In the interest of keeping up with current events, I keep an eye on news stories and politics as I go throughout my day. I like to see what things are happening in the world as they normally end up effecting some aspect of my life. Most recently, the largest amounts of news media has been focused on the upcoming presidential election here in the United States. I get frustrated with politics a lot. Some of this is because we have become so partisan as a society, so extreme in our views that every discussion becomes a heated battle. There is constant bickering and what seems like endless and useless rhetoric from everyone, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Right, Left, Communist, Federalist, and the list goes on. Most of the time, it really seems like nothing ever gets done. I can understand people’s complaint and subsequent animosity towards political systems the world over.
One of the defining reasons I love the space program and admire the astronauts, cosmonauts, and many others, past and present, who have ventured out beyond these political spheres of influence is because they have come to see Planet Earth for what she truly is. Hopefully someday, we’ll all have that same opportunity. Even if we don’t though, we should be able to grasp that we’re all in this together and need to come together and work together to make the world a better place in all aspects. Astronaut Edgar Mitchell stated these same sentiments best, at least I think so:
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’ ” – Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut
We Want the Truth 