Uninspiring aspirations

It was the nation's headline, on Wednesday, and I can only hope Americans were as baffled as I was: "Obama: 'We'll win the future,' " ran in big type on this newspaper's front page.

I heard the line as the president delivered it the first time Tuesday night. I heard it the other five times it was in his speech. And I wondered: How do you "win" the future? Does time keep score? Who are the referees? And what do you call a point in this game?

"Half a century ago," he said, "when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we would beat them to the moon. The science wasn't even there yet. NASA didn't exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs."

By the time Obama and I were able to throw a ball from second to first, U.S. rockets were headed toward the moon. Heroes were doing inspiring things in Houston and Florida and in the western desert.

Not only was America great enough to conquer the world, but we would soon conquer space. We were set to win the future.

So what do we get, in 2011? What do we get in our "Sputnik moment"? The president was specific: "We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology and especially clean energy technology - an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet and create countless new jobs for our people."

That isn't victory. That isn't winning the future. That isn't even a tie with yesterday.

While I can't argue against better medical treatments, or cooler computers, or cleaner energy, while they are all important endeavors, it's difficult to thrill or animate a nation with any of it.

It's hard to imagine John Glenn testing the new iMac, or Alan Shepard flipping the switch on a coal-fired power plant.

America's real Sputnik moment gave us earthly giants and the moon. This one substitutes Mark Zuckerberg and FarmVille.

It is the nature of political speech that speakers will make the latest incremental policy shift the equivalent of the Manhattan Project, but that kind of tactic works only if you and I let it.

We are not, at the moment, a people animated by large dreams - of national hopes to conquer the world or the solar system or our small corner of space. We are an America retreated into itself and defensive, as we often are in times of economic troubles. We are a place of restive and often angry politics, focused on very real terrestrial concerns and very real internal divisions.

It is what leads a president to trim our national sails, to turn today's Sputnik moment into an impetus for safety and jobs and little else. That puniness of ambition had an unspoken corollary Tuesday: We're not going to the moon, or to Mars, not soon and not together.

If anything, our scientists and astronauts may be going places despite our national spirit, an accomplishment that makes them no less heroic.

This isn't just about Obama, of course. President George W. Bush, in one of his best speeches, spoke more optimistically of our ambitions, in January 2004: "We do not know where this journey will end, yet we know this - human beings are headed into the cosmos," he said. "Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives and lifts our national spirit."

It was as hopeful as an American president had been since Ronald Reagan. Bush promised money for the mission, but then - incrementally but relentlessly - Congress retreated. Year by year, the mission was eroded by more pressing economic realities. Year by year, our ambitions faded.

It was sad to watch. If there is a cure for our national malaise, it will come in a common purpose, the kind of national intention we haven't seen since the days following Sputnik or 9/11.

This week, I wish the president - as only a president can - had helped America identify that common cause, instead of dwelling on the distant and abstract sacrifice of "investment." I wish Obama had identified a future worth winning, a "Sputnik moment" equal to our aspirations. Heaven knows we could use one.

Donald Luzzatto is The Pilot's editorial page editor. E-mail:donald.luzzatto@pilotonline.com.