Posted by
Far_view on Friday, September 21, 2007 2:48:58 PM
For a long time, I have believed that one of the things that has made
America great was the presence of the American Frontier. The western
frontier was always a place that tested people and either made them
better or killed them. It contributed to our "can do" attitude and led
in large part to the American ingenuity that produced the great
technology-based economy that we have today. I think that this
contention gained support in the interview that
Hugh Hewitt had with Robert Kaplan on Kaplan's new book
Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military In The Air, At Sea, And On The Ground.
Kaplan said that a lot of the best military personnel that he spoke
with came from modern types of frontier environments (0ut in Alaska,
from ranches and farms). If we lose those places then we lose the kind
of tough-as-nails men that Kaplan is writing about. This is why I think
it is so important that we have to get large numbers of people living
and working in the new frontier of outer space ASAP. It is going to
take time and it is going to be a very different type of frontier, but
space is an unforgiving, zero mistakes allowed environment that will
test people and, once again, either make them better or kill them. I've
got expand on these ideas sometime soon!