If you're like us, more often than not, you probably hear the word "crazy" a lot these days - and it's not usually in a positive connotation.
There are crazy Republicans, and crazy Democrats; crazy ideas like ignoring the U.S. debt ceiling, or attempting to force political candidates to agree to ban pornography in the internet age. Using "crazy" as an adjective to describe any of these things is less than flattering, to be sure.
There are times when the word "crazy" isn't a pejorative, however - and for us, those are some of the best times in life.
The idea that women would one day be part of America's special operations military forces has been crazy to generations of Americans. Yet, Army Special Operations Command recently announced that they had deployed America's first teams of female commandos in Afghanistan - and that the women's initial performance was "off the charts" successful.
In a similar way, there was a time when Americans - and people all over the world - said that humans making regular trips into space would never happen, that it was a crazy idea. In fact, there are people lamenting the end of the U.S. Space Shuttle program now, saying it's crazy that America won't be regularly going to space again anytime soon.
We agree. It IS crazy to think that America won't be going into space regularly anytime soon.
The old definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, the exact same way, and expecting different results. If that's the case, then being a just little bit crazy, to our mind, means doing things slightly differently over and over, until you get the right results.
We firmly believe America's next steps into space follow that latter model of crazy.
After all, the world's first spaceport is being built right now in New Mexico. The first X Prize, the Ansari X-Prize for private manned spaceflight, was won by an American spaceship, and built by an American company, Scaled Composites. That company is also building some of the first commercial spacecraft for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space lines company, which will be launched from that American spaceport.
It isn't just privateers breaking the bonds of Earth - NASA isn't done exploring space by a long shot. The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle was announced by NASA just this past May, which could take humans to nearby asteroids, and even Mars. It's part of the space exploration plan announced initially by President George W. Bush, and preserved from budget cuts by President Barack Obama.
That's right - a Republican and a Democrat, working together.
We know... that's just crazy.
It's the kind of crazy we hope we see a lot more of, both in the near future, as well as many years down the road.
Crazy can be a good thing.
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