We’re behind in the new space race

President-elect Barack Obama obviously has some major issues in front of him that he needs to tackle during the first days in office: the atrocious economy, the war in Iraq and the search for alternative fuels.

But after Obama gets settled in as president and begins his term of supposed change, there’s an issue that he should seriously think about looking into at least sometime during his term: outer space.

No, not necessarily aliens or life from other planets – although that would be a beautiful thing to see as well – but space exploration.

Our generation really isn’t old enough to remember, but there was a time when exploring the great beyond of outer space was one of the most important and influential issues in the minds of the American public. President John F. Kennedy instilled hope in people’s minds about the idea to make it to the moon before those pesky Russians in the ’60s, so much so that more than 500 million people watched the first moon landing in 1969.

But really, ever since that day, both the American public and those in government behind space exploration have increasingly lost interest in going further. The last manned mission to the moon happened almost 30 years ago in 1972. That’s way too long.

Sure, we’ve had unmanned flyby trips near almost every planet, taken piles of interesting photos and spent a lot of money, but no missions that have included living, breathing human beings. It’s almost as if the moon landing seemed so unattainable that once we actually accomplished that feat, no one ever expected anything else to measure up.

Now, it’s understandable that other things have popped up to take everyone’s mind off space exploration, and the government is obviously spending truckloads of money in other places, but this is something Obama could use to restore some sense of pride and wonderment in American folks. Moreover, it’s almost too hard to believe that NASA has not been working on some technological advances that could change the way we look at the world outside our own.

We need something to be hopeful about these days. Why not an increased devotion to creating new technologies that would allow people to make it farther than the moon?

And why is a return trip to the moon so uninteresting? Do we know everything about it?

And let us not forget that a space race of sorts is being run right now – without us.

China is on a war path to break some ground in the space exploration field. Even India has made strides by releasing its first unmanned mission to the moon.

It’s not that what they’re doing is overwhelmingly amazing, it’s just that they’re doing it. Their vehement interest is enough. Suddenly, we’re not the major force in space exploration, and we should be.

Investing time and money into furthering our discovery of outer space isn’t the most important problem that Barack Obama will face in January. Yet, if he puts more toward the issue, it will pay off for him in the long run.