Give us an inch, and we tear the world apart

It’s been about ten years since I last stepped foot into the Air and Space Museum. The museum had not changed too much, but I certainly had. Now, I am older, more aware, and more out of place. Most everyone there was a tourist, who totted their kids along the museum, while the kids’ eyes gazed in wonder at all the planes around them. It’s strange to think I was in there shoes at some point.

I’m sure that when I was a lot younger, I saw the giant model planes just as they did, but now, ten years later, the first thing I saw was the bombs strapped to the bottom. I would also bet that when I was younger I saw the big rockets, but only now did I notice the nuclear warheads that they were carrying. Did the Smithsonian purposefully make the instruments of war look so fun and educational?  Is this the reason we blew up dolls with firecrackers on our driveways?

When I was young enough not to notice bombs and warheads, I used to get sage advice from my mom, one of which was "give a person an inch, they'll take it a mile."  In the Smithsonian, they show old grainy photographs of the Wright plane, perhaps the most important innovation in flight. This happened in 1903. Next to it, there was a picture of the very same model, only this plane had a gun attached to it, and the photo was taken in 1909. In less than ten years, the military had transformed an innovation into a weapon. In another part of the museum, rockets that launched satellites into space were displayed. Sitting right next to it was a polaris missile.  Again, a less than ten year span between discovery and destruction.

Science has given mankind amazing power, but what have we done with our power? Most of the time, we’ve looked for ways to use it to kill the people we hate. Sometimes, hate and war is a bigger driving force towards invention than scientific inquiry. Some of the greatest discoveries in rocket technology have come about when hateful men sought for ways to destroy their enemies across the ocean. Innovations in breathing apparatuses came about to allow early pilots to breathe while on bombing raids. Technology gives us the inch, and when it gives us the inch we take it the mile. We then see what its really like to tear the world apart.

Walking out of the museum, I kept thinking about the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly the scene where the monkey discovers how to use the very first tool, a bone, and the first thing he uses it for is to kill a tapir (what tapirs were doing in Africa remains a mystery to this day.  I plan to ask Zombie Kubrick that some day). In midst of cheesy costumes and several tapir maulings that would make any PETA activist cry, Arthur C. Clarke knew what he was talking about. The twisting of invention to satiate man’s desire to kill. It still happens, just with different monkeys and different bones.

~Jared