While we all watched as our politicians toiled through the tortured process of manufacturing new money and figuring out how to spend it, those of us on the sidelines eagerly awaited something magical to appear instead of the “business as usual” solutions. As a young college student, I listened to President Kennedy announce one of the boldest moves in American history. He said, ”And we shall place a man on the moon in the next decade.”
The magical meaning and outcomes from his statement and challenge to the American people was not only lifting our American spirit but he also called to order all the intellectual resources of every thinking citizen. The research and development that came along with his bold agenda transformed the world, and our economy. President Kennedy not only put American hands to work but he also challenged American minds.
So what’s happening in Washington these days leaves a lot to be desired. It is apparent that our elected officials are long on ways to spend but short on stimulating the American people to a rallying around a cause. Putting an American man on the moon, what a phenomenal idea.
In America today, we need the “new” challenge to lift us off the ground again, literally. So why not have in this outrageously wild stimulus package the challenge to American technology and move to develop the next generation of flight and transportation. Why not have included into this whole debate, the new challenge… the challenge of developing suborbital fight technology and bringing out all the closeted Star Wars buffs and Flash Gordon types.
Imagine, the creation of a whole new generation of engineers, jolting research and development, and, if you can imagine this, creating thousands of new jobs that once again have Americans stepping up to the world theater and showing what we’re made of.
Locally, our city’s roots were embedded in its aerospace history. Howard Hughes with the giant Spruce Goose and the Douglas family of aircraft, all worked magnificently for our country’s war effort in the last century. Space technology and experienced aircraft manufacturing still remain one of our city’s greatest assets. Our intellectual resources have not changed in all these years. We have, ready to go back to work, the most reliable and best-educated work force in our great nation. It would be a golden opportunity for Long Beach to once again meet the challenge for the next generation of sub-orbital spaceship and air transportation by participating in this new revolution of aircraft technology and manufacturing.
Enlisting the resources of our local university, Long Beach State (the largest in the Cal State system) and its ability to act as an educational and professional job incubator, the resources of our massive port, our strategically located airport, and the existing C-17 production line, coupled with the new Douglas Park industrial development, we have within our city limits unprecedented resources to draw on.
Let us put aside all the negative garble in our everyday news, and instead of looking down as if we have lost our direction, perhaps its time to look up and remind ourselves that America, the land of opportunity and imagination hasn’t fallen asleep, we just needed a jolt to remind us that the world is watching for our next move. It’s our time again.