The Chris Struttmann Report

Please excuse any lack of plot in this post, it’s purely a stream-of-consciousness brain dump.

Many of you know, I live near the Kennedy Space Center in Melbourne, FL; I get to see the shuttle launch from my driveway or typically, I’ll go to the beach for the big show.

Every time I watch the rocket launch I get chills down my spine at how purely awesome it is that hundreds if not thousands of people are working to launch four people into space. But I also take time to recognize the historical events that lead up to this event.

In the 1950s, America decided that they were going in to space; at the time this was purely a defensive measure against the USSR. Both of my grandfathers were involved in the space program, indirectly. One of my grandfathers was a computer specialist for the Mercury and Gemini missions, and the other worked on data encoding boxes for the Apollo missions. I’m not fully briefed on the history of the space program but for all intents and purposes we’ll assume that the space program was defined around 1955. As most know, the space program wasn’t very successful in the early days, there were lots of successes, but also lots of failures. America continued to develop and refine their technologies though, and in the short short time between 1955 and 1969, we were able to rocket humans to the moon. If you think about it, that’s a major accomplishment for fourteen years. It was an exciting time to be an American!

This is where my post splits into two defined segments. And they’re slightly contradictory, but again, it’s a brain-dump.

Segment One: The Current(ish).
Had we not gone to space in the 50s, 60s and 70s, America would be nowhere near where it is today. But assume for a minute that we didn’t go. If America, today, was tasked with going to the moon, there’s no way that we could accomplish everything that happened in the mid 20th century within the same time frame. Why? The process has become way too bureaucratic, America has become too judgmental, too skeptical. We would go through phases where money would come from congress, but then eventually people would start questioning the program, and long story short, WE’D NEVER GO.

America has become a series of bureaucratic processes in which the government has effectively limited our growth potential because we’re too safe, we don’t want to take any risks. I’ve got news. America is all about taking risk. It’s very hard for me to express my thoughts in the form of words, but I hope that you can understand my point. Democrats want “change.” That’s all they want as a matter of fact; change that will cause government to get bigger, more bureaucratic, and spend more money. Change that will choke programs like the space program. Yes, there are some issues in America that need to be ironed out, but by-and-large, America works! And as long as the average American remains somewhat competent, they’ll vote out whatever they don’t like, over time. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it will continue to be as long as America continues to exist.

Segment two: America’s Mark on the World
The French claim they invented democracy, the Romans could be credited with creating modern day cities and civilization, the Myans can be credited with creating the concept of dates, times and calendars, there’s lots of credit being given in the history books; the question is “what’s America going to get credited with?” A lot of European countries mock America because their history is far longer than ours and the only thing we’ve ever contributed to the world is the concept of the burger and fast-food. The next paragraph is for those countries.

America has created so many technologies, it’s ridiculous. We’ve pioneered the computer chip, information technology, electricity, air travel, efficient train travel, the automobile, all of these things happened on American turf; however, these innovations are not what we’ll be put in the history books for. America was the FIRST country to create an environment where innovation is celebrated. Previously, innovation was driven out of need, American innovation is driven out of desire; that’s what America will be put in the history books for.

Thanks,
Chris Struttmann