Our Sputnik Moment

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite into the Earth's Orbit.  This act ignited the Space Race. America, lacking the science and the head start, beat the Soviets to the moon twelve years later in 1969. Amidst a dismal and internationally competitive job market, rising  international powers such as China, India, and Brazil, and a current energy problem looming as a crisis on the horizon, President Obama has labeled now as America's "Sputnik Moment". In Obama's pep-talk to Congress he stated the need to, "out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world".  He said "the future is ours to win. But to get there we can't just stand still".  Obama's speech was inspiring, but to Congress and the American people he was the coach speaking to an over-confident highly-ranked basketball team at half time as the lower-ranked team surpassed them.  The score shows that America has fallen behind internationally, and if we want to "win the future" we need to work our way back into the game.

Innovation is what sent us to the moon, and Obama is proposing that we use the same innovation to lead us to a greener future.  Energy independence will save us billions of dollars every year and is worth the investment. The president wants 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Is it worth the cost of research to create this innovation?  Let's do the math. From statistics posted on whitehouse.gov, the average electric car save around $630 a year over a gas powered car.  This would be a national savings of $6.3 billion a year after reaching the presidents goal by 2015. The science may not be there yet, and neither is the market, but NASA didn't exist when Sputnik was launched and we won that race. Commitment to innovation drives America into the future, but this innovation would not be possible without top-notch education.

Education is something Americans have always taken seriously, and 15 of the 20 best colleges in the world are located in the United States (whitehouse.gov). People come from all over the world to attend college in America, and similarly the job market has grown increasingly international and increasingly competitive.  While our colleges are some of the best in the world, America is ranked 9th in the world for the percentage of people receiving college degrees.  More than one-fourth of high school students do not receive a diploma, and the quality of our math and science education falls behind many other nations (whitehouse.gov).  America cannot out-innovate or out-build without increasing our education standards.  Obama's speech offered hope for our education dilemma.  Unlike the from the top-down, unfunded education reform mandate "No Child Left Behind", instituted under President George Bush, governors from across the United States have worked together to develop rigorous standards that would promote student development and reward good teachers, all for about 1% of the total Education spending. In line with the theme running through the president's speech, the plan is called "Race to the Top". The reforms name itself has a positive connotation, a "race" to see the best we can perform, without slowing the most talented down waiting for everyone to catch up.

Finally, President Obama addressed our infrastructure. He cited the U.S. as the country who built the transcontinental railroad and the Interstate Highway system, but now, "our own engineers graded our nation's infrastructure, [and] they gave us a D". China and counties in Europe invest more in their infrastructure and as a result, "China is building faster trains, and newer airports" than the former top-dog, the United States.  95.9% of South Koreans have access to high-speed internet, whereas only 63.5% of Americans have the same access (whitehouse.gov). These are the Sputniks of today, and we can only win the future if we rejoin the race.

Obama challenged America with a quote from Bobby Kennedy, "The future is not a gift. It is an achievement". Obama's rhetoric conveyed a hopeful tone for America's future, but underneath lay the hard facts of our comparative advantage in the world.  As we are reminded this week that being a superpower is not a birth-right, but a title to work for, I am confident we can do it.  The winning team always comes out stronger after half-time, and its in the American spirit to love a challenge. The race is on, the new Sputniks have been launched into orbit, and now is America's chance to "win the future".