I just finished reading Dark Side of the Moon, a book about Nasa’s lunar landing project. I feel it is safe to say that author Gerard DeGroot, a science writer from Scotland, is no friend of America’s manned space program, or any other country’s.
Time out: What, by the way, is a shorthand way to say a project to send people into space that doesn’t sound girl-hating and old fashioned? Because crewed space program sounds just like crude space program, so that’s out, and peopled space program sounds as clunky as a project to send people into space, so there’s no way I’m using that, either. I need something here. Help me out.
Space, DeGroot feels, is better explored by robots, and any journey made to the moon, other planets, or the stars is just a stunt, devoid of any greater meaning at all. I’m not going to claim he’s wrong about the robots. I think it’s way cool to send robots into space because, you know, robots! But he’s a tad bit depressing when it comes to expressing his thoughts on personal space exploration (okay, that sounds stupid, too; I’m not using that either), which he does incessantly, the message being that it’s pointless, worthless, and not a little egotistic.
I’m on his side when he argues it costs way too much, but I’m pretty sure it’ll always cost way too much. I don’t see a way of cutting back unless and until people start building space ships in space so they can cut back on the commute up out of Earth’s gravity well, a part that adds quite a lot of expense. But they’ll always have to go back to get food, water and air, so it’s a modest savings.
But I’m not entirely with him when he says it’s pointless, far too dangerous and, when it comes down to it, little more than a stunt performed only to make people look good. All of that describes parachuting off the edge of a cliff, and yet people seem to be doing more of that, not less. It’s not that I think Nasa ought to fire up the rockets and start shooting guys off to the moon again, but people are going to go into space. There are a bunch of them in orbit right now, and they’ll keep going, so obviously it’s worth something to somebody. It’s worth something to me; I’d go in a second if I had twenty million dollars in spare change.
Still and all, Dark Side of the Moon was a great read, even if only to have read a book that wasn’t all gung-ho or gaga about rockets. But it was also worth it to read quite a few moonshot stories I hadn’t read before. Recommended.
Dark Side of the Moon | 10:30 pm CDTCategory: books, entertainment, hobby, play, space geekery
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