To The Stars!

He has actually done it.  Donald Trump has found something he can do as president which will serve the common good, and not just the selfish desires of the elites. He’s signed a bill which gives money and a mission to NASA.  This includes funding for a mission to Mars.

Of course, Donald Trump doing something right is not unexpected, because no one, not even Satan, can be said to be pure evil. Good will be done by those of ill will, and when it is done, it should not be rejected just because of what they have said or done elsewhere. Evil would win out if we are unwilling to accept the good others do because of the evil they have done as well, for then good will have been vanquished by those who claim to be on the side of the good.  And NASA, with space exploration, is necessary, because if we can find a way to enter into space, and colonize Mars, humanity will find itself having a little more room to deal with civilization-ending catastrophes on the Earth.

Obama, to be sure, had a checkered history with NASA, so that some have said he ruined space exploration. He certainly understood the need to take our exploration to Mars, but he did little to help and much to hinder NASA’s ability to do so.  In a strange twist of logic, his argument was that with the increase of privatized space travel, what NASA lost was to the gain of others. Privatized space travel, though it is likely a part of the future of humanity, is not the best way to engage the science of exploration; just as with medical care, just as with climate change, just as with the radicalization of nationalism causing conflict and division in the world, the common good which is served by space exploration requires a common cause and action which transcends the self-seeking interests of the corporate world.

Elon Musk, is right in saying that this bill does not do enough. More needs to be given to NASA and space exploration than is given in this bill. Trump would be better off doubling the funding and stopping his obscene border wall, which will do no one any good, and if he did, he could even earn himself a place in history for his involvement with space exploration.  As it is, he is doing a little, and maybe helping reconfigure a program which Obama hurt, but he is doing it in such a way Musk continues to be at the forefront of space exploration, leading to possible trouble in the future as space becomes the play thing of entrepreneurs, and therefore only to benefit the elite as they find safety away from a world they helped destroy.

 

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