Dueling Histories

Two days ago, April 12, 2011, was the 150th anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter, the beginning the United States Civil War.

Also two days ago was the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight, as cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin slipped the surly bonds.

I have been trying to determine for myself which was the more important of these two events.

The Civil War has been called 'the first modern war'.  The combatants introduced such innovations in weaponry on land as repeating rifles to increase firepower, and the widespread use of rifling in rifle barrels to increase accurate range.

On the naval side of the war, of course, the introduction of armored, steam-powered warships, as well as a functional (though failed) submarine, the fear of which began an arms race among the European powers that led to the goliath warships of the German, British and French navies at the start of World War I.

Along with the purely deadly portions of the war came such things as aerial reconnaisance (from hot-air balloons) long distance communications via the telegraph, and the ability to move great armies across the country in a length of time never before possible via railroads.

The results of the conflict were mixed.

It did lead to the emancipation of a whole race of brutally enslaved people, and the beginning of their march toward equality, but it also led to a much-strengthened central government, the first income taxes, the draft, suspension of habeus corpus, and other troubles that still plague us today.

The Gagarin spaceflight was another escalation in the cold war, and the science war that began with Sputnik I, and showed an increasingly nervous America how far behind we had fallen.

It led, directly, to the US landing men on the moon less than 10 years later, to the miniaturization of electronics (i.e personal computing) to great strides in medical telemetry, weather forecasting, world-wide communications, and the beginning, perhaps, of an 'all mankind is related' mentality.  You must judge for yourself if it also spurred the scourge of multi-culturism.

It had, and retains, the potential to free all of mankind from the prison of Earth, and to send our progeny across the universe, so that when the Sun is cold and the Earth a burnt-out cinder, there may still be humans left, probably arguing among themselves about where the race actually originated.

Or not, given the situation today.  With the upcoming final flights of the shuttles, and their retirement, for the first time since 1963, the United States of America will not have the capacity to put a person into space.  We will be back to where we were fifty years ago.

Farther back than that, actually, as the plans for our next space-going vessel have been shelved for now, in order for NASA to perform its new primary mission of boosting the self-esteem  of camel-riding third worlders whose closest connection to the space program before this was to cheer when the shuttle Columbia broke up and burned on re-entry in 2003, killing all aboard.

Hmmm.  When I began this piece, I thought I knew which of these historical events was the more important, but I think I've changed my mind while writing it.

Tell me what you think, please.