Dec. 24 marks the anniversary of Apollo 8’s symbolic venture around the moon and the footage gave Americans more than just a glimpse of the moon’s gloomy surface on Christmas Eve. With patriotic symbolism and theological rhetoric, the charade propagandized the space program in a world where science and religion are at odds. Astronauts Bill Anders, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell recited excerpts from the Book of Genesis, implying the mission served more than the curiosity of man and the hubris of NASA. Interestingly, according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the NASA budget was just shy of $5 billion when they took flight in 1968; today, in 2007, it burgeons at $16 billion. Since the space program’s inception, NASA has shelled out nearly $420 billion. But what do we have to show for it? A cure for cancer? A cure for climate change? A cure for war and hate? God must be terribly proud. Here’s a cure: spend that $420 billion toward the world’s impoverished and then, perhaps, we’ll no longer feel the need to search for better life elsewhere in the universe.
