As Neil Armstrong stepped out of the LEM and onto the Moon, the United States and the world realized that our future was in space. The famous quote, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” is remembered for its circumstance and truth. Just eight years prior, President John F. Kennedy, set the country on a daring course and challenged our nation to land a man on the Moon before the close of the decade.

Throughout our country’s history, we have answered challenges head on; this time was no different. Apollo set the course for future exploration of space like no other program had before. Aside from the scientific implications of the landing, look at the political influence; in the middle of the Cold War the “Space Race” was a battlefield for Capitalism versus Communism. Being the first country to land a man on the Moon gave the United States a historic victory. More than thirty years later, we can still claim to be the only country to send men to the moon and thus lead the now quieted international “Space Race.”

Since then we continued to run point on space travel, but being on the forefront of new technology comes with a price. Three Apollo astronauts and later fourteen in the Space Shuttle program have been killed. In January 1986, President Ronald Reagan said the following after the Challenger tragedy:

“We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.”

The take away message is that despite the technological advances in space travel, we are still pioneers in space. Recently the failure of the Columbia shuttle on reentry forced the United States to reevaluate NASA and the space program. Is NASA a prudent way to spend the limited resources of our federal government; should we instead send the money to improve education, expand social programs, or help other countries here on Earth?
To answer to the affirmative would be very short sighted. If you don’t believe me, just look around you. The space program is a testing ground for advanced technologies that filter down into our everyday lives. Without it, the innovation we have seen in the past few decades in everything from making dinner to the worldwide network of communication satellites would not have been possible.

For a while now, the space program has been in a rut. There was no real long-term plan for the future. After the International Space Station (ISS) was completed, no one knew what was next. The Columbia disaster nearly destroyed the program.

It was saved however in January 2004 when President Bush announced a new direction for NASA. The President laid out a challenge, just as John F. Kennedy did in the sixties; send men to back to the Moon and then to Mars. With this project will come many engineering advances that will filter into the world and lead to new spin-off technologies that we can only dream about.
While it is the position of fiscal conservatives to argue against federal bureaucracy and programs, this is an area that many believe should be funded. Federal funding is the only way that projects on the scale of Apollo, the Space Shuttle, and the new Orion program can be completed any time soon. While private industry is catching up with platforms like Space Ship One, they are still very far behind.

Still in its infancy space travel is uncharted territory; it is hard and we will pay a price for the bounty of space. But if the first men to migrate from where they were decided to stay, if first men to venture out to sea had decided that it was too hard, and if the first men to dream of flight thought it was too dangerous, where would we be? The baby steps that we make in the next century will test us; but if we can overcome the challenges, the United States and the world can begin our journey into the unknowns of space.

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