Okay, maybe not literally for some of us. But you know, we can all participate. Remember the space race? I mean, when you studied it in school, not like me, who remembers watching Neil Armstrong walking on the moon...live.
If, as Chris Hedges says, "War is a force that gives us meaning," and William James searched for "The Moral Equivalent of War", meaning something that challenged our greatest capacities and gave us our greatest solidarity as humans without involving bloodshed, doesn't a friendly competition to figure out how we can become a multi planet species, as Elon Musk suggests we must, make sense?
At any rate, after a dispiriting last couple of months,it was quite cheering to watch the incredible SpaceX launch and return undamaged of Falcon 9. As most of us have known since John Glenn, Star Trek and of course Star Wars, space is our future. So why are we wasting time duking it out down here?
Merry Christmas to those who observe it and happy holidays to everyone who gets through the dark days of the year with some kind of joyous (and peaceful) celebration.
Oh, yeah. And may be the Force be with you.
If, as Chris Hedges says, "War is a force that gives us meaning," and William James searched for "The Moral Equivalent of War", meaning something that challenged our greatest capacities and gave us our greatest solidarity as humans without involving bloodshed, doesn't a friendly competition to figure out how we can become a multi planet species, as Elon Musk suggests we must, make sense?
At any rate, after a dispiriting last couple of months,it was quite cheering to watch the incredible SpaceX launch and return undamaged of Falcon 9. As most of us have known since John Glenn, Star Trek and of course Star Wars, space is our future. So why are we wasting time duking it out down here?
Merry Christmas to those who observe it and happy holidays to everyone who gets through the dark days of the year with some kind of joyous (and peaceful) celebration.
Oh, yeah. And may be the Force be with you.
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Thanks for the current events report! I've been driving around listening to Simon Winchester tell about the masters of the Atlantic. We have so many challenges right now on Earth, but none of them have the glamour to capture the imagination of the population like the space race. Is that why masses are gravitating to the lowest common denominator rhetoric?
ReplyDeleteI was watching this on the Chris Hayes show and it was explained in more detail than I explained here on just what an incredible feat this was.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there are some huge things that we can and are banding together to work on, they tend to be about fixing things that are broken. I think we need something that gives our imaginations something positive to work on, something that expands our current sense of what it is to be human.
In any case, I'd like the rockets to be pointing upward rather than at each other.
Of course if there were creatures living on Mars, I wouldn't trust us with them...
Terraforming Mars will be the great project of the next 1000 years. Humans will do it, either Chinese humans or American humans or African humans or hopefully UN humans but it is going to get done.
ReplyDelete