Feb 2001
Bert Speelpenning
In 1920, smart people knew that rocket travel through space would never work. Robert Goddard, failing away in Massachusetts, was having enough trouble getting his rockets to go straight up a few hundred feet. Some were willing to stipulate Goddard would soon have a rocket go wherever he pointed it - but even they knew such rockets could not travel outside of the atmosphere. As anyone knew, said a Jan 13, 1920 Times editorial, without an atmosphere to push against, a rocket wouldn't move. If there is no action, there is no reaction, a simple application of Newton's Third Law. Goddard lacked "the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools". Now we all know not only that rockets do work in vacuum, they work better in vacuum. In space, there is no air resistance slowing them down.
Today, we smart people know that facing a strong enemy is the best, perhaps the only, way to keep a union of disparate groups acting together towards a common future. The Greek city states first came together against the threat of the Persians. England, Germany and Russia united against Napoleon. The unity did not long outlive the threat. A long history suggests that a strong US requires a strong THEM, that the very cohesiveness of the US comes from THEM. Statesmanship involves the casting of a suitable enemy "THEM" to create US sufficiently strong.
Like the Times editorial quoting high school physics, we cannot currently imagine a strong US without a THEM to act against. Yet one day soon we'll look back at this as quaint and antiquated. That day all of humanity will be united, with less friction than ever slowing us down.