Rocket Science

So who would’ve thought that beer could sidetrack such a simple project? All we had to do was stain a deck…no problem.


My buddy John the Baptist asked me, Hippie Dave and Stinky Pete if we’d help him treat his deck in exchange for some cold brews. That sounded like a fair trade, so we all showed up at his place on Saturday ready to work.

After we sat around talking about fishing for an hour, John convinced us to pick up our brushes and get started. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun was nearly at its peak. I was thirsty, and even though it wasn’t quite noon, I opened a beer.

“Those are for when we’re done,” John hollered from the far end of the deck.

Stinky and Dave joined me. We drank a couple, and then went back to the task at hand. It wasn’t long before our thirst got the better of us and we were back at the cooler.

We quenched and refreshed while John painted like Thomas Kinkade on amphetamines and No-Doze. The subject of fishing came up again, and Stinky started telling me about a new fly pattern he was working on – an articulated leech. I couldn’t picture how he was tying it, so he volunteered to get his vice from the truck and show me.

John was yelling something about getting back to work, and Dave wandered over and accidentally knocked over a can of stain. John gave up, grabbed a beer, and joined in Stinky’s tying lesson.

That got me to thinking.

Sometimes it’s easy to get distracted and lose sight of your mission. Take fer instance, NASA. On their website it clearly states, “NASA’s mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

Somewhere along the line that mission got confused. The National Space Policy of the United States of America dated June 28, 2010 is a 14 page document published by the White House. Other than in a quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower at the beginning of the report, the words “explore” or “exploration” appear 7 times.

The word “commercial”, meaning private enterprise, is in there 39 times. In fact, the policy is so heavily weighted to the private sector that it states that the government won’t develop any of its own space technology unless “there is no suitable, cost-effective U.S. commercial or, as appropriate, foreign commercial service or system that is or will be available.”

Reading the report, it seems like NASA’s new role as the pioneer in the future of space exploration is to administer contracts from private companies and to make sure that all those TV satellites orbiting around up there don’t bump into each other, blacking out this week’s shocking episode of The Bachelorette. So much for boldly going where no one has gone before.

Interestingly, the phrase “international cooperation” is in the policy 4 times. This might help explain some of the recent things said by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

Last month, in an interview with the TV network Al Jazeera, he had this to say about President Obama’s goals for the space program, “When I became the NASA administrator – or before I became the NASA administrator – he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering.”

NASA used to be about scientific discovery, bold innovation and the daring conquest of the unknown. Now its foremost purpose is to raise everybody’s self-esteem like a motivational speaker giving lectures at the Holiday Inn banquet room for $50 a ticket.

First of all, I think it’s insulting to Muslims for us to say, “Don’t feel bad. You’ve had plenty of really great scientists, and with our help and encouragement, maybe you could have a few more.”

Secondly, this isn’t pee-wee soccer where everybody’s a winner. It’s not a situation where everybody gets to play even though they have asthma, can’t take two steps without tripping over themselves, and have to wear a helmet to bed.

It’s rocket science.

Whatever happened to the idea of our country’s best and brightest achieving impossible goals with enough time left over to help Hasbro design a better Nerf Glider?

Oh, look. There’s something shiny – looks like a beer can. Wait…what was I talking about?

I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.