I know several people that refuse to watch the news on television because they feel it is too depressing. It is all negative. People dying, wars, rising gas prices, inflationary pressures, where is the positivity? If has been said in the news industry if it bleeds, it leads. Television news relies on advertising dollars to generate revenue, and they will lead with stories that generate the greatest audience to charge top dollar for advertising. But something different happened this week. We had a good news story that pushed all the negative stories aside. It was an uplifting story that has brought us all together and have made the world come together cheering on four people.
This past week four astronauts (Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen) blasted off from Cape Canaveral to be the first crew in 50 years to do a flyby around the moon. This is part of the Artemis program where it has a series of missions the next few years expanding moon exploration.
This launch is Artemis II. Artemis III is scheduled for next year where they are looking to land astronauts near the moon’s south pole and Artemus IV is scheduled in 2028 to continue expanding surface infrastructure.
It has also been said that nothing unifies a country more than a sporting event, but NASA will certainly disagree. It does not matter if you are a man or woman, black or white, Republican or Democrat or in Canada, Liberal or Conservative, everyone is pulling for them. It is refreshing that we have a story that is unifying and not divisive.
This is the furthest that man will leave the planet and come back. It will take about ten days as they perform their experiments and sling shot around the moon to come home. It is bold, daring, and there is a danger element. You do not want to think about this, but one mistake could be disastrous. But with high risk comes high reward. This is an opportunity to further science and humanity. These four astronauts have a passion for what they do. They are willing to lay it on the line and achieve their goals
It is at the spirit of “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”, that we all respond to. But this is not a war, it is a mission of peace and acquiring knowledge. This is how we grow as a society. We need more uplifting stories like this. We have more in common than what we have that divides us. We need to find the best in all of us to work collectively to improve society.
Kudos to NASA for also putting together a diverse crew. We have one woman, one man of colour, and one Canadian who will lead the team. A diverse crew adds to the spirit of unity that we can all experience. It is also a form of inspiration for a young girl or a minority to literally shoot for the stars.
Stories like this help us forget a lot of the bad news. Yes, there is a war gong on, and yes, gas prices are through the roof, but for a moment we can put those things on the shelf and be impressed with four people boldly going where no one has ever gone before. Godspeed NASA, Godspeed.