Godspeed, John Glenn

President Kennedy in the rear seat of an open limousine, What Could Go Wrong?

The death of John Glenn makes perfect sense in 2016.  There were few men like him left, men of a simpler time (which is not to say a better time) of clear-cut narratives of American greatness, the brand of greatness that had nothing to do with promising to build rape-proof walls across the desert.

John Glenn was not the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin) or the first man to orbit the earth (Gagarin again).  Nor was he even the first American in space (Alan Shepard) or the second American in space (Gus Grissom).  He was the first American to orbit the earth.

The enterprise which Kennedy set forth and which Glenn pioneered was an audacious human endeavor, and uniquely American.  We promised to achieve something (landing on the moon) for which there was no existing technology, no mental framework, no consensus among experts that the thing was even theoretically possible (what if the lunar surface were covered by a layer of dust that would swallow up any landing craft?)

But the goal was set, and it was set very publicly, ensuring either outright triumph or total humiliation. 

Why would someone strap themselves into a can with less legroom than a compact car and then strap that can on top of a missile and then fire that missile into the atmosphere?  Because that's what it means to be human; you do it because you can conceive it. 

If you had told someone in 1962 after Glenn's flight that we would indeed reach the moon by 1969, they would be capable of believing that.

If you had told someone in 1962 after Glenn's flight that Fidel Castro would live for another 54 years, they would not have been capable of believing that.

If you had told someone in 1962 after Glenn's flight that in 1972 America would abandon the moon and eventually stop even orbiting the earth, they would have been incredulous.

Annnnnnnd we're done here.

In the 1990's John Glenn returned to space on the now-defunct Space Shuttle.  This flight is as fitting a symbol of the demise of the American space program as Glenn's first flight was a symbol of its ascension.

What was the point of that Space Shuttle mission?  Or of any Space Shuttle mission?  To fly around in circles in Low Earth Orbit.  And that's cool, but...

Wait, didn't I already do this?

The Space Shuttle program flew well over 100 missions to nowhere.  It surely made important scientific observations and breakthroughs.  The launch and subsequent repair and improval of the Hubble Space Telescope was surely its most important accomplishment.

Where's that 5/8 wrench?

Why are we not spending more money on this???

But the uncomfortable and inconvenient question surrounding most Shuttle missions, including the two that killed all astronauts on board, was "why is this worth risking human life?".  There was no clear answer to that question.

Just as America's wars during Glenn's life became harder to explain, justify, or identify an ultimate goal, the space program did the same.

When Glenn was young, there was consensus on certain things that has been lost.  Some would argue that we are better off without that consensus, and perhaps we are.  But there is also a clarity of purpose that has been lost.  As Kennedy's contemporaries continue to shuffle off the mortal coil, we are left with that age-old question: is there really any such thing as the "good old days"?