William Shatner (right) floats inside Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft during his record-breaking launch on Oct. 13, 2021 in this video still. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

Growing up I wanted to be an astronaut. One of my earliest memories was the Apollo-Soyuz mission in July 1975. It was the first joint space mission with the United States and the Soviet Union. I remember watching that launch on TV The two spacecrafts docked in an event considered the end of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union which began in 1957. 

I remember the first space shuttle launch on April 12, 1981, and of course the horrible explosion on January 28, 1986 (I was in college). I still had dreams of going into space one day.

When I was real young, I remember watching Star Trek at 6 p.m. on channel 11 while I was finishing up my homework and wondering why they didn’t make more episodes. I was so happy when the Star Trek movies and the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager series came out. 

This past week William Shatner, Captain James T. Kirk himself, was a passenger on Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s rocket company aboard the New Shepard rocket. The launch was from the aerospace company’s West Texas launch site and went off just before 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 13, 2021. Glen de Vries co-founder of the clinical-research company Medidata Solutions and Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of the Earth data company both paid for their tickets. Audrey Powers, a Blue Origin vice president also flew with Shatner. Shatner was asked to go up. The ten-minute trip was successful, and the capsule safely landed.

When Shatner came out of the capsule after the flight, he was exhilarated. He said that he didn’t want to lose the moment and how beautiful the earth looked from space and how blue it is. He wanted everyone to know how he felt and how everyone should go up and see the earth from space.

What better ambassador of Blue Origin than William Shatner, himself 90 years old, the oldest person to ever go into space? Like it or not, exploring space is our future. Hopefully one day we can have a domed colony on the moon and eventually terraform Mars for future colonization. How better can the nations of the world learn to cooperate if not for the exploration of space?

Some people argue that the space program is a waste of time because money could be better spent elsewhere. I 100% disagree with this statement. Over 2,000 technologies (called spinoff technologies) have come out of the space program.

While NASA didn’t invent, manufacture or market technology, many commercial products came out the space program. These products are derived from NASA technology and being utilized for commercial, government, and academic uses. (NASA.gov)

Did you know that memory foam, freeze-dried food, flame resistant firefighting equipment, the integrated circuit that gave rise to the microchip, thin lightweight insulations, emergency “space blankets,” DustBusters, cochlear implants, LZR racer swimsuits, CMOS image sensors, cordless power tools, vascular bypass operations (to correct a blocked artery), improvements in kidney dialysis, lighting detectors, and automated credit card transactions all were derived from the space program? JPL (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) developed digital image processing to enhance pictures of the moon. That contributed to MRI’s and CAT scans (computerized tomography). One of the most important technological spinoff technologies from NASA is the miniaturization of electronics and software. (Source: Spinoff 2019)

So, the Space Program has contributed technological advancements, helped with the cooperation of nations for a common goal, and has paved the way for innovation. It has touched our lives everyday mentally, physically and spiritually.

However, presently, The United States is too occupied with pettiness. Why should someone be offended from some stupid Tweet or Facebook post someone made 10 years ago? Why do we give so much credence to nonsense? Now everything you do or say (both in public and in private) can and will be held against you. Your whole life can be ruined because of one moment of anger or stupidity. People are too occupied with gossip on the internet whether it be true or not. Everybody has done and said stupid things, especially in public. To quote the bible, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone …” John 8:7 King James Version. No one is without sin and eventually the best of men and women will be destroyed because of cancel culture. 

Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we stop this pettiness and worked together on everything? What if everyone brought to the table what they could offer the world regardless of their past sins? Star Trek envisions a bright happy future, and the best of what mankind has to offer. Let’s concentrate on that. Companies like Blue Origins are helping us get to that point. Way to go! K.M.

The passenger crew of Blue Origin’s NS-18 space tourist flight poses with their New Shepard capsule after landing back on Earth on Oct. 13, 2021. They are: (from left): Audrey Powers, William Shatner, Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries. (Image credit: Blue Origin)