space&planets

[schneefink]

Today when I wanted to be excited about the successful Mars landing (!) I encountered the opinion "we shouldn't fund NASA/space programs because there are so many things on Earth where the money would be more useful," and (apart from how many scientific advances are thanks to space programs, and how many other things could be defunded first, like the military, etc.) it occurred to me that there are people who look up at the night sky and just don't care what's out there. Or at least not enough to spend resources on finding out. (The countries with space programs don't really have resource problems, they have resource allocation problems.) And part of me gets it - there are so many problems on Earth that look more immediate and pressing and so on - but on the other hand I also can't really imagine a reality in which humans don't reach for the stars. As a group, we're curious, that's what we do. It would be boring otherwise.

Comments

[isis]

Both our pseuds contain clues to our real names (though mine is far more obscure), and some years ago when I saw her biography on her web page I realized I knew her!

I've actually figured out a few other people I knew from e.g. college (and vice versa) due to references to mutual friends or activities. (One person mentioned a mutual friend and we figured out that though we didn't know each other, she was a close friend of one of my brothers in college.) It's always a little startling to realize, especially when I feel that my current RL friends (and most of my past ones) would be "say WHAT?" about fandom.

[schneefink]

Heh. Several of my RL friends know that I'm "in fandom," though I think most of them don't have a clear idea what that means. Some of them are enthusiastic fans of certain TV shows and/or read fanfic occasionally, but it's not the same (though I find it difficult to explain how exactly.)