Space Rats
Egomaniacs don’t belong in space
When I was a little kid, the first series of Star Trek came out. My parents moaned and groaned while I watched (it was hokey, viewed through an adult’s eyes), but it fueled my imagination and filled me with dreams and wonder. The idea of discovering other worlds and beings was incredibly exciting.
On July 20, 1969, shortly after Star Trek was created, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. I vividly remember the grainy black and white images of him cautiously descending the ladder of the lunar module and setting foot on the surface. His words famously were, “That’s one small step for man, one great leap for mankind.” One could pick those words apart today, 52 years later, with our heightened awareness of equality, but let’s not. That day was an incredible achievement for the entire human race.
I believe in the importance of exploring space. Before the invention of the telescope, through his brilliance, Copernicus postulated and was correct that the earth circles the sun, not the other way around. He was exploring the heavens with his naked eye, wonder, and education. Minds such as his are responsible for our understanding and growing knowledge of the universe, and a glimmer of our incredible good fortune to exist and be self-aware in a mystery so incomprehensibly vast, ancient and indifferent.
Humans have always been explorers, seeking to find something they’ve never seen before. Our curiosity is innate. Our history is one of exploration, invention and discovery. That history makes me wonder, though, about our fitness to explore space. I wonder because exploration on our own planet led to the enslavement of people with less technology and exploitation and theft of their resources, justified by labeling them heathens and inferior. If we manage to avoid exterminating ourselves through global warming or nuclear war and continue to explore space, is this the behavior we can to expect going forward? Will we become the alien monsters we watch in science fiction films attacking planet Earth?
The latest development in space exploration is its privatization by a handful of billionaires. We have Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. Just days ago, Elon Musk’s SpaceX took four wealthy civilians for a quick ride out of the Earth’s atmosphere and back again for a cool quarter of a million dollars each. Soon, William Shatner (Captain Kirk of the starship Enterprise, of course) will do the same on Blue Origin’s New Shepard. I wonder if this is the beginning of routine space tourism as our planet gasps for air. I once read that a single space shuttle launch created air pollution equivalent to the state of Ohio for an entire year. If these launches become routine, what will the environmental fallout be?
Amusingly, per what we do, we have already filled space around our planet with trash. According to NASA, as of May 26, 2021, 27,000 objects of space debris are circling the planet that can be tracked. Much more is too small to track and whirling around at 15,700 mph. I don’t know about you, but the prospect of getting whacked in the head with anything at 15,700 mph doesn’t sound appealing to me.
What are these egotistical billionaires true motives? As polar ice caps melt, sea levels rise, and ever more destructive weather events increase in frequency, wouldn’t it be cozy if they and their billionaire friends could fly off to Mars and leave the homeless hordes they and their predecessor robber barons created behind? While they’re flying well-heeled tourists into space to pay for their endeavors, they are also assembling teams of scientists, nutritionists, engineers and doctors they will need to colonize Mars. While they’re assembling their teams, they’ll pretend it’s a story about humanity’s noble quest for knowledge.
After all, they can’t wait until the planet is truly out of gas. They know we’ll be coming for them in their towers, mansions and gated communities with our pitchforks and rakes. They’re not stupid, just self-serving narcissists.
Thank you, Gary. To me, as appealing as it is to fantasize about, human space travel, it makes little sense at this time. The economics of it are wrong (it's many times cheaper and more productive to use unpersoned space craft (I refuse to say unmanned). I also think from a moral and philosophical perspective we are not nearly evolved enough to go into space responsibly. Until we stop little details down here like committing torture and genocide we are not fit or deserving to go forth. I'm not naive enough to to believe we will pause to allow our primitive instincts to catch up to our technical prowess, but I do believe it's important to use our voices. We can affect everything going forward if we organize. We have to keep voting in elections, dreary as that is, but more importantly start voting with our money. That is the most direct way to change.
I agree with everything you've written here. I think that that space exploration (ie mining asteroids, etc. for scarce minerals) is the ultimate goal of Bezos and Musk, along with the ridiculous amounts of money that will ultimately result from this. The arrogance of Bezos in particular is appalling. His current lawsuit against NASA will benefit him and no one else. At this point I'm not even sure its about money for him. Musk is a jackass, but I think his motivations aren't quite as suspect as Bezos'. Maybe I'm wrong. He certainly has distain for all of his employees, whether they work for Space X or Tesla. Richard Branson? I think he's interested in developing space tourism and he's dumped a LOT of money into his endeavors, but I'm unclear on how pure his motivations are and if he ultimately sees this turning into mineral exploration. He seems like a bit less of a jerk than the other two, but he's done plenty of shady stuff in the past.
Space is certainly the next frontier (probably not the "final frontier") and as depressing and maddening it is seeing the ultra rich being the only ones able to afford this right now (the price of space tourism is likely to go down in the future, but will probably still be unaffordable for most). The pollution from each launch is also depressing. I don't see it changing any time soon.