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Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong gave an interview to Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia. He spoke with Alex Malley, Chief Executive of Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia. I was never a big fan of huge public funding as they often lead to undisciplined and hence wasteful spending. But Armstrong‘s view on the current US space policy is very critical, and one of Armstrong‘s most astonishing state- ment is that “NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating stu- dents to do well and achieve all they can achieve.”

Hereby Armstrong hit the bull‘s-eye. The name of the first space shuttle was Enterprise. The shuttle Enterprise took different flights, none of them in orbit. The name Enterprise was more than just recognition of the science fiction series Star Trek by the American space agency. NASA and Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the Star Trek universe, have inspired each other. Gene Rod- denberry was one of the first humans to have his ashes blasted into outer space. In this case, NASA complied with his widow‘s request, and money wasn‘t an issue at the time. I can remember the first start of the Columbia on April 12, 1981 (STS-1) very well, the first space-worthy Space Shuttle in NASA‘s orbital fleet. For an American, it was an event like the first moon landing. Let‘s look at the Big Bang Theory, a US sitcom, which by now has become the most watched show in Canada.

12-04 :: April/May 2012

Editor‘s Letter