Just a few thoughts on the Pathfinder discussion, since I didn't get a chance
to write anything about it all week. I was frankly surprised at how negative
people were about the space program -- I hope there are a lot of listmembers
out there who are more positive about space exploration but less outspoken.
Just a couple thoughts:
1)the Pathfinder mission cost about the same as _Waterworld_ to make. Think
about it.
2)If we eliminate space exploration and space science, who knows what future
technologies we will be throwing away? People may say that space isn't
worthwhile, but they're just guessing.
3)space exploration is humanity's only chance for opening up the closed
system of Earth and Sun. If we are confined to Earth's resources, we are
forced to choose between glaring injustice and poverty for everybody.
4)Mars was remarkably Earthlike 4 billion years ago; there was a thick
atmosphere and liquid oceans. Now Mars is an airless icy desert. Since we
are messing around with our own planet's environment, it might be a good idea
to figure out what went wrong on our sister planet.
5)The thrill of discovery seems to me to be a human trait, not a "masculist"
one. Over the 4th of July weekend, a substantial proportion of the world was
watching the news from Mars. (Although probably not as many as watched the
OJ trial verdict)
To address what some other listmember said:
>Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 03:10:04 -0600
>From: Holly Yasui <hollyy@SPRYNET.COM>
>Subject: Re: Mars/social justice
>I too am concerned about "a continuation of the colonizing mentality and
>activity that resulted in the theft of land and genocide of the native
>peoples of the Americas." I find it interesting that "first contact"
>masculist sf usually has some kind of mindless War of the Worlds
>confrontation in which the aliens are simply the dreaded "Other" (the only
>good alien is a dead alien). Whereas the feminist version (especially
>Butler) conveys complex possibilities that value the alien's (Other's)
>individual personality and culture.
I am not sure what people mean by this. The Moon is a lifeless rock, the
asteroids are rocks, Mars may have underground puddles of bacteria, Europa is
the only body in the solar system other than Earth that *might* support
complex life. Humanity's opportunities for genocide seem to be sharply
limited. Are you opposed to any sort of exploration, or to tapping natural
resources outside of Earth, or just to human colonization of space?
Also, doesn't anyone remember that H.G. Wells' _War of the Worlds_ was
a scathing commentary on colonialism?
>Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:43:03 -0400
>From: CMUNSON <CMUNSON@AAAS.ORG>
>Subject: Re: Mars/social justice
>As much as I am interested in SF, and utopian feminist fiction, and Babylon
>5, I have serious reservations about the manned (staffed?) space program. I
>like things like satellites and the recent Mars probe, but I seriously
>question sending people into space when we can't solve our problems down
>here. BTW, I think you all should become familiar with the controversy
>surrounding the upcoming Cassini Mission--if that fails lots of people
>could die.
How seriously do you all take those Utopias, anyway? I find it hard
to imagine that we will ever "solve our problems" here on Earth. Waiting to
explore space until everything is perfect on Earth seems a little like
waiting to have kids until everything in your life is completely under
control. Also, no one seems to even consider that the space program might
help the wretched of the Earth -- not just in technological spinoffs, but in
the vast natural resources in space (metals, ice, solar power...).
>Anyway, if you look at the NASA budget by itself it doesn't look like much,
>so we have to ask ourselves How are they doing all these space things on a
>pittance?
>The answer?
>Military spending.
>While NASA's line in the budget may not look big, it benefits indirectly
>from the huge miltary/industrial complex. It uses some facilities that are
>military, or were developed by the military. It employs pilots who were
>trained in the military. It benefits from research conducted in
>universities which are heavily funded by the military, especially in the
>areas of science (maybe the reason why our libraries are so underfunded is
>that they produce little of use to the military).
I agree with your basic point, but most of your criticisms of NASA could
be leveled just as well at the Internet! After 45 years of a Cold War
an awful lot of society's institutions have become entwined with the
military.
>Janice E. Dawley said:
>Paul Feyerabend, an outspoken critic of the scientific establishment,
>said (in _Science in a Free Society_) re: the US moon trip of 1969:
>"Of course, our well-conditioned materialistic contemporaries are liable to
>burst with excitement over events such as the moonshots, the double helix,
>non-equilibrium thermodynamics. But let us look at the matter from a
>different point of view, and it becomes a ridiculous exercise in futility.
>It needed billions of dollars, thousands of well-trained assistants, years
>of hard work to enable some inarticulate and rather limited contemporary to
>perform a few graceless hops in a place nobody in his right mind would
>think of visiting - a dried out, airless, hot stone."
>He overstates it a bit, but in essence I have to agree with him.
[snip]
Without even getting into the arrogance of Feyerabend's riff about
"well-conditioned materialistic contemporaries," I find this quote amazing
coming from someone on this list... I always thought one of the brilliant
things about Science Fiction as opposed to mainstream literature was that
S.F. noticed that technology actually effects everyday life. To be
completely uninterested in the moonshots, DNA (i.e. the secret of life) and
thermodynamics (i.e. how the universe works) seems to me to speak of either
lack of education, lack of imagination, or sheer bloodyminded Luddism.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Okay, out of the car, Helmut"
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