I don't know why I feel like the story of China's successful manned space flight should be much bigger here than it is. As of this writing, Drudge has given it more space than the NYT, who've relegated the story to the Science section, The Washington Post has it quite a few stories from the top, and The LA Times doesn't have it on the front page at all. There is a story about the best Dim Sum in town though.

[sigh]

I know the world is in dire straits right now. Crap economy, war, terrorism, crashing ferries, striking grocery clerks and bus mechanics, the Cubs losing last night, Kobe Bryant's semen not being found on some girl's underwear (am I the only one who actually winced at that headline? I just do NOT want to know about stuff like that)...but this China in space story just feels like it ought to be a whole lot bigger.

It's too bad the world is so not a happy place right now and that we're all in debt and broke and have budget deficits and Krugman is fighting with the NRO and nobody is happy. I mean, the cold war sounds almost good by comparison. Nice and easy stuff, you know? We send up a space ship, they send up a space ship. We orbit, they orbit. We put a man on the moon, they, well, almost put a man on the moon. If NASA had the budget, and more importantly, the vision, we could be doing exciting things in space. Well, much MORE exciting things in space, as, in my opinion, anything in space is pretty cool. Whether or not this whole tax-cut issue is a good or bad idea, I'd pay a specifically allocated five bucks a year to get to Mars. I don't know what it costs to get to Mars, but surely a billion dollars isn't a bad start.

I'll ask my friend Daniel how much it costs! He works at JPL on that very project.

So yeah, we'd get to Mars, cool things would be going on in space, and we could compete with the Chinese, and that would be fun and exciting. Not nasty and dark and loaded with all this ominous 'we will destroy you' crap. Sure national pride is at stake and there might be hurt feelings, but I get the sense here that we don't care at all.

I congratulate China on its journey into space. I really do think it's exciting. Third country in space. I wish there was more space in public, global life for getting excited about this and feeling inspired and moved by the poetry of us people shooting through the infinite vaccum of the universe that holds us. It's not even about China vs. the US, or the USSR vs. the US. It's about some of the finest, most exalted impulses that lie at the heart of the human spirit: the will to explore and travel and take wild risks; the will to meet any challenge, however seemingly insurmountable; to say yes to opportunities laced with formidable odds; to greet danger and the unknown and space--the greatest metaphor for the totality of everything we don't yet know ever imaginable--not with fear but with a kiss.

I could much more easily accept these dark times if there was just a little bit more of this beautiful, inspiring stuff going on...a little bit more to move the spirit and a little less to squelch it.