Man in the Solar System and Beyond

by Kesha Rogers

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Kesha Rogers addressed NASA veterans and others in Houston on May 14. This is an edited version of a transcript of her opening remarks there.

Okay, good afternoon, I’m Kesha Rogers, and I’m a member of the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee, and former candidate nominee for U.S. Congress. So, what we want to do today is to have this discussion in which I hope all of you have thought about some questions and ways to participate.

And this is the first step which we must take to look at the reason we’re taking up the fight for understanding a completely new conception of what our space program has to represent. There’s a lot that we still don’t know, and we have yet to discover about the Universe in which we live, and the Solar system in which we live.

LaRouche PAC Kesha Rogers, shown here on an earlier LaRouche PAC webcast, addressed NASA veterans and others in Houston on May 14, emphasizing that “the commitment to space exploration must be based on the defense of the creative identity of the human mind.”

So what I want to do, just to start off the discussion, is to read a statement I just wrote:

The commitment to space exploration must be based on the defense of the creative identity of the human mind. Human beings are a space-faring species, not meant to be confined to Earth: a species with a mission to discover and come to understand who we are as mankind in the Universe. We must bring about a unified human mission that establishes a completely new view of the Solar system, defined not by the compartmentalization of space, but by a unified galactic system.

Visionary leaders like space pioneer Krafft Ehricke and President John F. Kennedy understood that the industrial development of the Moon and beyond is not just a worthwhile undertaking, but an extraterrestrial imperative. Today, China is leading the advance toward this extraterrestrial imperative with the steady progress of its lunar program.

For the last six years I have led a national campaign to defend our U.S. manned space program, which is fundamental to the progress of our nation’s economic development, and provides the basis for peaceful relations among all nations. Our manned space program and the future of our nation have been under brutal attack since 2010, with the egregious cuts and dismantling of our space program, starting with Obama’s cancellation of the Constellation program, and the cuts to the fusion science-driver program, important for the development of fusion propulsion technology, which is absolutely essential for the exploration of space. We must restore our commitment to a unified national mission dedicated to the exploration of space, starting with the development of the Moon (including its unique fusion resource, helium-3).

Where Are the Formulas?

This national mission will lay the basis for a much greater expansion of mankind throughout the Solar system, with Mars as the next target for human exploration and development. America needs a robust space exploration and development program to draw our nation’s attention away from petty problems on Earth and to refocus attention once more on the excitement of exploration of the Universe, the thrill of discovery, and the conquest of new frontiers. This passion for adventure and yearning to stretch our horizon will surely drive the next generation of space explorers and inspire our nation for the next 100 years in space.

What I would like to do is to attempt to draw on more of these conceptions throughout the course of this discussion today, and the questions and comments that you have will help us to develop those ideas further. But, let me just say that for the past several years that I’ve been leading this national fight in defense of the space program, one thing that’s been very clear is that there’s a very crucial aspect that has been missing from the equation. And this is the continued targeting of our space program by the enemies of progress,— and we’ll talk a little bit more about Krafft Ehricke, and what Krafft Ehricke actually understood about the enemies of progress, as being really exemplified by the limits-to-growth Malthusian system, which asserts that there are limited resources on the planet Earth, and that there are limitations to man’s understanding of the Universe in which we live.

NASA Rogers stated that Krafft Ehricke (1911-1984), a space expert and visionary leader, understood that space exploration is our extraterrestrial imperative.

Krafft Ehricke had a completely different conception about that. And that’s what has really been an underlying flaw and problem with the thinking amongst those mathematicians or the accounting figures that have taken over the control of the space program. They try to put limitations on mankind’s progress.

Now, when you think about it, the human factor is the most essential factor in understanding what the mission of a unified space program has to be,— the factor of human creativity and the human mind. So, when you look at our campaign, don’t just look at it from the standpoint of, “Oh, where are the technical aspects? Where are the formulas?” What is your formula to actually justify your understanding of man as a space-faring species? You’re not going to find this formula. You have to find it within yourself, as a human being, with what must be a completely new conception of the identity of human beings on planet Earth, and throughout our Solar system, throughout the Universe and the Galaxy that we live in. And so, this conception of the creativity of the human mind, the human factor, is very critical. It’s a principle to understand when you think about what the great pioneers of space exploration defined as our mission and purpose in the space program,— what is our extraterrestrial imperative?

And many times we have talked about the visionary role of Krafft Ehricke. I think he is extremely important to continue to go back to, because the conception of the playful, creative mind doesn’t really exist in the domain of the society in which we live right now. You really want to think about how you imagine something that you have never known before, and how you create something which is totally new to the understanding of the human mind. And I’m going to go through that and expound on that, because that’s going to be the basis of what I want you to take from my discussion today. I want to read again, Krafft Ehricke’s conception of space travel. He says:

The concept of space travel carries with it enormous impact, because it challenges man on practically all fronts of his physical and spiritual existence. The idea of traveling to other celestial bodies reflects to the highest degree the independence and agility of the human mind. It lends ultimate dignity to man’s technical and scientific endeavors. Above all, it touches on the philosophy of his very existence.

And that’s something to think about, because the problem is that we have been denied access to understanding what is the real philosophy of the existence of man. And this has been an ongoing fight since the development of mankind, that the existence of man is something which in many eyes is disconnected from, and has no relationship to the Universe in which we live.

So this is something that for the past several decades, Mr. LaRouche has taken up as a critical principle in understanding the exploration of a true mission for space conquest. That is not just something that you do because you have a bunch of money, and you want to go build tourist attractions on the Moon, and you want to turn space travel into Wall Street profiteering: get up there cheap, get up there quick. But unless you talk about the ability of the human mind, the nature of creating a culture in society that fosters human creativity,— then what you’re doing with the space program is just a fraud.

What We Don’t Know

This is completely essential to what Mr. LaRouche’s program for the space program has been, as a continuation of what President John F. Kennedy had set into motion. President John F. Kennedy knew that the development of space, development of new frontiers in technological discoveries,— as did Krafft Ehricke, as did the great pioneers before him, Wernher von Braun, Oberth, Goddard, these pioneers, and rocket scientists,— knew that we have an imperative to conquer the Solar system, so that we can actually bring about a new conception of the unified development of mankind as a whole.

President John F. Kennedy, another visionary leader, announced on May 25, 1961 before a special joint session of Congress, the goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of that decade.

And in a paper written in 1986, I believe it was, Mr. LaRouche talks about a very important concept called “Spiritual Imperative for the Conquest of Space,” and I think this really gets at the spark which has to be understood.

Now before I read this quote, I want you to think about this from the standpoint that there are technological and other things that have to be developed, in terms of developing space. When you talk about what’s necessary for the colonization of the Moon, for building colonies on the Moon, for the exploration of Mars,— Do we just go up there? Is it just, “OK, we just got there.” I said this before, I take people who come into Houston, sometimes, and they’re mesmerized by the Saturn V rocket. And if you go to visit the Saturn V rocket, you see this masterpiece, and this giant rocket,— it’s being preserved, sitting in this warehouse, that everyone from all over the world comes to see. Something that, when this was developed, nations throughout the world were participating in. But more so, they were gaining the benefits of what the Saturn V rocket—as a continuation of that program—was to represent.

John F. Kennedy Library Kesha Rogers said that Lyndon LaRouche’s space program has been a continuation of what President John Kennedy set into motion. Here, Kennedy is inspecting the interior of Friendship 7, the capsule via which John Glenn (to the right of Kennedy) became the first American to orbit Earth.

But my point is that if you look at this great masterpiece, you can’t just say, “Oh, this was just thrown together.” This was an engineering feat. What was the skilled labor, the engineering, every single facet of economy, that went into the building of this work? And even more, what was the human factor that went into it? The human factor also of people who dedicated their lives to the establishment of this great project which took men to the Moon. And that was almost a mission that did not happen, because lives were lost. And as we experienced in the battlefields of war, and when people commit themselves to a fight in military warfare,— they know that they’re going in with the understanding that they may not come out. Their lives may not exist any longer. But the commitment always has to be to the betterment and the progress of mankind, coming from your society as a whole.

And that’s the difference from the conception that we see today, with the policy toward our space program that is murderous, that does not take human life truly into account. When you want to put Wall Street, and the financial private institutions at the forefront of the development of our space program, and they say, “Oh, I’ll give you a few pennies, if we have something left over.” Every single thing, every single penny, has to go into the development of space exploration based on the idea that the human mind and the human life has to be protected and preserved.

What LaRouche says makes the point clear: “Human beings are absolutely distinguished from the beasts by virtue of the fact that every newborn infant has ‘the divine spark of reason.’ This spark, if developed, enables each of us to develop the power of creative reasoning, the quality of reasoning typified by the work of the best scientific discoverers.”

He goes on to say, “One new, useful idea, discovered by such an individual mind is a benefit for all mankind.”

And it’s very similar to the idea that when mankind goes out into space, when you have an astronaut go out and orbit the Earth, when we go to the Moon,— this isn’t just something that the astronaut is doing to go on a joy ride. He is actually doing this because the entire nation is going with him to participate in this. The entire world is benefitting from this discovery, as all of the world benefits from a great scientific discovery, such as a discovery of Einstein, or a musical discovery of a great Classical composer.

EIRNS/Stuart Lewis Lyndon LaRouche wrote of the “Spiritual Imperative for the Conquest of Space.” As a result of the unique creativity of mankind, discoveries are made that enable man to go into space, and which benefit the entire world. Here LaRouche addresses a conference in Sterling, Va. in 2013 on the implications of space science for a new paradigm for mankind.

And that’s the culture which we have to re-instill in our society, and that’s the culture which has right now been eliminated by the lack of a space program policy under President Obama, who is putting trillions of dollars into upgrading the nuclear arsenal, and putting missile defense weapons on the borders of China and Russia,— instead of actually calling for collaboration with these nations, based on the idea that mankind has to commit itself to a new paradigm based on cooperation among nations. I thought it was very fitting, that just recently, the cosmonauts from the International Space Station sent the message down on the 71st anniversary of the defeat of fascism, defeat of the Nazis in Germany, saying that peaceful relations, cooperation, and scientific development among nations is only going to be possible in a world without war.

A world without war starts with understanding what we have to commit ourselves to from the standpoint of a new paradigm based on the cooperation among nations for shared achievements, for the advancement of man’s mastery over new fundamental principles, and for the implementation of new forms of technology.

That really gets to the conception of why we’re looking, with great excitement and vigor, at what China is doing with its space program. But you have China doing something that no other nation has yet embarked on: Venturing out to discover, based on the idea that it is our imperative to go to and master what is out there on the far side of the Moon. Now we’re not necessarily going, already knowing what’s there. We have some ideas, but that’s the beauty of the discoveries of mankind, you’re not going and saying, “Oh, okay, this is what we’re going to look for, and this is what we want to find.” It takes away a sense of creativity if you’re already thinking, “Oh, we’re already there. We’ve already mastered everything.” And that’s what is so unique about what China is doing, and China really continues to follow what we exemplified in the past under leadership such as that of President John F. Kennedy. Everybody remembers John F. Kennedy’s Moon speech, but it had this principle: “We’re going to do something that we don’t know.” We went to the Moon. When we stepped foot on the Moon, we didn’t know what was going to happen. We didn’t know what we were going to find, but we knew that it was our imperative, our prerogative, to embark on this mission. And I was reading about how the people within mission control, like Gene Kranz, were saying, “I don’t know about this President, but he really believed in us, and he believed in this nation, and I thought that this was too far out there. But I saw that we had a President that had vision, and who said, ‘where there is no vision the people will perish.’ ” That was the idea that Kennedy had committed to the people.

Tim Pearce Saturn V was a masterpiece in which nations throughout the world participated, and also benefited from the continuation of that program.

Why Bach?

So that’s the idea, and that’s the conception right now, that you’re getting from nations like Russia and China, nations that want to have mankind embark on a new frontier of cooperation and collaboration in which we can participate if we have the right leadership. It’s very fitting that while,— On the one hand you have a drive for war and economic collapse coming from the United States, and coming from under the directives of President Obama, and those Wall Street operations that he submits to. You think about the difference in that drive toward war, which actually creates more suicides, as we’re seeing, more killing in the society which has been completely devastated, but, on the other hand you look at the optimism that you’re seeing coming from what Russian President Vladimir Putin just did—which was a beautiful indication of his commitment to the progress of mankind—when just recently, the Russians held a concert in Palmyra, in the ruins of Palmyra, in what was an ancient amphitheater in Syria, just after—just a few months ago, this area was just used for brutal warfare, and killing of human beings. And President Putin of Russia called for a concert.

And I’d just like to just say this, just think about this. This concert, as was reported in a recent article, did not begin with a piece by a Russian composer. Instead, the Russians chose to begin with a potent piece by Johann Sebastian Bach, the famous Chaconne, Partita for Solo Violin No. 2 in B minor. The writer says that the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin called the Chaconne “the greatest structure for solo violin that exists,” and violinist Joshua Bell has said, “the Chaconne is not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, and structurally perfect.”

If you disconnect these things, you will say, “OK, that’s nice, but why did you bring that up?” Well, I bring that up because there has to be a connection between space exploration and a culture that fosters human creativity, Classical culture, the culture of the human mind. If you go back and look at the role of the great pioneers, such as Krafft Ehricke, they brought with them the greatest of Western culture and Classical culture, as an expression of what our space program has to be. You can’t have a space program with Beyoncé and Jay Z, and so forth. You have to have a space program that exemplifies a true commitment to the human creative identity.