A Mission to Planet Earth

A year and a half ago, I suddenly found myself unemployed, a casualty of the dot-com collapse. It was a time of personal crisis, and although I am not a devoutly religious person, I was compelled to ask a higher authority what I should be doing with my life, what is my purpose? The words came to me in a moment of startling clarity: “Land mines in Yugoslavia.” But what did this mean? What was the context? What course of action should I take? The only personal connection I have to Yugoslavia is that my grandmother was born on an Adriatic island in what is now Croatia. My experiences and areas of expertise were as distant from dealing with issues regarding land mines in Yugoslavia as being a neurosurgeon. After several months of reflection, it seemed to me that the phrase “land mines in Yugoslavia” was a metaphor inviting me to become profoundly engaged in the international problems of our time. Not just land mines, but many issues of war, peace, and security. Not just Yugoslavia, but many lands.

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were almost certainly catalytic events during this period of personal reflection. With the onset of the war on terrorism and the looming prospect of a new war with Iraq, I am just one of many Americans who has had his attention drawn by events to the world beyond our borders. However, I have always had a deep appreciation for history and a keen interest in both domestic and international political issues, and the academic discipline of international relations is in part a matter of applying one's knowledge of world history to today's global issues.

Also, I have long been used to thinking about the world in a larger context, not only the great sweep of world history, but the vast expanse of space. My baccalaureate degree is in aerospace engineering, and I have had a life-long interest in establishing a permanent human presence on other worlds. In a sense then, my current study of international relations is a narrowing of focus to this one world, but in another sense, it is also a broadening of perspective, from physics and technology to social and economic issues.

Since the culmination of the Apollo program more than 30 years ago, it has been technologically possible to send humans to Mars, yet we have not done so. Moreover, we have retreated from the Moon and have not returned. A couple of years ago, I began to question whether the social forces necessary to take us back to the Moon and further outward to Mars might not yet exist. If they do not exist, to continue dreaming of such projects may be an exercise in futility and frustration. At the very least, in order to put these dreams in their proper context, it is necessary to understand the social forces that exist today. Also, as the world becomes more integrated economically and politically, it is likely that global economic and political issues will determine when and how we will eventually push off of this little globe into the Solar System. Therefore, I now turn to the study of international relations.

For an aerospace engineer who never desired to earn a living developing military systems (as is the case with most aerospace jobs), it is important to understand these issues, and thereby redeem the reasons why I took my baccalaureate degree in that field. A few weeks before I began my first semester of undergraduate classes in international relations, I said to someone that my first degree gave me the ability to develop the instruments of war, and that my second degree will give me the ability to understand the structures of peace.

These are some of my initial reasons for embarking on this new endeavor. However, after a half-year of study, I have the sense that as I learn more about international relations, I will find other facets of the field that will attract me to it still further. It is a voyage of discovery upon which I have only recently begun, and while I do not yet know to great precision where I will find myself at its end, I do believe that the journey itself will have value beyond what I now surmise.

With the above considerations in mind, I ask for your support as I launch a mission to explore the planet Earth. Thank you for your attention.