Look, in the sky: It’s South Carolina’s future

From my home, I often hear small airplanes taking off and airliners passing over, preparing to land. On a clear day, I can look up to see, high in the sky, vapor trailing airliners going on a northerly or southerly route. Sometimes, I hear a loud prolonged noise in the sky, look up and see a pair of fighter jets screaming along low-altitude training routes.

And on specific dates, in the early mornings, before sunrise and about an hour after sunset, my wife and I watch the bright, fast-moving but silent west-to-east passage of the International Space Station, carrying six Earthlings — from multiple nations — looking down on us.

The precision of this orbit is such that NASA, at spotthestation.nasa.gov, tells us that on Thursday, the passage can be viewed from 9:01 p.m. to 9:03 p.m. as an unmistakably moving white point of light at 12 degrees, traveling from the north northwest to the north.

These sights and sounds in the sky are intentional, made by human beings, planned by pilots, FAA air-traffic and ground controllers, airport managers, engineers and scientists. Some of the jets we see and hear are Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft built in South Carolina.

South Carolina has more than 50 airports. Our Columbia downtown airport was built in 1929 as Owens Field. Columbia Metropolitan Airport was Columbia Army Air Base during the 1940s.

Airports, contrails, airliners, jets, noise, the space shuttle and aircraft manufacturing are all a part of a broad aerospace industry in South Carolina, merging its technology with the automotive industry. And that industry needs educated, trained and skilled people to fly airplanes, become astronauts, maintain and repair aircraft engines, manage airports, discover new fuels and create designs for aircraft, engines and interiors.

We do not have enough South Carolinians to do these jobs, especially among recent high school, technical college and university graduates. This limits our ability to attract more companies that rely on graduates with degrees in aerospace and other advanced technologies.

It also limits our children’s options for their future. It limits our ability to add to our list of Nobel Prize winners and astronauts, including Greenville native Charles Townes, recipient of the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics. Dreher High School graduate Kerry Mullis won the 1993 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Winners of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine were Joseph Goldstein in 1985, born in Sumter, and Robert Furchgott in 1998, born in Charleston.

Astronaut Charles Bolden, a 1964 C.A. Johnson High School graduate from Columbia, retired on Jan. 20 as administrator of NASA. Astronaut Ron McNair, a 1967 graduate of Carver High School in Lake City, died on Jan. 26, 1986, on lift-off of the space shuttle Challenger.

In our schools, from elementary through high school, our teachers and children should be able to explain the constellation of Orion and the operation of the space shuttle. They should be able tell everyone what will happen in Columbia at about 2:40 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 21 (a total eclipse).

After the Russians put the Sputnik satellite into orbit on Oct. 4, 1957, President Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA. Schools across America educated children about rockets, space, satellites and the moon and stars. In 1961, President Kennedy proposed putting a man on the moon. In 1969, Neil Armstrong was that man.

Our teachers and students should be so intrigued about aerospace that they want to be just as accomplished as Bolden or Townes. At the least, they should know who these people are.

This story was originally published March 26, 2017 at 6:56 PM with the headline "Look, in the sky: It’s South Carolina’s future."