The final flight of the space shuttle brought back a flood of memories reaching back to the beginnings of the modern reach for the moon.  I was in my early twenties and working as a film editor with one of the major studios.  That wasn’t what I wanted to do but it was very good money for a twenty-five year old just out of the service.  My goal was to be a writer but the studio wouldn’t read anything I wrote since all they saw was someone who cut film. 

An opportunity to write and direct my own work arose when I found out that the company manufacturing the Apollo spacecraft and the Saturn II rocket had formed a large motion picture and television unit and was hiring people from show business.  I applied and went to work as a writer, producer, director at what was then called North American Aviation, now Rockwell International. Inside its Downey, California plant they had built the largest sound stage in the United States with all the latest motion picture and television equipment including some of the first videotape facilities in America.  The company also had its own microwave relay system to beam programming to Houston and Cape Canaveral.

I first saw the Apollo Command Module hanging from a giant swing outside the factory.  The full size test model swung back and forth over a huge pond.  At its highest arc the cables released the module and it splashed into the water simulating what would become a familiar sight to TV viewers: Apollo screaming through the atmosphere and making its splashdown in the ocean.

Over the course of several years I wrote, produced and or directed almost 100 documentaries, some only five minutes long others up to one hour including a documentary about space medicine, “Rx For Space”, that became the first color film broadcast by the Los Angeles public television station when it began colorcasting.

I bring up this title because it outlined the benefits to terrestrial society from advancements in space science and medicine.  Many of these advancements are only now coming to fruition after 45+ years. Many believe the space program is an exercise in human hubris with high financial cost.  Nothing could be more incorrect.  The value to human beings in longer life, better medical care, new non-invasive treatment of disease, use of algae as a power and food source, hydrogen power, fuel cells, etc. cannot be calculated accurately.

Therefore it is imperative to continue manned space flight and exploration to the moon and planets in our solar system and eventually beyond.   Human curiosity leads to social, political, economic, and scientific breakthroughs.  Without the desire to reach beyond the stars we will stagnate and lose our capacity for creativity.