Yeah. When real scientists are either A) already fired, B) Soon to be fired, or C) having their academic institutions threatened with funding pulls if they don’t fall in line and so live in fear of being fired, the whole stunt was INCREDIBLY tone-deaf and honestly just makes me more angry. I might have brushed it off if it’d happened last year…but THIS year? It’s more like a punch in the gut. Women’s rights are being GUTTED, women are being fired simply for being women–and you’re trotting off to space? In THIS political environment? Fuck off. You should’ve backed out and put your money where it would do people more good right now.
I wish SO MUCH that more performers would follow Dolly Parton’s example. She’s made no bones about getting plastic surgery and such done (that oft-paraphrased line that it “takes a lot of money to look this cheap”)–but then she also turns around and invests in her local community. Because she grew up poor and remembers and wants to help.
And if people HAVE to be space-tourists…would it kill anyone to send a fucking AUTHOR? Someone who can DESCRIBE, in great detail, all the smells/sounds/sensations, in their books?
With anyone and everyone else, the experience of visiting is stuck in their heads. You can’t accurately share what it’s like to be in space via music, the data transfer is too lossy and too vague. And a video/photo only sees the external stuff, it doesn’t share what it feels like inside, or any space-specific details that a trained observer would’ve noticed.
Only an author could deliver something close to the actual EXPERIENCE to the REST of us with any sort of fidelity, because books are the closest we have to telepathy right now. Yet, nobody’s sent a sci-fi author.
Yeah. When real scientists are either A) already fired, B) Soon to be fired, or C) having their academic institutions threatened with funding pulls if they don’t fall in line and so live in fear of being fired, the whole stunt was INCREDIBLY tone-deaf and honestly just makes me more angry. I might have brushed it off if it’d happened last year…but THIS year? It’s more like a punch in the gut. Women’s rights are being GUTTED, women are being fired simply for being women–and you’re trotting off to space? In THIS political environment? Fuck off. You should’ve backed out and put your money where it would do people more good right now.
I wish SO MUCH that more performers would follow Dolly Parton’s example. She’s made no bones about getting plastic surgery and such done (that oft-paraphrased line that it “takes a lot of money to look this cheap”)–but then she also turns around and invests in her local community. Because she grew up poor and remembers and wants to help.
And if people HAVE to be space-tourists…would it kill anyone to send a fucking AUTHOR? Someone who can DESCRIBE, in great detail, all the smells/sounds/sensations, in their books?
With anyone and everyone else, the experience of visiting is stuck in their heads. You can’t accurately share what it’s like to be in space via music, the data transfer is too lossy and too vague. And a video/photo only sees the external stuff, it doesn’t share what it feels like inside, or any space-specific details that a trained observer would’ve noticed.
Only an author could deliver something close to the actual EXPERIENCE to the REST of us with any sort of fidelity, because books are the closest we have to telepathy right now. Yet, nobody’s sent a sci-fi author.
Sorry. I’m grumpy. So, so grumpy right now.
Or sending up teachers.
NASA did amazing things for teachers. Those are the parts I don’t think this administration wants.