I like to say I grew up in a standard childhood as a not-so-standard
child. But even though I like to think of myself as a little off-center
and standing apart from the rest of the world in my own way, there is
one aspect of my childhood that I believe I share with every other kid
who grew up in the United States during the last half of the 20th
century.
I wanted to be an astronaut.
At some point, however briefly it may be, every child under the age
of 10 has the dream of someday taking flight above the blue blanket that
covers us in order to explore the black unknown.
Along with cowboy, knight, soldier and Dracula, astronaut is one of
the prerequisite professions floating through the prepubescent mind,
even if it does require a more rigorous test of the imagination to
prepare for the potential future occupation. You couldn't just count on
mom to pick up a felt cowboy hat or plastic rifle at K-mart. You
couldn't count on her to simply sew you a black cape lined with faux red
velvet or cut out a piece of cardboard in the shape of a saber.
Being an astronaut required that extra mile. It required the
neighborhood scavenging to find the discarded Frigidaire box that made
the perfect spacecraft, not to mention the required yards upon yards of
aluminum foil.
Of all the afternoon fantasy careers, astronaut, by far, required the
most work.
Then again, it was always worth it. After all, what other job
required such a combination of valor and insight into exploration?
Getting an early start in preparations to become an astronaut also
took on an extra urgency while growing up because of the timeliness and
news value of the occupation.
The Weekly Reader handed out to my elementary school class was
calling this significant era "The Second Space Age."
Children of the '50s created some of the original dreams based on
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon fantasies of fighting unfriendly entities
encountered during explorations of far-off planets.
In the 1960s and 1970s the fantasy took hold in reality as children
imagined themselves staking out territory for the United States
alongside the country's newest and most valiant daredevils in the
Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs.
But the space shuttle program was my generation's space program.
It was new.
It was slick.
It was modern.
It was the future.
When the country's first reusable spacecraft, the Columbia, launched
from Cape Canaveral at 7 a.m. Sunday April 12, 1981, I knew my own
personal Space Race had begun -- even going so far as to commemorate the
event with a pencil drawing.
After what seemed like an indelible lull in NASA space program
progress, I finally had that historic heroic moment of my own. And I
used that historic heroic moment to dream away countless weekend
afternoons in full aluminum foil uniform aboard the spacecraft
Frigidaire.
But as I watched the continued news coverage throughout the day
Saturday, it was that one word -- "heroic" -- that seemed awkward and
out of place with me for some reason.
I kept asking myself, are these seven -- Rick Husband, William
McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark and
Ilan Ramon -- the heroic star-walkers that they are now proclaimed?
Weren't they just doing their job?
In recent years, a lot has been made over NASA's purpose and a lot of
questions have been raised over the agency's relevance.
I suppose there could be an argument made whether NASA has ever had
any relevance. Has it ever truly accomplished anything other than
providing a sense of national pride?
The answer is yes. There is so much more that has been accomplished
by the space program. There is so much more that has been accomplished
by these seven astronauts. There is so much more that has been
accomplished by the astronauts that have come before them. By those
waiting in line for their turn to be next. By those who are still
dreaming, even if I temporarily forget how to dream.
Perhaps it has accomplished more than words can describe.
Somehow I feel thankful that, for a very special select few, the
dream and the yearning to reach much farther than ourselves lasts beyond
the wide-eye visions of a 10-year-old.
Heroes?
Yes, yes.
Just because they kept on reaching, I think they just might indeed
be.
Christopher Nagy is a staff writer for The Livingston County
Daily Press & Argus. He can be reached at (517) 548-7095 or by e-mail at
cnagy@ht.homecomm.net.