I took a trip in a time machine, recently, and it was wonderful.
To be more specific, I went to see the film “Hidden Figures,” about the early days of America’s space program.
It transported me back to the early 1960’s, when the program was in its first flush of youth.
The Russians had recently put the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit … and while the 1961 version of America I visited was certainly nervous about Russia’s intentions, they were also excited, throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the challenge of winning the “Race for Space.”
“Hidden Figures” is the true story of three young African-American women who worked for NASA, at a time and place when America was still segregated — right down to the water fountains and the bathrooms.
They were part of a group called “colored computers” — which did not mean a calculating machine available in powder blue, but people — women — who did the pencil-on-paper computations which backed up the theories of the men who were forging America’s path through space.
The most poignant moment of the movie, for me, comes when one of the women — Katherine Goble, played by Taraji P. Henson — must absent herself from her assignment, in the inner sanctum of the Space Task Force, to find a restroom.
She discovers, to her intense chagrin, that there are no bathrooms for “colored” women in that entire building, or in any building nearby, and so races against time and across campus — in dress, stockings, and heels — to the only building where she can legally find relief.
The Task Force’s hard-boiled leader, Al Harrison — played quite effectively by Kevin Costner — finally discovers the reason for her mysterious and too-lengthy absences; but her work is so valuable to the mission that he ends up taking a crowbar to the “Colored” sign, announcing that the bathrooms are now for everybody.
“We all get to the peak together,” says Costner’s Harrison, “or we don’t get there at all.”
The high point of the drama — which I will not give away any more than history already has— takes place before the first orbital flight of Col. John H. Glenn.
Glenn apparently said he would not fly his mission unless “the girl” — Henson’s Katherine — could vouch for the re-entry calculations which had been coughed out by a brand-new, and quirky, IBM machine.
Of course, we know he flew, and survived — and went on to a long and distinguished career as U.S. Senator from Ohio.
He only just passed away, last month, at the age of 95.
It is, to me, the ultimate irony that Glenn, and fellow astronaut Eugene Cernan, should be leaving this Earth just as we get a new leader who has vowed to shut down aspects of NASA’s science research, and other scientific endeavors, completely.
Apparently, he only wants to ask scientific questions if he knows he will like the answers.
Unfortunately, that isn’t how research works.
Our newest President wants to “Make America Great Again” — without ever specifying just when we were great the first time.
Still, it seems to me that any definition of American greatness would have to include the days depicted in “Hidden Figures.”
And the whole point of that true-to-life story is that, even in a completely segregated America, we could not afford to turn away the talents of anyone — no matter the color, size, gender, or ethnic background of the package.
We all get to the peak together, or we don’t get there at all.
Not only is that the way it has always been, out in the real world — but that is how it must continue… unless we want to go the way of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium.
At first, I thought it was too bad that we are losing our generation of astronauts just as this new page in history is turned.
But perhaps it is for the best.
Perhaps it is better that Eugene Cernan and John Glenn not see what has become of the world they gave us… and what has become of us.
“Great?” Not hardly. Just a very great pity.
