KD^3C^3 - 20260405 But you see there's nothing wrong with me
I am not immune to moon propaganda
I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. I loved (and love) the movie Apollo 13, as well as the documentary For All Mankind (not to be confused with the AppleTV alternate history series of the same name, which is good but not great).
I grew up watching Star Trek and still watch Star Trek. I love the idea of going to space. It’s the sort of thing that represents the best that humanity can be. Nobody can go to space alone. The only way to do it is through enormous effort and collaboration. From the deep understanding of math and physics and astronomy to give us the understanding that it’s even possible to the technicians and mechanics and other employees making the machines that send us to space to everyone involved in day to day operations of every part of space travel.
I watched the Artemis II mission launch on Wednesday evening. I watched as four people (along with the help of so many more) sat on top of a rocket getting ready to go farther away from earth than any human ever has. The first four people to go beyond low earth orbit since the 1970s when the Apollo program ended.
I cried watching the rocket. I expected to, and I did. Space travel is humanity doing the impossible. We do not belong in space. There is nothing about it (or the moon) that is even a little bit hospitable to human life. It almost seems purpose built to kill us, and that’s putting aside how hard it is to even get there.
I don’t really know if we need to go back to the moon. I’m pretty sure there aren’t a bunch of secrets that can only be uncovered by being physically present there instead of sending robots and rovers. I know for a fact one of the most ridiculous things that will be happening on an upcoming moon mission is that spare compute time on the lunar rover will be used to calculate pi in an incredibly silly way. I know this, because I helped pay for the project. I even have a mission patch. And the calculation we come up with will be less accurate than what we already f know pi to be!
That’s not the important thing though. There will be real science happening on the moon missions. I know that.
But.
But. I cannot cheer for humanity going back to the moon and not think about all of the other, very possible things we should and could also be doing. Putting humans on the moon is impossible. Curing Tuberculosis is possible, we have a cure, and have since the 1950s but it’s still the world’s deadliest communicable disease. Solving homelessness is possible, there are more empty housing units in the country on a given day than there are homeless people. Solving world starvation is possible, take 10% of Elon Musk’s wealth.
So even as I cheer the Artemis Program I still think about all the other places we can be putting the immense power and strength humanity has as a society if we just choose to do so.
I don’t even think there is a contradiction here. Going to the moon proves we can do impossible things, even things that don’t need to be done, when there is the will and the attention to do so.
Of course, the Artemis program is also having its funding cut by the current administration. The SLS (Space Launch System) has been flagged for termination in recent budgets, and that’s shows to me how fickle and fragile this whole enterprise is. The original Apollo missions stopped (in part) due to lack of attention and it’s entirely possible that Artemis could hit that apathy even quicker.
What I’d really like to see is even more international cooperation, we already have the European Space Agency who provided the European Service Module which is a critical component of the Orion spacecraft. Getting more countries on-board could absolutely help balance out some of the inconsistencies caused by the whims of a single state executive. Space travel shouldn't be a nationalistic endeavor (frankly nothing should be) it should be something we do because we can only do it through cooperation.
And because Victor Glover, the pilot on the Artemis 2 mission, who is about a day away from being the farthest away from earth that any other human has ever been, listens to it every monday morning, here's a link to Whitey on the Moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4
I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. I loved (and love) the movie Apollo 13, as well as the documentary For All Mankind (not to be confused with the AppleTV alternate history series of the same name, which is good but not great).
I grew up watching Star Trek and still watch Star Trek. I love the idea of going to space. It’s the sort of thing that represents the best that humanity can be. Nobody can go to space alone. The only way to do it is through enormous effort and collaboration. From the deep understanding of math and physics and astronomy to give us the understanding that it’s even possible to the technicians and mechanics and other employees making the machines that send us to space to everyone involved in day to day operations of every part of space travel.
I watched the Artemis II mission launch on Wednesday evening. I watched as four people (along with the help of so many more) sat on top of a rocket getting ready to go farther away from earth than any human ever has. The first four people to go beyond low earth orbit since the 1970s when the Apollo program ended.
I cried watching the rocket. I expected to, and I did. Space travel is humanity doing the impossible. We do not belong in space. There is nothing about it (or the moon) that is even a little bit hospitable to human life. It almost seems purpose built to kill us, and that’s putting aside how hard it is to even get there.
I don’t really know if we need to go back to the moon. I’m pretty sure there aren’t a bunch of secrets that can only be uncovered by being physically present there instead of sending robots and rovers. I know for a fact one of the most ridiculous things that will be happening on an upcoming moon mission is that spare compute time on the lunar rover will be used to calculate pi in an incredibly silly way. I know this, because I helped pay for the project. I even have a mission patch. And the calculation we come up with will be less accurate than what we already f know pi to be!
That’s not the important thing though. There will be real science happening on the moon missions. I know that.
But.
But. I cannot cheer for humanity going back to the moon and not think about all of the other, very possible things we should and could also be doing. Putting humans on the moon is impossible. Curing Tuberculosis is possible, we have a cure, and have since the 1950s but it’s still the world’s deadliest communicable disease. Solving homelessness is possible, there are more empty housing units in the country on a given day than there are homeless people. Solving world starvation is possible, take 10% of Elon Musk’s wealth.
So even as I cheer the Artemis Program I still think about all the other places we can be putting the immense power and strength humanity has as a society if we just choose to do so.
I don’t even think there is a contradiction here. Going to the moon proves we can do impossible things, even things that don’t need to be done, when there is the will and the attention to do so.
Of course, the Artemis program is also having its funding cut by the current administration. The SLS (Space Launch System) has been flagged for termination in recent budgets, and that’s shows to me how fickle and fragile this whole enterprise is. The original Apollo missions stopped (in part) due to lack of attention and it’s entirely possible that Artemis could hit that apathy even quicker.
What I’d really like to see is even more international cooperation, we already have the European Space Agency who provided the European Service Module which is a critical component of the Orion spacecraft. Getting more countries on-board could absolutely help balance out some of the inconsistencies caused by the whims of a single state executive. Space travel shouldn't be a nationalistic endeavor (frankly nothing should be) it should be something we do because we can only do it through cooperation.
And because Victor Glover, the pilot on the Artemis 2 mission, who is about a day away from being the farthest away from earth that any other human has ever been, listens to it every monday morning, here's a link to Whitey on the Moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4