August •  September 2005 • Vol. XXIII No. 6 • An Arnold Publication
 

From the Editor—

 A new space race . . for energy!

  
  At the height of World War II America was losing its citizen soldiers at an incredible rate. By the time the war was coming to an end, we had lost 292,000 men in combat and faced losing tens of thousands more if we invaded Japan to force its surrender.
But something changed that situation forever. On learning that German scientists working for Adolph Hitler had discovered fission energy using Uranium (U-235), the U.S. government undertook a new top-secret project called the Manhattan Project to turn the new science into a weapon. Within a few short years we developed and exploded the first atomic bomb. That, in turn, led the emperor of Japan to surrender and ended the war.

Not too many years later, President John F. Kennedy, faced by the Soviet Union’s determination to win the space race and turn space into a launching area for its weapons, thrilled the imaginations of all Americans by setting a seemingly impossible goal of planting the American flag on the moon within a decade, a goal that was accomplished to all our benefits.

Now nearly fifty years later, America again finds itself threatened, but this time by terrorists financed by countries who control most of the world’s vast oil reserves. Hundreds of billions of dollars per year pour from our shores into the hands of people who not only don’t like us, but who often hate us to the point of seeking our destruction. In short, our money is financing our enemies’ efforts to destroy us, which is downright stupid at best.

To make matters worse, the growth of third-world countries everywhere (including China) has brought about major competition for the planet’s dwindling energy resources. That means our way of life will have to change drastically unless our government does something about the situation soon.

Of course, if you ask a Washington politician, he’ll tell you they just passed a comprehensive energy bill through congress. Unfortunately that bill is no more than a stack of bandages and does nothing serious for the long-term needs of the country.
So what’s to be done about America’s energy situation?
In this editor’s humble opinion, our President needs to set the country a major new goal to once and for all solve the energy crisis, a project equivalent to Kennedy’s moon project.

We started from scratch and built the first atomic bomb. We started from scratch and landed on the moon within ten years.

I’m positive, that if the will of the American people is aimed at solving the energy problem, we can do that too.

So, why don’t we?
                                                                                 C. H. Bush, editor