Announcing the Space Journalism Prize
FYI,
"Announcing the Space Journalism Prize"
by Sam Dinkin
The Space Review
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/325/1
: No human missions to the Moon are planned until 2020 and none have
: been undertaken since 1972. This is not the legacy I was promised.
: When I was in third grade in 1977, I bought a book, the Solar
: System (1967), by Chesley Bonestell. It was amazing and I was hooked
: for life. I understood this fascination no better than I understood
: the moving light of Skylab in the night sky. But I had bought the
: book because it had been withdrawn from my elementary school
: library’s collection, withdrawn because we knew that the solar
: system wasn’t like that any more. Voyager had gone to the outer
: planets. The Moon was not parched as Bonestell depicted it in
: Destination Moon; it was dusty. Most of all, the librarian knew
: that the astonishing future of explorers and colonists depicted by
: Bonestell was gone. It was snatched away like waking up from a
: dream when President Richard Nixon said in December 1972:
: "We do this not only because it is man's destiny to dream the
: impossible, to dare the impossible, and to do the impossible, but
: also because, in space, as on Earth, there are new answers and new
: opportunities for the improvement of and the enlargement of human
: existence. This may be the last time in this century that men will
: walk on the Moon, but space exploration will continue, the benefits
: of space exploration will continue, and there will be new dreams to
: pursue, based on what we learned."
: Why were we trapped, like The Man Who Fell to Earth, on the wrong
: planet? Apathy? Media saturation? Expense? Perhaps it is a failure
: to muster the American soul. When it was time to colonize the
: American West, there were journalists ready to lead the charge. One
: of the most famous and influential was John L. O’Sullivan. His
: Democratic Review coined the term Manifest Destiny in 1845, but he
: was already looking forward to American expansion and how it
: is “destined to manifest” in 1839. Such were the times that even
: his Whig counterpart, Horace Greeley, was busy getting colonial
: governors like William Henry Harrison elected President. It is time
: to empower such people and find the “new dreams to pursue” now.
: There will be fantastic new opportunities to view God’s creation.
: New feats of personal heroism will triumph over adversity. A new
: security environment will ensue where we can assure that no person,
: nation, or natural event can ever dampen the pursuit of happiness.
: The average wealth will continue to rise as O’Neill’s vision for
: the American dream—for everyone who wants his own house in the
: entire solar system—comes to pass. The human race needs to be
: taught to fish for the wildly abundant resources that we can see
: mere seconds away.
: So I am doing something about it? When Jeff Greason asked me to
: write to the Aldridge Commission in favor of property rights last
: May, I did and I have been writing a column a week ever since. When
: the best that Jeff Foust could do for my article on “a lunar vision
: at $2,000/kg” was a NASA picture showing hundreds of thousands of
: kilograms of wasteful Earth imports, I paid Phil Smith $1,000 to do
: a series of artwork to start to show what colonization looks like
: on a sensible budget.
: Now, I need some help in tackling the entire universe, in cracking
: the nut that is colonization. How do we make humanity spacefaring?
: Who will join me in the to-be-formed Space Journalism Association
: to spread the word? Again, I put my money where my mouth is. I am
: posting a $1,000 prize for the best article promoting human
: spacefaring that appeared in a print or web publication during
: 2004. I have recruited the editor of the Space Review, Jeff Foust,
: and the editor of HobbySpace, Clark Lindsey, to help me to make
: this selection. Next year, we will seek a corporate sponsor and
: celebrity judges, and try to emulate the Pulitzer Prizes with its
: categories and resources. However, this year, we will just do it.
: Check out http://www.spacejournalism.com and let me know what you
: think.
: As John L. O’Sullivan said, “This is our high destiny, and in
: nature’s eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must
: accomplish it.” Let us reclaim the legacy left to us by Columbus;
: Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea; Heinlein; Bonestell; Armstrong; and
: O’Neill. It is simply not right that a space program be merely a
: bauble of a billionaire when all of futurity beckons. Join me to
: challenge and endeavor in this enterprise and reclaim these words
: from Nixon. Come embrace, consummate, and give birth to the idea of
: an eternal spacefaring species.
--
Mark Reiff <markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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