Also… I’ve been saying that the privatization of space is a bad idea… I mean, geo-political conflict in space was a bad idea, though we managed to get some major accomplishments out of that, at least, and set us up some solid space programs that took us into the post-Cold War era… But we should not be handing this shit over to private corporations… they’ve done a piss-poor job with our shared natural resources here on earth, why would anyone believe that privatizing space travel will end well…
66 m2.
i think i saw my house!
Oh hey, the development of all this private space stuff might be hollowing out expertise at the public institution they take advantage of, who could have guessed something like that might happen.
I have a friend who went to UMich in the early 2000s and saw this happening in real time, people in engineering being lured away to private space companies instead of heading to NASA… Which is what happens when you build a society that only values the pursuit of wealth… We didn’t used to do this, but when we did have a robust pipeline between public education (and private ones) to public service, it was due to the cold war footing we were on, more than anything. Once the CW ended, that reason went away, and the geo-political thing that really replaced (the war on terror) didn’t have the same cohesive world view as the civilizational one… so profit motive replaced (misplaced? misguided? anti-communist?) patriotism.
That’s ok though. I mean sure, exploring the solar system and discovering thing about the universe was cool and all, but who wouldn’t trade that for rich people taking space joyrides and a night sky full of private internet hookups?
Betelguese Betelguese?
alpha Ori B, to which our team has given the pet name ‘BetelBuddy,’
unfortunately
