James

A Question for the Second Millennium

 Posted by on Fri, 11/18 at 11:55am  proposal  1 Response »
Nov 182016
 

With our living in an era of world history whereas yet no human has visited a celestial body beyond Earth besides our moon, some very fundamental questions are raised about the nature of a foreign planets’ reality. This is not to suggest that the planets themselves do not exist or are not real, but rather is meant to raise the question of whether or not the divergence between the Saturn as we conceive of it and Saturn as it really is has any serious implications philosophically, historically and/or sociologically. The historical practice of giving credence to a conception of what a place is rather than submitting to a critical analysis of place’s nature has had impacts that, significant or not, have had lasting implications today. One of the less historically significant but perhaps more illustrative examples is the continued use of the word Indian to refer to Native Americans who were once for a short while believed to be of the Indian subcontinent. A more powerful and historically significant example can be found in the misguided assumption of European visitors to Africa that the race they found there truly was inferior and thus enslaving them was not abominable.

Historically, the divergence between truth and a sociological construct of truth has had implications and despite the lack of native populations on foreign celestial bodies, the divergence between our imagined concept of a planet and the planet we’ll someday visit must have implications for the visitors in one sense or another. Psychologically, what will be the expense of living or working on a planet or moon which no human has touched, seen or experienced in all of history? Will the new environment be more new and therefore alien than the visitors could have imagined with the current imaginary toolkit given to us by our lives on Earth? But the question’s not just important in terms of what may or may not befall our race’s future explorers, but is of very real significance today because it illuminates our species’ situation as one in which there is a finite reality we can experience as a people limited to a singular world. Understanding that the universe is larger than ourselves in terms of not only size and scope but in terms of what realities are and are not truly available to us is important in formulating an understanding of who we are as a people and more importantly what discoveries will be open to future generations, provided we make an effort today to provide those future generations with the infrastructure to explore space and the universe.

Bigelow Aerospace

 Posted by on Sun, 11/13 at 11:41pm  reading  No Responses »
Nov 132016
 

I’ve discussed throughout my blogs and my first essay Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. But until now I have overlooked another very important private company what, like SpaceX, is attempting to dramatically reduce the costs of going to and from space. The only difference between SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace is that rather than constructing rockets, businessman Robert Bigelow is concerned with creating places for astronauts to live. Like SpaceX, Bigelow is attempting to solve the problem of huge costs in the space industry by taking an innovative approach to the issue. Rather than continue letting NASA spend millions of dollars on heavy, difficult to construct metal sections of the ISS, Bigelow wants to pioneer a new era of inflatable space habitations. The idea is that if your space “houses” are inflatable, not only will the difficulty of constructing them be dramatically reduced, but the cost in rocket fuel as well: they’ll be much lighter. Not only that, but Bigelow asserts that his habitats’s 18 inch thick walls will better protect astronauts from spaces debris and radiation. The trick to making all this possible is the material called kevlar, a fabric used to make bullet proof vests. In May of this year, a Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or B.E.A.M. was sent to the ISS and upon successfully docking with and becoming a “part” of the ISS, inflated with nitrogen and oxygen to its full size. As of yet, the B.E.A.M. is not being inhabited by humans. It is still undergoing testing which means that the module, over the course of 2 years will be visited four times a year by astronauts to ensure that everything onboard the B.E.A.M. onboard is running smoothly. If the tests are positive, Bigelow and his inflatable habitats are one step closer to becoming a big part of our presence in space. Bigelow’s hopes for the B.E.A.M. is that it can one day be used as a habitat for visitors to the Moon or to Mars. IN the short term, however, he foresees further use of his B.E.A.M. aboard the ISS and even, he says, as habitats for space tourists. Almost comically, this is not surprising. Bigelow made his fortune as the owner of a line of cheap hotels in the south western United States. It’s doesn’t take a wild imagination to see how Bigelow went from owning a chain of low budget hotels to pioneering inexpensive habitats in space. Like Bigelow Aerospace, Robert Bigelow the man has his eccentricities. Despite breaking into the ever growing group of “space entrepreneurs” Bigelow is remarkably old fashioned. He does not own a laptop and does not use email. His inspiration for space, he says, came as a child from his grandparents telling him of an encounter they believed to have had with a UFO. Robert Bigelow is a firm believer in extraterrestrial life.

Green

 Posted by on Sun, 11/13 at 10:44pm  ideas  No Responses »
Nov 132016
 

I know it’s probably not the best idea to get too political with these blog posts, but I think it’s safe to say – taking into consideration the apparent political climate of the classroom – that I was disheartened by Tuesday’s results. Now you may find it odd coming from a history and philosophy double-major to hear that above all else, I look for environmentalism in candidates. Well-fare, the 2nd amendment, international relations (with perhaps an exception where nuclear warheads are concerned) are issues that are largely transitory, and, while significant in a historic timeframe, are insignificant when considering the age and geologic timeframe of the earth.

You’ve heard me compare geologic and historic time before, but this time I’ll focus on the implications of environmentalism or the lack thereof. What it all boils down to is this. Think of human history as a collection of books (which shouldn’t be too hard to do). Now “history” (when applied to human histories) is just a written or oral record, so history is reliant upon civilization. So many – including myself – think of human history as beginning around 6,000 years ago when the first recorded civilization emerged in what was called Sumer. Now our collection of books has its first bookend. That bookend is set at the beginning of history/civilization. But it is up to us, the heirs of the civilizations of the four “Great River Valleys” to determine how many more books will have the chance to be added to the story of civilization and where the final bookend will be placed. This, I believe, is the fundamental core of environmentalism. It’s protection of the human race and human history which concerns me. Think of it this way. You want to live healthy. You want to be free of aches and pains, sickness and disease. You want to live comfortably for as long as possible. So what do you do? You eat healthy. Civilization (it doesn’t feel it yet because it is young) will someday become truly concerned with it’s diet. But what is the equivalent to “diet” for a civilization? The air. The trees. The seas. The gardens and flowers. The foxes and bears. The deer and the birds. Nature, as we understand it, is essentially the salad (for lack of a better stereotypical “health” food) of civilization. It is essential for the prolonged health of civilization. With out it lifespans would be shortened, arable regions shrunken, and life would be less beautiful and less inspiring. The natural beauty of the world is what made us what we are today, and we rely upon it to become what we want to be tomorrow. I only hope the rocket will never need become a lifeboat for our nearsighted species. But if it comes to that, I also hope we do not delay in using it as one. Human history, philosophy and art are so important to me, and I hope they are important to you too, that I think a respect for the humanities necessitates a deep concern for future generations and doing all that can be done to ensure that the final bookend of human civilization is placed as far from today as possible.

People are Becoming More Aware of the History of Space Technology, and Via Modern Technology are Becoming More Aware of Our Place in the Milky Way Galaxy

 Posted by on Sun, 11/6 at 11:35pm  ideas, reading  No Responses »
Nov 062016
 

London’s Museum of Science has recently opened a unique exhibit dedicated to the Soviet’s space program. The exhibit is exciting because it is the largest collection of Russian space program artifacts ever gathered in a single location. It features many artifacts that are exciting in themselves, including the craft piloted by the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, and the first artwork ever produced in space, a colored pencil drawing of the sunrise as seen from Alexei Leonov’s space module. Alexei Leonov, the artist, is also remembered as the first man to preform a spacewalk. The museum features, alongside obviously space  related artifacts, some other less obvious artifacts which have their own unique stories. For example, one of the objects featured at the museum is a 1959 bottle of champaign from French winemaker Henri Maire, whom after having his claim that spacecraft would never see the dark side of the moon discredited after the Russian successfully did so, sent a thousand bottles to the Russian Academy of Sciences. The exhibit then is really geared toward making the history of Soviet space travel interesting to the Western public, an effort which I feel is really and truly important. Such efforts paint a picture of the history of space travel until now as a history for all mankind, not just one race or one nation. The museum is currently home to 150 artifacts from Russia’s long and incredibly important history of space exploration, giving Londoners and London’s multitudinous visitors a chance to discover just how inspiring Russia’s space program can be. And looking back on space travel’s history can help us better appreciate and understand what’s happening right here in the present.

Currently, the European Space Agency is orchestrating a mission which I believe will prove to be of an enormous help to astronomers and to laymen interested in their place in the universe. The Gaia space observatory, launched in 2013, is currently in the process of photographing and mapping the Milk Way galaxy. It’s mission will help astronomers in giving them accurate reliable knowledge and will help lay men by giving them access to a similar knowledge through the photographs which the craft will send back. Gaia will help the human race better understand the galaxy, a realm of space much larger and much less well studied than our solar system, and thus all the more ripe for scientific observation. Understanding space, either in the form of understanding the technologies of far-off nations who initially brought us there, or in the form of gaining a better idea of the map, size and composition of the Milky Way is really important for a human race who because of the very forces of modernization that introduced us to space travel are becoming more distanced from the natural beauty of the stars. New studies show that now a third of the human race cannot see the Milky Way due to light pollution. These figures are much worse in the most modernized and technologically motivated regions on earth, North America and Europe, were these figures stand at 80% and 60% lack of visibility respectively. It becomes important to understand that as the history of technology progresses and we become more advanced, we need to ensure that we are utilizing those advancements to better rather than diminish our human experience and our understanding of our place in the universe, lest we become self-centered and miss the beauties in the world greater than ourselves.  

 

Soyuz & Factionalism in Space

 Posted by on Wed, 11/2 at 10:07am  artifact networks & relationships  No Responses »
Nov 022016
 

1. My chosen artifact is…

Soyuz

Classify your artifact. Classifications are helpful to understanding your artifact. Once you’ve placed your particular artifact in a larger group, you can make connections between your artifact and the general characteristics associated with that group. In addition, sometimes describing your artifact from within a larger, more generalized framework makes it easier to identify important features. Usually, an artifact can classified in various ways and placed in a number of groups.

2. How do you classify your artifact? In what groups can you place your artifact? What connections can you make to other artifacts in the group

Classifications

  • It’s Russian/Soviet
  • It’s a manned spacecraft
  • Cold War Era

Connections

  • It docks with (gets astronauts to and fro) the ISS
  • Originally designed during the same period the Apollo spacecraft were designed and for the same purpose, manned lunar landings
  • Created by a nation who is responsible for many space ‘firsts’ and highly advanced spacecraft and space probes
  • Replaced the Shuttle for U.S. Astronauts

Compare and contrast the artifact. Comparing your artifact to others allows you to generate new ideas about your artifact.

3. Identify points of similarity between your artifact and others. Then identify points of difference with other artifacts. How is it similar? How is it different?

  • Similar to the Space Shuttle in that it is used to get astronauts to and from the ISS
  • Similar to the Shuttle in that like the Shuttle, the Soyuz lands on dry land (as opposed to the Apollo-era water landings)
  • Similar to the Apollo spacecraft in that it was designed to get men/women to the moon
  • Designed in the same decade (1960’s) as the Apollo spacecraft
  • Different from the Shuttle in that the Soyuz is not entirely reusable
  • Different from the Shuttle in it is 20 years older than the Shuttle, and is Russian, not American
  • Different than the Apollo craft in that it was never used to land on the moon

Create an analogy or metaphor for your artifact. Analogies and metaphors are ways of making connections between your artifact and other artifacts (anything goes… items of clothing, locations, holidays, texts, products, etc.). Be creative here… try to make (il)logical leaps.

4. What metaphors or analogies suit your artifact? (Explain if needed)

The Soyuz is like the ancient trebuchet, a medieval siege weapon similar to a catapult. The trebuchet originated in the East (China, but keep in mind the Soyuz originated in the east as well, in Russia) and eventually came west (as the Soyuz is now used to by U.S. astronauts) into the Middle East and Europe, where it was used in medieval times to replace catapult siege technology. The French gave the weapon it’s current name in English.

Examine cultural narratives. Cultural narratives are common storylines used throughout culture, telling how things typically happen. Once you identify cultural narratives that apply to your artifact, you can examine them for assumptions and stereotypes. For example, stereotypes (or rigid, generalized ideas about the character and behavior of people with certain identities) are a kind of assumption (or set of assumptions). As with cultural narratives, you may think you are not affected by these assumptions and stereotypes. However, their pervasive presence in the culture means that everyone is affected by them. Naming these assumptions stereotypes can aid you when describing the impact of culture and values on your particular artifact (or your artifact’s impact on culture and values).

The assumptions operating in cultural narratives found in movie plots and song lyrics also get played out in social practices and social institutions. Social practices are shared, habitual ways of doing things. A variety of guidelines exist for the social practice of dating, for instance: who will initiate the date, who will decide where to go, who will pay. Social institutions are larger, more formalized organization the direct our shared social structures. Questions to explore (pick and choose):

5. How is your artifact characterized? (How do people/media/groups characterize it?)

It is characterized by people and the media as space-age technology. They feel distanced from the Soyuz (partially due to a literal distance) and therefore characterize it as fitting into an exclusive group of astronauts and their highly advanced gadgets. Many citizens of a nation feel that spacecraft like the Soyuz are not the best use of their tax money and therefore feel distanced from some of the rewards they might feel they’d otherwise receive from paying taxes.

6. What cultural narratives govern your artifact?

The Soyuz is interesting because Soviet-Era spacecraft in general are known as existing as part of a highly tense period of world history in which nuclear power invoked fear in the enemies of those nations which possessed it. People began to feel animosity toward the whole of the culture/society that possessed the weapons of mass destruction, so fears ran high over communism (in the U.S.) and capitalism (in Russia). In the U.S., most of us believe we “won” Cold War and that our spacecraft, ideologies and economy came out on top. The current use of the Soyuz by U.S. astronauts does something to destabilize that traditional narrative.

7. What assumptions, stereotypes, habits, social practices, and institutions frame your artifact?

As stated above, Soviet-era technology is associated with communism, dictatorship, nuclear capabilities (and thus fear), and with the fact that the U.S. “won” out against all of these factors and that our capitalism, democratic republic, and nuclear capabilities/space technology is therefore superior.

8. What doctrines or practices affect your artifact? (Or, what doctrines or practices you’re your artifact affect?) Political parties and platforms? Religious? Ideological? Which ones? Are there cultural “rules” and practices? Which?

Communism and dictatorship is a big ideology which affects the image of the Soyuz. It is associated with the Cold War, so in many ways U.S. spacecraft and space programs are seen as representing capitalism (often associated here in the U.S. with freedom) and democracy. The Soviets also represented atheism, whereas we branded ourselves a God fearing people, and our space program came to reflect that (listen to Ronald Reagan’s reference to God in his speech following the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster). Nowadays, Russian society (and thus technology) still carries residual tones of authoritarianism in the ears of many Americans.

9. How does your artifact affect culture? How does culture affect your artifact?

The artifact seems to represent closer relations between the U.S. and Russia (Certain political figures and current events are working to undermine that). American use of the Soyuz in my mind is working to shift the cultural picture of space travel from a fictionalized scrabble for supremacy into a team effort toward a common goal.

Venus: Very Hot, Less Than Beautiful

 Posted by on Sun, 10/30 at 11:30pm  reading  No Responses »
Oct 302016
 

Venus has sometimes been described as Earth’s twin because of it’s similar size (Venus’s diameter is only 400 miles less than Earth’s) and it’s similar geologic structure and composition. But in very other way Venus is very unlike Earth. Venus is exceedingly hot, it’s atmosphere being hot enough to melt lead. The planet’s average atmospheric temperature is even hotter than it’s inner neighbor, Mercury, because of it’s abundant atmosphere of carbon dioxide. If you are familiar with concerns here on earth about the introduction of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, look no further than Venus for an example of just how hot greenhouse gases can make a planet. The carbon dioxide traps the heat from the sun and from Venus’s vicious volcanic activity in the atmosphere, raising it to 867 degrees fahrenheit. But that’s not as bad as Venus gets. The planet’s thick cloud layer is composed mainly of dangerous sulfuric acid. The atmosphere and cloud layer is thick, too, meaning that the surface of Venus is a dark, gloomy world and that it’s atmospheric pressure is 90 times greater than Earth’s. Obviously these conditions combine to create a destination that is not among the first choices for human explores. The space industry has learned this through some experience. The Soviet Union sent unmanned probes there, called the Venera spacecrafts, with the intention of learning more about the planet Venus. Most of the Venera spacecraft were crushed by Venus’s intense atmospheric pressure before they made it to the surface. The Veneras 13 and 14, which did make it to the surface, only lasted a short while before destruction by Venus’s harsh elements. It is safe to say that further exploration of Venus’s surface manned or unmanned is not one of the human species’s top priorities at the moment. The planet has so much going against it that it would not be too far fetched to say that humans may never go there, or at least will not for a very, very long time, and even with advanced technology those intrepid explorers will need be incredibly brave to face the trio of hazardous conditions, heat, pressure and acid. But the planet remains interesting geologically. The surfaces is covered in volcanoes, which indicates it’s geologic structure – of a silicate rock crust followed by a mantle and a core – is similar to Earth’s. Venus also has a core of iron and nickel. Volcanic and tectonic activity (tectonic activity may have been a part of Venus’s past) is responsible for the creation of many valuable mineral resources on Earth, so only further exploration will tell if Venus might offer us mineral resources worthy of another look at Earth’s twin.

Future Divisions of the Human Species

 Posted by on Sun, 10/30 at 10:35pm  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 302016
 

Human history is centered around the divisions that continue to divide our species. Divisiveness is next to “humanliness”. One of the staples of commonly joked about stereotypes concerning the study of history is that, at least in the eyes of elementary and high school students, all that human history is is a long list of wars. And in a certain light that stereotype isn’t too misleading. The very word civilization, a concept which – because it caries the implication of writing with it – is thought of as being the foundation of human history, also caries with it divisions, and divisions lead to conflict. People understand themselves in terms of groups before they consider their own unique individual attributes. Who am I? Male, an American of European decent, an agnostic, a college student, a history major, etcetera… All of these refer to groups more so than to specific qualities. I may say I am a history major, but all that it communicates about me is that I’m working to fulfill a credit requirement weighed toward history courses. When one considers the actual term objectively, deductively and logically, “being a history major” in what it communicates specifically doesn’t even necessarily communicate that I enjoy the study of history. But when you take me and put me in a group of history majors, suddenly we gain much more – although less reliable – information about me. Considering that as a group, history majors enjoy the study of history, one might reasonably guess that I enjoy history as well, and he’d have guessed right. One could go further. One might suppose that if I went to graduate school, I’d begin wearing sport jackets on campus, as is the convention among the group, and here again by placing me in the context of the group one has access to reasonable inferences that can only be made by considering my specific subdivision in the human race.

What I’d like this discussion to boil down to is the future of human division, the future of human groups. I believe that within the younger generation’s lifetime or within our children’s lifetime the human race will have been split into two important groups in the future history of our species. The new groups will bear the titles Martian and Earthling. And important differences will divide them due to distance and the progress time will take them along what will undoubtably be different histories (one for each planet). But I believe human Martians and Human Earthlings will also probably look very different in appearance. What creates the appearance of an individual is primarily two factors: genetics and environment. Now genetics will probably be unaltered, but I’m wondering if the Martian environment will have an effect on Martian height due to lower gravity levels which would otherwise slow growth in humans adapted to growth in earth’s gravity. Will there be a physical difference in the appearance of Martians? Only time will tell. But what is more important is even more unforeseeable. Only the future of human history will recount the events surrounding the dynamic between the undoubtedly very different and much divided Martians and Earthlings.

Space Travel Artifacts

 Posted by on Sun, 10/23 at 11:37pm  artifact ideas  3 Responses »
Oct 232016
 

1.) Voyager Golden Records: The Voyager Golden Records represent something very fundamental about not just the American culture out of which they were born, but also about the larger species as a whole. The records are fascinating in that they are literal records made of gold with the recordings of common earth sounds etched into them. Their purpose is dualistic, either to be rediscovered by humans in the distant future or to be discovered by extraterrestrial life, who will then gain an introductory lesson in what Earth is. Either way, they establish a human faith that space is not a forever dead and empty void, but rather that it is a place ripe with potential for intelligent life to live, flourish, and learn.

2.) Soyuz: The Russian spacecraft Soyuz is a soviet-era design that traces it’s history back to the height of the Space Race and the Cold War. The craft is still used by the Russians, and is culturally and politically significant today because the United States and other’s use now rely upon it and Russia to get astronauts to space. It represents a more internationally oriented and less politically tense era of space travel.

3.) Kennedy Space Center: The name of this important center for space travel is immediately recognizable to the vast majority of Americans. It represents the past, present, and future of space travel. The most momentous and arguably culturally significant space flight, that of Apollo 11, was launched from KSC, and rockets continue to depart from the site. It’s significance as tourist attraction parallels human space travel’s ability to continue to capture the imagination of the American public.

Space as a Place to Live

 Posted by on Sun, 10/23 at 11:11pm  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 232016
 

In the distant future, accepting the possibility of a humanity inhabiting multiple bodies in our Solar System, humanity would be faced with the reality of spending a lot of time in space. Concepts such as warp-holes or traveling at the speed of light are science fictions; they cannot be relied upon in the future to get humans from point A to point B. We’ll have to grapple with the reality of a space-based-human-race, if we are serious about achieving an interplanetary existence. I’m not trying to assert that every human being in the 2500’s or 3000’s will spend the majority of their lives in space, but only that many of them, even if that “many” is just a minority, will have to spend a considerable period of their lives aboard a spaceship. But a relatively small minority of humans may have to spend their entire lives in space. This will undoubtedly be necessary if we hope to become an interstellar species. The nearer stars in the galaxy to our own (not even considering whether they have viable planets or moons upon which to found colonies) are around 10 or 15 light-years away. Even if this meant that it takes 10 or 15 years to reach these stars, 10 or 15 years aboard a ship would prove to be an incredible display of patience and endurance. But the truth is, reaching these stars will take much longer than 10 or 15 years. A light-year is a measure of the distance light can travel in one year. Modern science rejects the possibility that humanity can ever travel at the speed of light. If we ever become truly serious about reaching other star systems and inhabiting the planets within them, we’ll have to accept a reality in which people will spend decades if not lifetimes upon spacecraft. The craft will, in effect, be their whole world. I doubt the human imagination at this point is equipped to assess this kind of human existence. If one takes a ship, ten times larger than the Titanic, and sets it in the ocean with gardens and sources of fresh-water and livestock and farms and all of the resources necessary to sustain human life, one will only just barely graze the surface of what it will mean to be light-years from earth in a man-made-world. Upon a ship, one still has the familiar sea, and the knowledge that the world’s coasts are only just somewhere over the horizon. Upon a spaceship, the human body has to exist in an environment so alien to everything the human body has evolved to inhabit that they very experience of a human aboard a spacecraft in interstellar space will without a doubt have an incredibly unique effect upon that person’s mind, and in effect his or her actions. The difficulties of ensuring long distance space travelers will remain sane will without a doubt be one of the larger challenges of the future of space travel, and will open up new perspectives into human biology and psychology.

The Beauty of the Universe as Art

 Posted by on Sun, 10/16 at 11:30pm  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 162016
 

Humanity seems to have a natural attraction to what we might call “natural scenes.” Whether if you consider yourself a “nature person” or not, I believe few could honestly say that they haven’t found a mountain, a forest, a flower, a lake, etcetera… beautiful. Why we find these things beautiful is beyond my purview. I am no psychologist. But what I would like to point out is how much of a joy nature can be, and how much better it really does make our lives. Almost every great urban city has grand parks to remind us of that beauty and introduce us to it even within the confines of a man-made environment.  And natural beauty really does bring the human race closer to one another. Theist, atheist, and agnostic alike find the same beauty in the natural things they see around them. In a forest, or on a mountain-top, political discussion – and thus political dispute – find little place. The natural world inspires great works of art that are enjoyed by countless men and women around the world of all races and creeds. But it’s not just the terrain and that which grows and lives on the ground that inspire us. Sunsets and sunrises commonly inspire aw, even on a daily basis. And the moon, too, throughout human history we have watched it and it has both amazed and baffled us. And stars, the very word star itself has become a byword for excellence.

Our love of nature extends into outer space, although many of us infrequently consider it. We are so blind to our aw of the planets because so few of us ever see them, except as a photograph or an illustration. Take Saturn as an example. Many people, when they consider Saturn, find adjectives like beautiful, wonderful and gorgeous along side it. And I believe they sincerely believe Saturn is all of these things. But the issue is that they hardly have any chance to enjoy the planet, because they never see it, or if they do, it’s only for a transitory moment through a telescope. And then all of a sudden, aw-inspiring things like our Solar System’s planets become associated with bulky, uncomfortable things like telescopes and observatories. They become associated with that expensive government agency NASA, and with rockets, and with the pictures they bring back to Earth. It’s just not a fun way to find beauty. But neither were small rat infested ships a fun way to find the beauties of whole continents five centuries ago. And the wonders of the American West were not discovered without an uncomfortable and unappealing journey to get there. Space is the same. Today, if we’re honest, it’s really no fun at all. It might have used to be, but that was when we pushed the envelope, and those moments of pushing envelopes was again transitory and fleeting. Or space may have been a little more fun in the 20th century because it was inherently political, and politics has long been an object of amusement in the U.S.. But for most of us today space is not the coolest thing in the universe.

But imagine how incredibly meaningful space will become when we’re there? Can you imagine how many great works of world literature could be written about nebulas and quasars? How many poems about the seas of Titan, the red bands of Jupiter or the rings of Saturn? How many landscapes will be painted from the surface of Europa? Can you see men and women asking for jewelry at the future’s jewelers based on the color of Neptune?

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