“Unprecedented” is the word I have heard most often in the coverage of the events of the last six month. For so many of us, the world is changing at a rate that we feel, in turn and simultaneously, disoriented, angry, frustrated and frozen. What has happened to the orderly world of large, government-funded projects that create thousands of good jobs to the benefits of the nation and the world? What if I told you that this is how it has always been and the “good old days” were just as bad?

I know you disagree, but hear me out. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), created by President Reagan in 1983, caused an expansion in the aerospace industry not seen since the Apollo era. Correspondingly, the end of funding for the famous “star wars project” lead to a cratering of aerospace jobs in 1993, not only in Southern California but around the country. Some companies laid off three quarters of their employees in less than a year and stories of human resources processing layoffs in tents in the parking lots stayed in corporate memory for decades. The end of Apollo, the end of the Space Shuttle, and the end of project Constellation, all had similar impacts. 

This boom and bust cycle of funding is not limited to aerospace. A decade ago, the book “Tunnel Visions” chronicled the rise and fall of the Superconducting Super Collider. We now know the SSC as the Icarus moment of particle physics when a dedicated group, believed linear interpolation would apply to government funding. They reached too far and fell into the ocean. Luckily, most of them didn’t meet their fate there, but were able to find jobs in other fields.

We are all in the middle of re-learning a hard truth: History does repeat and we are not the exception. But didn’t we humans build the gothic cathedrals over centuries with an unwavering commitment to a single goal? Yes, interesting point. Though you can hardly call medieval Europe a model of democratic society. And even in strictly hierarchical societies, buildings went through boom and bust cycles with individuals sites being abandoned for long periods of times. Don’t forget, the ones we know today are the ones that did get, largely, completed.

Careers will doubtlessly end or never get started. Many talented scientists and engineers will have to find other fields of employment. Precious progress will be lost. And there will be opportunities in new areas. Perhaps humans will walk on Mars before the decade is out, or maybe before the next one. Maybe the first humans on Mars will be from the U.S. or perhaps from another nation. I hope we won’t give up working on that cathedral and I hope we won’t build it while forgetting about the rest of us here in old familiar Earth. These endeavors are not meant to leave others behind but to lift up all of us. 

Oxford languages define unprecedented as “never done or known before.” This implies that we don’t know how to respond to all that is happening. If instead we realize that this is normal, we know what to do and can overcome our paralysis. Only then can we regroup, assess what we have today and start again. This won’t be the last time that we fall and as long as this isn’t the last time we get back up we are going to be fine.