Getting to the bottom of things...

So the other day was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. And I watched and read myriad testimonials, recollections and recountings of that singular event. It all blew my mind, made my imagination run wild. On one show they replayed the six moon EVAs, showing the astronauts galavanting giddily around the surface of the moon, collecting rocks, playing golf, unfurling flags, etc. And it was just insane; men had gone back and forth to the moon 40 yrs ago, landed six times, left flags and rovers and s**t and ain't been back since. Can't go back either, as there's currently no vehicle or support system, no current technology that would allow men to return. Many articles dwelled on this incongruity, mainly within the context of questioning what should be the ongoing mission of the US space program, ie mars vs. moon, manned spaceflight vs. robotic, etc. Few seemed to get into the underlying social ramifications/implications, other than in passing, of a society which spent approx $135 billion (in todays dollars) on sending men on an exploration during an epoch of such social upheaval and rampant poverty. As the song poet Gil Scott-Heron commented at the time, "No hot water, no toilets, no lights yet whitey's on the moon..." Well well...But I'm not going to delve deeper into that thicket here. I will say I'm torn about human space exploration. It does indeed seem difficult to me to justify it when there are so many pressing issues here on earth. That I'm a sci fi nerd to the extreme who can quote star wars chapter and verse does little to assuage my ambivalence. My vacillation, though, is about more than economics; I'm all for human exploration of the cosmos. I just have a hard time getting super excited about sub-interstellar space exploration (however when they get a warp drive going I reserve the right to change my position) when there's so much of our own planet that we've yet to fully survey. Indeed, we barely have the technology to research our earth's least accessible areas, such as the bottom of the ocean. I'm an advocate of exhausting our knowledge of the earth, of our home, before we broaden out to the 'stars'.

So I'm hoping here to draw attention to this interesting quirk of human (american?) thought processes: the notion that going beyond the earth is somehow more exciting, more challenging and more valuable than exploring here on earth. Although I haven't the time nor deep interest to explore it fully, I wonder whether this is in fact a truism for a majority of people on earth regardless of nationality or a uniquely American perception. Or perhaps a product of our modern media culture. I wonder if statistics would even bare out my initial premise? Be that as it may, on the face of things I'd probably posit, as some others have, that what I'll call 'space exceptionalism' is a modern phenomenon intrinsic to Americans. It may be in part a relic of the cold war era, of the post WWII era. I mean, there was a time not long ago when triumphant explorers received ticker tape parades in the US. It wasn't so long ago that the american public knew the names of prominent archeologists, paleontologists, astronomers, etc. (and poets, composers, painters and other esoteric fields but thats another kettle o' fish). Gradually and increasingly I'd say we're becoming desensitized by the glut of information available to us and by the wizardry and whip appeal of consumer technology. As more and more men achieve, the once hardly imaginable has become almost mundane. Take for example the scaling of Mt. Everest, a once scarcely fathomable trek with nearly impossible odds against success. It's still considered quite a challenging feat but now folks take cameras - - and even camera crews - - up with them and back home many of us watch less with awe than with detached curiosity. I sense that we've become a culture that's loath to be impressed by anything or anyone. Television commercials tell us we're inadequate all day long, that we constantly are in need of this or that, and I'd say part of the defense mechanism of our collective psyche is to overcompensate and over-inflate our egos. We cannot stand for others to be 'above' us, we need to feel that even our heroes are 'just like us'. We constantly seek opportunity to expose their weaknesses, thereby making them more ordinary. Reminds me a bit of the premise in the movie "The Incredibles" where the antagonist super villain hoped to create a world where, (and I'm paraphrasing)' everybody is super so that no one is super.' I wonder if there's a sociological study out there which gets into the health of the American super ego? Of course we really don't need any study to tell us that whole lotta folks are having a hard time loving themselves these days, which means they likely have a significantly impeded ability to care deeply about the needs of others as well..

But on to the really important stuff, the sci fi: here's a couple links which deal with how much of our planet we've yet to explore:

This first link is a WIRED article discussing the various depths of the ocean and how little we know about depths beyond seven miles down. The main crux of my internal argument against the space program deals with the idea that we cannot readily put a man on the bottom of the ocean or near the center of the earth and yet we're talking about...whitey on the moon/mars. I mean wake me when they get to the earth's crust (or develop the aforementioned warp drive). I'm only awake now because we got a black president but that novelty may soon wear off...

WIRED 12.12.08: "Dive! Dive! Dive!"

This one on the surface sounds on its face like sci fi nuttiness (spoiler: its about living dinosaurs) but who can really say until we actually go into these places/environments, have a good look around and...strip mine the whole g*dd**n place like you KNOW we will! :-/o

True Authority.com: " The Mokele-mbembe"

So my message is explore innerspace, day dream about outerspace...at least until we get a warp drive and a transporter and all that s**t...and we'll need some photon torpedos too, just in case there's some hostile cats or renegade asteroids and stuff out there too...