I was in third grade and had been anticipating this night for quite some time. My father barbecued hamburgers and my mother was bopping in and out of the house with all the fixings. I can remember she teased me that I didn’t need to get up and help. “Oh, no, don’t get up, I’ve got it.” She kept saying with each trip back out of the house.

I seldom ignored helping my mother but I was transfixed. The night sky was clear, the stars were so abundant it took my breath away, but most of all that night the moon was full and bright. The ashen colored craters and pock marks were as clear as could be. I remember feeling as if at any moment the moon would revolve around and like some strange cartoon, “the man in the moon” would appear and smile. Even the moon new we were coming.

Through all my excitement and anticipation I couldn’t help but feel that there was a lot of waste created in getting there and in the fact that so much “trash” and expensive “trash” would be left behind.

That thought has haunted my enthusiasm for space travel, moon bases, space stations, explorations and the billions and billions of dollars and tons of Earth’s resources dedicated to these quests. The question has revolved around in my head most of my life with no significant answer that would allay my thoughts of the wastefulness being created.

Finally a partial answer arrived late one evening while watching a special on the Orion/Mars mission. They were interviewing an American scientist James Garvin, Chief scientist for Mars and Lunar exploration for NASA. He said a couple of interesting comments that have put some of my worries to rest.

During the processes that all the scientists are going through to develop all the various elements needed for this mission they will create many products and breakthroughs that we are using now and more in the future. Some of the improvements can be in cleaner products for automobiles, Freon and the reuse of product waste and so on. It is also possible that these new fuels they will develop may hold the solution for removing the need for fossil fuels or perhaps even the gasoline for the millions of cars on the planet.

I guess it’s that early love of space exploration that influenced me and keeps me reading and watching all I can on the latest in space travel. It is no doubt the reason that my writing has turned to the sci-fi genre and the main character, Dara Drew, in my book The Charon Covenant is a strong female character who loves the world she is living in until she has to venture into the unknown void of space.

So, although I can’t recount the myriad of items he listed, he certainly gave me a renewed feeling of relief and to some degree a better reason to continue space exploration than just doing it because we can.