Fly Me to the Moon

(Frank Sinatra, 1961)

I'm really steamed. And not from the sauna that is my office. Last night on NPR there was a segment about a NASA expedition that would chart new territory. For the first time EVER a spacecraft was going to orbit two separate "worlds," (in reality they're actually asteroids) in one trip. The mission will be completed in the year 2015. Yes, the year two thousand and fifteen. That's EIGHT - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight - years from now. Ok, I may have some of the facts mixed up . . . I really don't care if it only takes 15 days. Why, why, why do we need to orbit two obviously large asteroids? There was some verbiage on the segment about being able to see into our past . . . WHAT? I thought space exploration was the final frontier, the future, the vast unknown. You know billions and billions and billions of dollars are being spent on exploring . . . big huge rocks? Can orbiting these two asteroids give us the cure for cancer? AIDS? Wipe out abject poverty and starvation? Eliminate drugs? Crime? Will it lead to better pay for teachers or more funding for the arts in schools? Will it clean up the horrible mess our health insurance industry is in? Yeah, that's a big fat NO you're hearing me scream. Where's my blood pressure medicine?

Late in his life Harry T. was asked if he thought there would ever be an expedition to the moon. He said probably, but he could not imagine why. Ha! I seriously think the only reason we went to the moon in the first place was to keep up with the Jonesescheviks (aka Russians). The whole Cold War and all. My rocket's bigger than your rocket. Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I'm steamed. And just like Ralph Cramden of the Honeymooners used to say to his wife, "To the moon! One of these days, Alice!"