theories no one cares about. Fund trade schools instead of universities! Disband the Department of Education! Defund the universities doing science because science is woke! And cancel all the research into climate change and future pandemics, because if we ignore all that, it will go away.
And with this new celebration of ignorance we are losing our edge. Companies once started in the US because that's where the engineers, scientists and technicians were - and they were the best and the brightest. After a decade or so Japan, India or China would start to copy us and sell the same thing for cheaper. But that was fine, because by that time we would have the next big thing ready to go, and we'd stay in the lead.
Today, instead of funding innovation, we try to use ruinous tariffs to keep noncompetitive US companies in business, while China develops all the new technology. We attack new technologies like EV's, renewable energy, energy storage systems and AI because we prefer the old, less efficient, more costly ways of doing things. And the world moves from getting their new technology from us to looking to China for leadership.
And as the world becomes more complicated, and we intentionally scale back our own higher educational systems, we have fewer and fewer people who can understand it all to begin with. Instead, people fall back on conspiracy theories and vague descriptions of mortal enemies that we must fight; only when these chimeras are defeated can we really be great again.
Carl Sagan predicted all of this 30 years ago:
"I have a foreboding of America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time. When the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all of the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; with our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
"The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less, lowest-common-denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."
