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.
Thank you, Geoffrey, for this article and the comments. Yes, it is beyond pathetic that these sociopaths can dominate space adventurism. But that has been the schema of all colonial expeditions by the “settlers” who “discovered” the Americas then promptly exploited then and slaughtered the Indigenous peoples by weapons and disease. Now Africa is the “New Frontier” https://reddmonitor.substack.com/p/indigenous-baka-people-accuse-african on Earth and Space the next frontier. But the Settler’s system of extractivism amounts to a war against Nature, while the Indigenous culture tries to live within our planetary boundaries, in harmony with Nature. One of these IS going to FAIL.
Brutal article by Chris. I read his work, too. Africa has been victimized by colonial powers for a very long time. I am watching for massive agricultural failure. Pakistan a couple of years ago was a good example with their unimaginable flooding. Here, I'm thinking about drought and agriculture. California is the fifth-biggest economy in the world, and groundwater is running out there and in many places on the planet. Here's my latest on the LNG plant Biden is "pausing." https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/giving-pause-to-disaster
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.
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.
Thank you, Geoffrey, for this article and the comments. Yes, it is beyond pathetic that these sociopaths can dominate space adventurism. But that has been the schema of all colonial expeditions by the “settlers” who “discovered” the Americas then promptly exploited then and slaughtered the Indigenous peoples by weapons and disease. Now Africa is the “New Frontier” https://reddmonitor.substack.com/p/indigenous-baka-people-accuse-african on Earth and Space the next frontier. But the Settler’s system of extractivism amounts to a war against Nature, while the Indigenous culture tries to live within our planetary boundaries, in harmony with Nature. One of these IS going to FAIL.
Brutal article by Chris. I read his work, too. Africa has been victimized by colonial powers for a very long time. I am watching for massive agricultural failure. Pakistan a couple of years ago was a good example with their unimaginable flooding. Here, I'm thinking about drought and agriculture. California is the fifth-biggest economy in the world, and groundwater is running out there and in many places on the planet. Here's my latest on the LNG plant Biden is "pausing." https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/giving-pause-to-disaster
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.