Hail to a Modern Hero. All heroes/heroines do not streak across the space and sky like fiery comets and then burn out. A few inspire us with an incandescent glow that lasts long after their exploits.
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by Joseph Bolden Their very lives show us that impossible is a word routinely changing its definition. Like Mr. Dennis Tito who refused to give up on his desire to go to outer space. But why does our country have such a warped way of viewing his venture. Our government sees it as a threat rather than as another opportunity to further open space to every citizen rich or poor... What has happened? Mr. Tito is a former NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] engineer. He knew the risks and trained for his trip. Placing 20 million dollars in Russian and American hands was no problem for him, but personal risk to himself certainly was. This makes him as heroic as any of the Mercury 7 and Gemini Astronauts. "I'm already adapted." He will never be quite the same man that left Earth. Indeed he's a new man. America, The Micropower, did not see fit to cheer Mr. Tito’s safe return to Earth from the International Space Station. Our government did its best to halt one man’s dream: To venture into space, visit a space station, experience weightlessness, and to see the blue sphere of Earth floating in vast nothingness. Shame on my country. May 7, 2001 in Kazakhstan, at 9:41 a.m. Moscow time, will not be a footnote in history but a small flame that will cresciendo into luminescence. No more "Right Stuff" only deal. All of us should have the chance and knowledge to be astronauts, too. Come on, form groups for space businesses, have more space camps for children and adults who want to really go! Yes, I want to go. I’ll risk accidental death to be in space. I’ll be closer to the Eternal that way. Is it possible that our government wants to expand space for everyone but cannot figure how to let go of their power? Let us help them share space with all people, not only a select few. I bet if my Internet column were translated and transmitted across the globe, every nationality could understand the longing for space travel. I also bet others at home or at their jobs or perhaps just doodling are thinking and writing about this as their governments say little or nothing about this event. Look what is happening to California because one elected President was not trusted; we may have made a wrong step energy-wise but to be persecuted further by outside sellers of electricity; well it makes many of us in Cali want to go independent of the national grid and energy sellers. A slogan comes to mind I say fight the power by outliving it as it dies trying to avoid change. I know, Joe is a few proteins short of being a full fledged egghead.Folks, think what Dennis Tito has done, and how our government reacted. Tell me do you sense their P A N I C of losing space to us regular folk? Please send donations to Poor Magazine For Joe only my snail mail: |