John Glenn 50 Years Later

Today marks 50 years since John Glenn sat in a tiny metal telephone booth and zoomed around the Earth. It doesn't seem like that great of an achievement in our time when we have cell phones that are more technologically advanced than the computers that sent him into orbit. But, make no mistake, his achievement is a big one for the US. And what I find even more remarkable of an achievement is that in roughly seven years Neil Armstrong would be standing on the moon and transmitting back to Earth.

In one of President Obama's recent speeches, I think last year's State of the Union, he asked us to find our 'Sputnik Moment.' He was referring to the awesome notion when the Soviets sent a satellite into space that essentially launched us into the space race and provided us with the motive for creating and establishing technologies that would be unrivaled for years to come. It is arguably the catalyst for President Kennedy's push to get to the moon in the decade. The type of innovation that took us from standing in awe at Sputnik to Neil Armstrong standing on the moon in about 15 years has not been mimicked to the same degree. You could answer that the technologies we use daily have moved just as fast, but your cell phone doesn't seem to unite people like landing on the moon did.

I'm all for a Sputnik moment. I hear President Obama's plea. But I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I'm not entirely sure how to go about achieving it. Its like the president said, 'Hey, I'll be back here on Monday, and when I return I want you to have something really cool and innovative to show me.' What the heck is that supposed to be? How do you go be innovative? I think the complacency in this country lies somewhere in this question. Essentially, its much easier to keep things as they are and struggle to maintain the status quo than it is to be innovative.

I see this quest for our 'Sputnik moment' as wasted rhetoric. We can all talk about wanting to do something new and creative. Generally, I think most of us want to do something new and creative. But the focus and the drive isn't there. When the Soviets launched Sputnik and put a man in space, we were completely caught off guard. We were struggling to launch a successful rocket and not even thinking of human space flight. Yet due to international implications, we understood that we needed to not only get a rocket off the ground, we needed to do something before the Soviets.

Thus we launched into this quest to go to the moon. We spent tons of money, dumped a ton of resources into the programs, and put tons of our top minds on figuring out how to get there. In machines that have less processing power than your computer or mobile device you are reading this on we sent a man to the moon and brought him back. Its nothing short of incredible.

And the only thing that made it possible was incredible focus. We knew we needed to beat the Soviets. We knew we needed to catch up fast and we knew we needed to make the whole thing a national interest. Anyone alive in 1969 can probably tell you where they were when they saw the grainy images on the moon. Our generation's 'remember when' moments are 9/11 and where you were when you heard Michael Jackson died. Since when did our big moments become so depressing?

But the focus needed to land on the moon is missing. We hear that we lack motivation. We hear that we lack innovation. We hear that students aren't interested in science anymore. Nobody wants to do anything creative. I don't think any of those are true. More than ever people of my generation are volunteering and giving back. Creative ideas are out there. Much as I hate to say it, Facebook is a revolutionary device that has transformed our world. I often think there are too many negative repercussions, but the fact remains that things are different. You can't tell me that our generation is any dumber or unmotivated than any other generation.

What I think we truly lack is focus. Every day we hear about the problems that are happening in our country. Everyone has an opinion on how to solve them, but nobody seems to take any action. It is very easy to be a bit overwhelmed by the problems that we face. And I increasingly feel that we expect our president to come into office and tackle each problem that is important to us and get it solved in four years.

Just for a minute imagine if we made a goal that we would be 100% free of the use of oil and gas products by the end of 2020. And imagine that this wasn't just a goal but something we forced ourselves to do. You can bet that we would probably pour our resources into figuring this problem out. You can bet that there would be a great deal of money going into figuring out this problem and that by 2020 we will have it accomplished.

In the 1960's you would never hear members of Congress trying to slow down NASA in the race to the moon. You wouldn't hear about how President Kennedy unveiled a plan, but that there was already opposition to the fact that the Saturn V rocket was going to cost too much and that the money would be better placed in tax breaks. I realize times are different, but if we are truly going to have a 'Sputnik moment' I believe we need something to rally around. We need to have something that we as a nation will focus on with everything we've got. If we did this on enough problems instead of constantly being distracted we might just find that the solutions are right in front of us.