Mired in the muck, our gaze lifts skyward!

"We may have problems right now which keep us mired in the muck on Terra firma, but it is so nice when our gaze can lift skyward."

By now, we have all heard the news. And it was big news at that. For the first time in 45 years, we had an Apollo type splash down in the ocean. A splash down of a space capsule with astronauts in it. So for just a few minutes on a Sunday morning, we forgot about this dastardly pandemic, we forgot about the upcoming election, we forgot about the continuing civil unrest in our cities - our eyes were glued to the TV. Why is that? Our new era of space exploration had begun. Only this time, we are going to leap frog over what we have done in the past.

Why is this such a big deal? Don't we have enough problems right here on Earth? Why waste money trying to explore an endless vacuum, fraught with danger? I think one of the Apollo astronauts explained it the best. When asked why explore space, he had an interesting answer (if I may paraphrase a bit). "We are explorers. We always have been. In space, there are unlimited areas in which we could and should explore. How many areas? If we point the Hubble telescope in any direction in the cosmos, just in that one area, there are over a trillion stars. Maybe a trillion planets. We have a lot of exploring left to do."

Elon Musk feels somewhat the same. He was interviewed once the capsule was safely retrieved, and Bob and Doug (the astronauts) were in the medical tent being examined. "I am not a religious man, but I was praying", Musk said. "Now we are going to the Moon, building a Moon base, then going to Mars, and we will become interplanetary." Really? Really. This was his plan all along. But - the first step was getting two folks up to the ISS, and then safely bringing them back home again. After yesterday, that box is now checked.

Watching the crew work on the capsule once it was board the ship, as they purged some stubborn toxic fumes prior to opening the hatch, I was once again amazed at the technology it takes to send people into space and then bring them back home again. The most interesting part of that amazement, was this major event was pulled off by a guy who owns a car company. And another guy, who owns a company which started out as a mail order book club (Jeff Bezos), is right behind Musk's SpaceX program with the Blue Origin program.

What is next for SpaceX? We won't have to wait long for the next big milestone. Besides launching more satellites to further populate Musk's Star Link program, and well as doing a few other launches of Air Force satellites, the next demo to the ISS is planned for September. And this will be a big one. Rather than just having two astronauts on board, the next SpaceX launch will have four. This will be the first time we ever have put four humans in a capsule.  

And then comes 2021. Elon Musk is still certain he will make a Moon landing in 2021. Only this time, he wants to use his huge new space vehicle called Starship. If Musk can pull that off, and have Starship make it to the Moon and safely back home again (uncrewed), there will be no stopping him. His goal then would be in 2023, sending Starship back to the Moon - only this time - with people on board. 

Musk, Bezos, Branson and others - dream big. And that is okay. It gives the rest of us a chance to dream along with the dreamers. These are the new Captains of Industry. We may have problems right now which keep us mired in the muck on Terra firma, but it is so nice when our gaze can lift skyward. With all the bad things which have happened so far in 2020, yesterday was a very good thing indeed.