In Which I Take a Byte Out of Space Critics
I know that some of you know me as a happy-go-lucky kind of guy with a Felix the cat style. I am a cool cat for the most part. I don't easily get riled up. It's one of the reasons I don't talk politics. Who wants to go over the same tired arguments we've been debating for centuries? Besides, my politics usually depend on what side of the bed I woke up that day. One day is the blue pill, and the next is the red. I also have an argumentative disposition, so even if I agree with you, I'll find a way to start an argument.
"Good morning," you say.
"Oh yea? What's good about it?" I'll reply.
Then I'll laugh. 😆
That's just my nature as a working class man of the people.
Sometimes I do get my knickers in a knot, as they say across the pond yonder. And nothing gets under my skin more than people poo-pooing on the idea of space travel and colonization. For Pete's sake! Again with this BS, I think to myself when someone wants to debate space colonization. That's why I have a no-debate policy when it comes to those topics. It's right in the terms of service.
Just recently, people were upset that rich tourists were able to buy tickets to space and have fun. Imagine that. Here we have a tremendous evolutionary leap, when a member of the public is able to purchase rides to this new ecological frontier, bringing closer our eventual migration out of this planet, across the solar system, across the galaxy, and in time, across the universe. The implications are astounding! So what does the media want to talk about instead: money. A constant stream of criticism against the rich using their money to go to space. Don't even get me started about their treatment of Elon Musk. The guy can't sneeze without the media turning it into a hate fest. Imagine that, hating on our lord and savior. Do you really think Richard Branson and Amazon guy will get us off the planet? Forget it. I do fervently hope they succeed. Nevertheless, my money is on Elon, so leave Elone alone!
Today, I came across the following headline:
BILLIONAIRE SPACE TOURIST BUYS THREE MORE SPACEX LAUNCHES IN SHOCKING DISPLAY OF WEALTH
Oh no! The horror! A man uses money to buy a service. What will they think of next? Better healthcare for the rich? Better food for the rich? Better cars? You just can't go around buying stuff with your money.
Talk about an expensive hobby.
The author muses in the opening sentence with what I imagine is a sour face. You see, your hobbies are supposed to be stamp collecting or maybe even dolls (the creepier the better). But going into space? In the immortal words of Greta, "How dare you!"
The first launch, dubbed “Polaris Dawn,” is slated for late 2022. It’ll take a Crew Dragon capsule to the “highest Earth orbit ever flown” and will even include a commercial spacewalk, according to the Polaris Program’s website.
“We’re going to go farther into space than humans have gone since we’ve last walked on the Moon,” Isaacman told The Today Show.
Okay. You see, this is quite informative. You don't have to write breathtaking editorializations and descriptions. Leave that to us, poets, bards, and storytellers. Just tell us what they're going to do, and why it's unprecedented for humanity. Spare me the politically correct lecture. Achieving the highest Earth orbit ever flown seems to me like a very wonderful and fascinating thing. Incredible from an engineering and scientific perspective. We can test those boundaries, push back on them, confidently and with a cheerful smile. Something might go wrong and good on this guy that he's willing to put his money and his life on the line.
Spending Habits
But oh no. Let's poke around in another man's business. Let's discuss his spending habits. You know, if the author had just finished writing at this point, this would have been a short but informative article. Instead, he decided to go for the outrage. I guess his bait got a live one.
As with Inspiration4, Isaacman will be bankrolling the whole operation while also raising money for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital — so it’s not all an ungodly expensive flex of his wealth.
Talk about back-handed compliment. But I see what's going on. So, Isaacman's sin is not that he wants to go into space and is showing "an ungodly expensive flex of his wealth [Italics added]." His sin is that he's not bankrolling enough causes with his money. The good ole but-someone-is-suffering-somewhere argument against space colonization.
Billionaires buying their way into space is an undoubtedly ridiculous display of affluence
Undoubtedly, guys. 🙄
it’s also an effective way for spaceflight operations to make money while creating opportunities to research effects of space travel on the human body and testing new instruments as SpaceX plans to do.
Plus it's also the completely normal embryonic development of an intelligent species that is about to leave the womb planet and become interplanetary.
Of course, the author can't help himself at the end.
Still, it’ll be much cooler if space travel becomes more open to everybody, and not just the uber wealthy.
Yes, that would be cooler. It's like he has never heard of telephones, computers, trains, airplanes, and automobiles. Only a few wealthy elite had them in the beginning until free market forces kicked into high gear and lowered the prices, making them accessible to the rest of the non-elite population. While they may not be accessible to everyone, the increase in availability has expanded astronomically. It has to start from somewhere, and if it's with a few rich kids then let them play with their money and keep the rest of us entertained.
To be fair, this is not just the author I am singling out. At a fundamental level, we all have a sense of fairness that appears to be ingrained biologically, then modified through enculturation and the random vagaries of life. We tend to think that just because we're living in the same planet, we should all have an equal share of the imaginary pie, in this case access to space. What critics of space travel don't realize is that the pie is still baking. We haven't even perfected the recipe. Space travel is still a dangerous proposition. It requires the lifting of a ton of material with enough thrust to reach escape velocity. To say nothing of the expense. I think I'll gladly wait my turn for a slice of that pie, and if I never get to enjoy it, then I'll be so glad that others tasted its glory and pushed the frontiers of humanity.
For no reason whatsoever, here's a ted talk about a jealous monkey.
Source of original article: BILLIONAIRE SPACE TOURIST BUYS THREE MORE SPACEX LAUNCHES IN SHOCKING DISPLAY OF WEALTH
... what's this empty space here? Let me get it filled a bit :)
Both: those who admire the rich, worship them and want to emulate them. There is the praise and the jubilation in matters of space travel, the enthusiastic outlook on as yet untapped possibilities. The opposite of this is very vividly described by you :D
If I had to choose a camp - thank God, I don't have to - you would find me on the side of the fantasists. Greta can go to xxx.
At the moment things seem far too puritanical to me anyway (may be a mere error of perception, I'm not sure), I wish for the disco times and love parades back.
My going along with doomsday scenarios has worn thin and I'm glad I didn't waste my youth trying to make the world a better place. My settled age grants me the privilege of hindsight and I'm just glad I didn't let opportunities for adventure pass me by. There is nothing worse than regretting one's present existence because one has not really lived.
In the heyday of PR and advertising agencies, where we threw our clients' budgets out the window, my colleagues even went on a couple of parabolic flights, taking the winners of a cosmonaut training course. On the Reeperbahn, we organised a small race with the Mercedes team, the whole neighbourhood was cordoned off for it. We had a blast!
You just don't have to take yourself so seriously and think you're something better because you dance with the rich and beautiful. I really have a distaste for groupies. lol
It happens that I also can't decide between the colours of the pills.
I think of myself as a futurist, even more so than a science fiction writer. As a futurist, I consider it my (informal) job to predict the waves of evolution that are coming down the line. Space colonization is one of those waves. It's coming whether we're ready for it or not. As clear as day to some of us, yet we still find people who resist the idea, usually for spurious reasons. So, I'm happy that you're on my camp, or I would've flown to Germany myself and given you a good lecture with charts and everything 😆
Haha! Good ole Germans. Why are you guys and girls so intense up there? This does sound like a blast and a fond memory it is, I'm sure.
Speak for yourself. I love groupies! heh!
I got hooked on SF-Literature very early in life. My brother-in-law at the time had a collection of Perry Rhodan covers on his bookshelf and I started reading in them and from then on read classics like Dune or Snow Crash, stuff by Stanislav Lem, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Robert Wilson etc. etc. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy gave me the best times when I was about in my early twenties and I wrote out my favourite passages on big posters and hung them up in my room.
Reading it didn't make me a futurist though, I see space colonisation and the imaginative pursuit of that idea as a form of perspective shift in an earthly context.
The imagination of humans is enormous, though I think technology, as it increases in pace and intensity, comes with a price tag, so I am ambivalent about it in some parts.
Part of me is shaped by my family history, I feel this influence in the desire to preserve culture, which certainly has to do with the history of expulsion and imprisonment of my parents and grandparents who had to fight for their lives as strangers far from home and to preserve their identity.
It is difficult for me to completely let go of traditions I observed and experienced as a child, but it would go too far to elaborate here.
We good old Germans intensively? HaHa!
You rarely hear that, I had always thought it was a typical North American trait to organise sensational events. We certainly, as a former occupied country, have incorporated a lot of that culture into our own. I've been so used to older siblings philandering with both British and Americans in my childhood, the music charts all listing English titles and so on, that I now have a bit of difficulty adapting to other influences.
It took us almost forty years to dare to produce song lyrics in our own German language, I don't know if the term "Neue Deutsche Welle" means anything to you?
When your country is one of the defeated and as a child you don't understand such conflicts of your parents that have to do with what happened, you simply adapt to what is happening in real terms and accept as good and fine what the previous generation couldn't swallow quite so easily. For us kids, the Tommies and the Ammies were just exciting!
I am far more a child of the twentieth century than someone my age who was raised and educated under different circumstances.
Here you can read something about the history of the Russian-Germans, a personal attempt to understand my origins.
Yes, I have fond memories from those exciting times when I worked in the media sector :)
I had no groupies, but plenty of admirers in my womanly life. ;-)
The history of your family is fascinating. It reads like an epic story, having gone through such historic times too. It is wonderful to feel a traditional bond with ancestors. Such bonds are not so strong in Canada. We're a melting pots of 'traditions' from all over the world scattered through the vast expanse of territory.
Yeah, I thought it was worth to tell it. I think those bonds are strong in families or communities who share a certain past and were forced to rely on themselves.
Thanks for reading, I am always happy to point towards my older posts.