From: markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr)
Subject: Re: Space, the final frontier
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:20:16 GMT
Organization: n.o.y.b


Ashley writes...
>Mark - 

>	I felt your post required me to respond. I'm not going to 
>argue any more on the space vs environmentalism thread that still rages, 
>but I wanted to answer your questions.

>>In article <1993Jan5.192441.10987@radian.uucp>, markbr%radian@natinst.com 
(markbr) writes...

>>On a related subject, I suspect there's a good chance several of you may have
>>missed a post I made late last month; certainly, I've seen neither reference
>>nor reaction to it. I will, therefore, restate it.
>> 
>>What *is* the purpose of the argument? Is it:
>> 	a) to convince the doubters that space is the answer to everything?
>>		(and I *still* haven't seen anyone claim this); or

>	Can't speak for others, but the point I have tried to make is 
>that space exploration and/or industry is not going to save the 
>envronment and should *not* be our first priority. To begin with, it 
>wouldn't happen in time to head off the impending global changes. The 
>earth is on the brink and if we continue to destry the ecosphere the way 
>we have then we really ARE done for. Social and technological change 
>must happen immediately to prevent a global change that will destroy the 
>human species.

>	Perfection of existing technology to a state where the resourses 
>we use are renewable (not the same as reycylable) is what we should be 
>devoting the main focus of our R&D to. Not technology reduction but 
>change and evolution of our sciences. I see this in a larger 
>evolutionary picture.

But who, among the proponents of space here, has suggested that space 
be our first priority, or the main focus of research? I think that most
of us here are aware enough of the real world to know that most research
goes into things like new drugs, new computer stuff, and new breakfast
cereal (and other consumer junk). 

Further, I believe that much of the technology for renewable resources
is actually available. The main problem is this wonderful capitalist
system, with the accent given it by this very country, which believes
that most renewable methods bring in less profit than disposable (e.g.,
the American car & planned obsolesence). Also, most of its entire orien-
tation is toward production of disposable, both in terms of physical
plant, and the mental slant of the people with the big money, big shares,
and big power over industry. 

So, in this wonnnderful ((B-{^}) world, cleansed of e-veil *COMMUNISM* &
SOCIALISM (excuse me, those of you from the UK & elsewhere, this country
really is as blind & brain-dead as you think, so we'll just not enlighten
them for the moment that much of the world has major parts of socialism
in place *in* the government), just how do you intend to change the 
corporate mind and culture, as well as getting them to buy into spending
BIG BUCKS in the middle of a depression?

>>	b) to convince some of us that have wanted space our entire lives
>>		to completely forget our dreams, that it's all fulla shit,
>>		and to wait until everything down here is perfect 
>>		(i.e., forever)?
>> 


>	Sorry you percieve this. That has not been my intent or the 
>intent of anybody else that I have seen. I know that I and some others 
>have wanted to pull a few heads out of the clouds, some of the blind 
>assertions made here have been rediculous. My information gathering 
>trip to the heart of the space industries has shown me just how realistic 
>a lot of these ideas are. And I don't buy the argument that these people 
>are turning a blind eye to better technologies as part of a conspiracy 
>to keep the expensive rockets making money for them. That's a lot 
>like the story that Detroit designed a car that runs on water in the 
>60's, but keeps it under wraps so that the gasoline industries won't 
>go broke.

Come on, there is a difference between evidenceless nifty bullshit and
something that is demonstrable and at least arguably possible. To compare
railguns (and other things) to the water engine is the same as Geordie
saying, in '88, that Dukakis' policies in MA were responsible for Willie
Horton (when, if I have it right, it was a Federal policy that D had no
control over that let him out).

>	I wish I had saved the post but someone here refered to the 
>Earth as a restrictive cradle that we have a manifest destiny to leave 
>or somthing like that. That kind of crap is what makes the idea of the 
>space frontier ugly to environmentalists. Imagine disregarding the 
>Earth in favor of playing in the stars! Ugh! The idea of using up the 
>Earth and then moving on is vile and disgusting and seems to be 
>something that some people on this thread have no objection to. 
>And I thought Pagans where Earth religionist people! Mankind needs the 
>Earth on a cross next?

No one referred to it as manifest destiny, nor has anyone suggested 
using up the Earth, and moving on. *Everyone* has spoken of, for example,
moving industry into space *explicitly* so that the Earth could be cleaned
up. Also, are you being an Earth chauvinist? Do not other worlds have
their beauty, and are they not deserving of care? You sound, above, like
the folks who, a hundred years ago, had never been more than 15 miles
from the place they were born, and *knew* that nowhere else was *any*
good, and *anyone* from elsewhere was *obviously* no good, or at least
suspicious. 

Do not most pagans recognize Luna as a symbol of the Goddess? What would
it be like to have a ceremony *on* the Moon? And with the ultimate
symbol of Gaia in the sky? (Where, for matter, did all those photos come
from? (rhetorical question)

>	None the less I would have you keep dreaming, as dreams fuel the 
>future, but from what I have leaned by talking to the folks working on 
>Space Station Freedom and other projects, you and I aren't going to travel 
>to the stars or even the planets in this lifetime. I'm sorry if that is 
>disheartening, but that is the reality of it as far as I have learned. 
>We can send robots to explore for us though. Hell, we already sent one 
>to Mars. 
>
>	These are some of the points I have tried to make. Does this 
>summary help?

>		Havest moons and coyote songs to you,
>				- Ashley
Ashley,

   Yes, the summary helps. Does it help your case? No. What you write in
your final paragraph does crystallize my attittude. You sound like someone
who pictures themselves as an older aunt, patting the head-in-the-clouds,
several-cards-short-off-a-deck 12-year-old on the head, saying those are
lovely stories, and thinking, "too bad he's so dumb/crazy". I will point
out that you seem to have a problem with anything to do with space: from
science fiction, to fans, believers in space, to actual space development.
You have yet to show *any* acceptance of any validity of our ideas.

   Twenty years ago, were you to ask almost anyone on the street whether
they thought that you'd be able to buy a ticket into space, or maybe even
the moon, by the 90's, the answer would have been, "of course", figuring
that it would cost as much as, say, a trip to Australia now. Pan Am was
even selling tickets (as a promotional gimmick) at one point, for a dollar
or so. Twenty years before that, ask anyone in the street if we could ever
reach the Moon, and you'd have been thought crazy. You are the one who has
had too many years of propoganda in "lowered expectations", as, probably,
had the folks you spoke to. How old were they? I understand that, at NASA,
many of the people have been there for 20 years & more, and that they're
having some problem replacing some of these folks as they retire. To sum
it up, a friend (who works for NASA) sent me a cartoon that should a
superhero type, walking along on a street with dark glasses and a cane,
with two people talking quietly in the foreground, and the caption read,
"Is it true he could fly once?". That's you (the speaker). There are
others of us who remember, and hope for a better tomorrow. Robots to Mars.
Tell me, have you ever had a long-distance relationship? Let me tell you
that going to bed with a plastic telephone does *not* resemble, in any
way, going to be with a real, live, human person. Being able to see it,
and not *touch* it, in some ways is worse. *I* want to *personally* walk
on ontrodden snow, to leave *my* footprints in Moon dust, in the red
sands of Mars.  This summer, for the first time in person, I saw, and 
heard,
    "...Presently, there came echoing down from the heavens, the greatest
sound that Man had ever made, the sound of air, falling, mile upon mile,
into a tunnel suddenly drilled across the sky." 
(_Against the Fall of Night_/_City and the Stars_, Arthur C. Clarke). The 
sound of a spaceship leaving Earth. On the day that I die, I will still 
hold hope that I may yet get out of my cradle in the flesh, and touch the 
sky.  Perhaps, to you, they are coyote songs, a dog howling at the moon;
to me, you have your head in the clods. If the Goddess is at all, she is
in the sky as well as the Earth. To deny one is to deny both.  I will 
accept both, instead.


Hope Eyrie

Words and music (C) Copyright by Leslie Fish

Worlds grow old and suns grow cold
And death we never can doubt.
TIme~s cold wind wailing down the past,
Reminds us that all flesh is grass
And history~s lamps blow out.
	But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
	Time won~t drive us down to dust again.

Cycles turn while the far stars burn,
And people and planets age.
Life~s crown passes to younger lands,
Time brushes dust of hope from his hands
And turns another page.
	But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
	Time won~t drive us down to dust again.

But we who feel the weight of the wheel
When winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes
To a silver moon in the opened skies
And a single flag unfurled.
	But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
	Time won~t drive us down to dust again.

We know well what Life can tell:
If you would not perish, then grow.
And today our fragile flesh and steel 
Have laid their hands on a vaster wheel
With all of the stars to know
	That the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
	Time won~t drive us down to dust again.

From all who tried out of history~s tide,
Salute for the team that won.
And the old Earth smiles at her children~s reach,
The wave that carried us up the beach
To reach for the shining sun.
	For the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
	Time won~t drive us down to dust again.









Xref: sparky alt.pagan:15233 talk.religion.misc:25799 alt.atheism:25631 alt.slack:3659