As NASA prepares to mothball the 30 year-old shuttle program, I want to take some time to say farewell to one of humanity's greatest achievements and possibly make some sarcastic remarks about related and non-related things. To start with, I am a huge fan of NASA, the ISS ISS, comet-violating space probes, and mankind expanding into the vast blackness of space in general. When I say, '...vast blackness...' I really mean it. I believe the late, great Douglas Adams said it best:
“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.”This comes from a guy who stretched a trilogy into six books, so you know it's legit.
For just a second, let me address the people from the 'We don't need to explore space, we need to solve our problems here on the ground' camp. First of all, fuck you. Seriously, fuck you. Do you have any idea what kind of amazing things you use daily, came from NASA, JPL, and the Space Race? Here's a short list:
It also allowed for this, the most bad ass thing a single human being has ever done:
Moving on. Another thing we need to consider is the impact exploration of all kinds has on the human psyche. human beings are meant to look forward, strive for the next peak, long for new lands, and yearn for the gentle caress of foreign stars. This planet ain't getting any bigger, Dear Readers, and we're going to need to colonize the moon, Mars, and maybe Europa to make sure we survive. NASA must continue it's mission to explore the universe, humans from all over the globe must look to the sky, or we'll go crazy. Then die.
Technically, Adams only wrote the first 5 books of the trilogy...
ReplyDeleteTrue, but the Artemis Fowl guy was working off of Douglas' notes when he wrote the last one. Also, 5 points to Gryffindor for knowing that little bit of trivia!
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