The Fedora Chronicles - V. Bee - "Do YOU have the “Right Stuff” To Go and Explore The Unknown?"

While Discovery sits on The Launch pad as Engineers try to figure out what's wrong with the fuel gage, V. Bee offers her fellow readers another slice of life from “The Golden Era” and reminds us that Exploration also happens to be a Traditional Value...

"Do YOU have the “Right Stuff To Go and Explore The Unknown?"

By V. Bee

Why do you suppose that sane, rational men and women do WANT to be astronauts? Do any of you out there who are reading this article think that he or she has the "right stuff" to endanger your life for the good of all mankind? for all the right reasons? Maybe just a handful of you. It takes a very special kind of courage to be an astronaut.

Ever since the "space race" has become a thing of the past (for about the last 20 years), nations have come to realize that working together, instead of competing with one another, was a much more beneficial to achieve successful space exploration. In our modern world, astronauts are American, they are Indian, they are Chinese, they are Arabian, they are Russian, they are Asian, they are Eastern European, they are Hawaiian, they are native people from various island nations. Astronauts are men and women from every nation, from every walk of life. People from all countries who have come together to send their “right stuff” astronauts out into the known, to jeopardize their lives to see what may be "out there" in space.

And what are we humans going to do when our Earth has been completely consumed by human indifference and disregard for their planet? Already, greenhouse gases, global warming, glacier melting and natural disasters have increased by as much as 5%-10% in the last decade. We are slowly destroying our planet, and then what? where will we go? I know that most of the FC readers haven’t even thought about the consequences of the abuse our good Earth receives at our hands, but to me, it’s a frightening concept to think that the Earth won’t exist for generations a thousand years from now. Without space travel, there will be nowhere to hide.

Think of the possibilities if we discover - I mean to say, WHEN we discover other life! The very possibility sends me to a state of euphoria. Imagine! What will you say to an alien? How would you react to another strange looking life form? Would you even KNOW it IS another life form?

Every space shuttle launch is history. Every space shuttle launch is an opportunity to learn, explore. Every small step we take brings us closer to discovering new worlds, new cultures, new concepts.

I can hardly wait.

For more articles by V. Bee, visti her archives...
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