Is America Coasting?

Long time readers of this blog will know of my obsession with all things space and my wife's and my lucky friendship with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, at the Rose Center at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and the host of NOVA Science Now. He is the most extraordinary mentor either of us have ever known.

Neil is more than one of this country's greatest scientific luminaries. He is an educator par-excellence, a man who can explain the most dazzlingly complex theories so that even a child can understand and be excited by them. And, as you are about to see, he is a breathtaking philosopher poet.

The following clips are from an acceptance speech he gave after receiving the prestigious Space Communicator Award this past April. If you need to be sold on the critical necessity of America's place in space, watch these clips. But, perhaps, even more important than that, watch as Neil takes the idea of America in space and weaves it into a far greater, far more comprehensive, far more extraordinary metaphor for America's place in the world.

Embedding the video was not permitted, so click here for Part I and Part II.