William Shatner: My Trip To Space Filled Me With 'Overwhelming Sadness' (variety.com) 91
In an exclusive excerpt from William Shatner's new book, "Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder," the Star Trek actor reflects on his voyage into space on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space shuttle on Oct. 13, 2021. Then 90 years old, Shatner became the oldest living person to travel into space, but as the actor and author details below, he was surprised by his own reaction to the experience. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: I looked down and I could see the hole that our spaceship had punched in the thin, blue-tinged layer of oxygen around Earth. It was as if there was a wake trailing behind where we had just been, and just as soon as I'd noticed it, it disappeared. I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely all of that has thrilled me for years but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold... all I saw was death. I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her. Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.
I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things -- that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film "Contact," when Jodie Foster's character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, "They should've sent a poet." I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn't out there, it's down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna... things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.
I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the "Overview Effect" and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet's fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: "There are no borders or boundaries on our planet except those that we create in our minds or through human behaviors. All the ideas and concepts that divide us when we are on the surface begin to fade from orbit and the moon. The result is a shift in worldview, and in identity." It can change the way we look at the planet but also other things like countries, ethnicities, religions; it can prompt an instant reevaluation of our shared harmony and a shift in focus to all the wonderful things we have in common instead of what makes us different. It reinforced tenfold my own view on the power of our beautiful, mysterious collective human entanglement, and eventually, it returned a feeling of hope to my heart. In this insignificance we share, we have one gift that other species perhaps do not: we are aware -- not only of our insignificance, but the grandeur around us that makes us insignificant. That allows us perhaps a chance to rededicate ourselves to our planet, to each other, to life and love all around us. If we seize that chance.
I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things -- that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film "Contact," when Jodie Foster's character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, "They should've sent a poet." I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn't out there, it's down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna... things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.
I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the "Overview Effect" and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet's fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: "There are no borders or boundaries on our planet except those that we create in our minds or through human behaviors. All the ideas and concepts that divide us when we are on the surface begin to fade from orbit and the moon. The result is a shift in worldview, and in identity." It can change the way we look at the planet but also other things like countries, ethnicities, religions; it can prompt an instant reevaluation of our shared harmony and a shift in focus to all the wonderful things we have in common instead of what makes us different. It reinforced tenfold my own view on the power of our beautiful, mysterious collective human entanglement, and eventually, it returned a feeling of hope to my heart. In this insignificance we share, we have one gift that other species perhaps do not: we are aware -- not only of our insignificance, but the grandeur around us that makes us insignificant. That allows us perhaps a chance to rededicate ourselves to our planet, to each other, to life and love all around us. If we seize that chance.
Pale blue dot (Score:5, Interesting)
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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He didn't actually reach space, just flew higher into the atmosphere than usual. There was no sight of a pale blue dot, you need to be further away for that...
Re:Pale blue dot (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Pale blue dot (Score:5, Funny)
Oh great. I suppose next you're gonna claim that Anne Hathaway never visited another galaxy?!
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Nope. You're confusing movies with real life.
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Was that the wooosh of falling into the net?
Shatner is an amazing guy (Score:5, Interesting)
On the one hand, he has a reputation for having been a pompous ass at times. On the other hand, this writing of a 90 year old man, clear and lucid, and philosophical and wise. We should take heed. The problem is not to "save the Earth", for we are a speck in time and the Earth will be fine. Life and species will come and go, and even humans are a natural part of the planet, so if we kill off thousands of species, we are no different than other invasive species. What we really need to focus on saving is ourselves - the more destructive we are to the ecosystem and each other, the more likely that human catastrophies will occur. Life on the planet will go on, and perhaps thousands of years from now, there will be but a faint memory of that invasive species - humans - and how they, like many other species, died off, leaving evolution to continue with new life.
Re:Shatner is an amazing guy (Score:4, Insightful)
Life on the planet will go on
This too shall pass
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Life on the planet will go on
This too shall pass
If Robin Hanson's theories or Isaac Arthur's ideas (both of them would give much more credit to earlier scientists and authors that looked into the idea that humanity could colonize the galaxy) and the others like them are correct, then life on the planet Earth may outlast the Sun. Of course, moving the Earth out of orbit is quite difficult. (This may be my biggest ever understatement.)
https://iopscience.iop.org/art... [iop.org]
Re:Shatner is an amazing guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to be clear, "that invasive species" is intrinsically and exactly as much a product of the natural processes of earth as a panda, an earthworm, or the flu virus. Thus logically anything resulting from what humans do from wiping out other species to a planet-cracking nuke is a 'natural' result of Earth's 'natural' processes.
(Or, I guess if you believe in panspermia, the 'natural' processes of the galaxy.)
As far as we can tell - humans are the only species who has developed this bizarre sense of self-blame for anything.
Every other species on the planet, from the smallest bacterium to the largest megafauna* that ever existed has cheerfully murdered its neighbors as much as it needs to, with nary a shudder of recrimination or self-doubt. Animals happily murder each other until they're no longer hungry, or just because they crossed into the wrong section of forest. You know deer will eat bird? Hilariously, they do - every animal seeks its own (and it's young's) self interest with no flagellation or guilt.
And that 'interest' might not even be something as substantial and justifiable as hunger - it can be sex for gratification's sake: "They the most intelligent creatures we know!" but I don't think anyone seriously believes a dolphin gang-raping another dolphin (or what, sea otters and penguins for God's sake?) floats around feeling guilty about it afterward.
*and we forget about it, but flora as well: plants are generally fucking murderous creatures insofar as they can be but their scale of time is so slow we don't really see it.
Shout out to reddit's r/NatureIsMetal if you want to understand how Nature - if you want to anthropomorphise it, the essence of Mother Gaia - is a murderous bitch who truly doesn't give a fuck.
Re: Shatner is an amazing guy (Score:1)
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Just to be clear, "that invasive species" is intrinsically and exactly as much a product of the natural processes of earth as a panda, an earthworm, or the flu virus. Thus logically anything resulting from what humans do from wiping out other species to a planet-cracking nuke is a 'natural' result of Earth's 'natural' processes.
(Or, I guess if you believe in panspermia, the 'natural' processes of the galaxy.)
Yet absolutely none of those things had the ability to recognize and adjust their own behaviors.
Those are abilities that are, limiting context to Earth, uniquely human abilities.
We can see when our natural processes will be harmful to ourselves many steps down the process.
We have the ability to change those processes in many cases.
We are NOT the same as any other invasive species on this planet. Any claim to being the same is fundamentally wrong on its very premise.
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Duh, that's because humans are the only species to develop a high-enough level of intelligence to see past reductionist survivalism.
Re:Shatner is an amazing guy (Score:4, Informative)
On the other hand, this writing of a 90 year old man, clear and lucid, and philosophical and wise.
Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder
By William Shatner, with Joshua Brandon
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While I am impressed by Shatner's legacy and the fact that he actually got into space, I tend to think that we respect his opinion too much. I think that we should give more credence to the statements made by professional astronauts and scientists. On the other hand, maybe actors and poets are better at communicating the emotions and awe that humans feel when we look down upon our planet from space.
Yeah well, he's 90 (Score:5, Insightful)
there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold... all I saw was death. I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness.
At his age, that's called a rehearsal.
Seriously though, as people age, their ideation changes. People the age of Shatner basically spend their lives wondering who they know has died today, remembering the world of their youth that is long gone and contemplating the world of today's youth that is totally alien to them, and having almost zero plans for the future and mostly memories. Hell, I'm nowhere near close to 90 and I'm already starting to think like that sometimes...
So yeah, death is part of his life. The prospect of death, the idea of death, the feeling of leaving this world. I'm not surprised one bit that this is the first thing he felt when he went up there.
I am surprised that he chose to tell it candidly instead of some overenthusiastic and unconvincing platitude on the greatness of space travel to groom his billionaire pal Bezos and his billionaire joyride venture though. Good on Shatner. I guess when you're 90, you also don't give a shit about saying what you're expected to say.
Re:Yeah well, he's 90 (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember my grandfather, in his early 90s, who had previously walked the NYC marathon numerous times in his 80s, still making plans with me to come down to visit me in my new state and talking about getting ready for the marathon again. When he got sick with a secondary infection from a procedure he fought until the very end, and wanted every measure he could to help. He never gave up hope that he'd exist into the future, and loved his family and friends, and only knew perseverance. If he ever felt depressed about his condition he never shared it, and was thoughtful and perhaps even brave, though he had to have felt great anxiety about his health, knowing him and my family.
I don't think there's any right way to go, but it appears you can at least choose to be optimistic about the future no matter what, and each day try to learn something and be fascinated by the world around you. I think I have much of him in me.
Anyway, I don't think Shatner's reaction is because of his age, as younger astronauts have felt it too. It's a message about the fragility of our condition and the incomprehensible neutrality of the universe and space. We live on a habitable shell between heaven and hell, the thickness of a human hair divided in half 10,000 times over, and both heaven and hell remain inaccessible to us in our living state.
Re:Yeah well, he's 90 (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a message about the fragility of our condition and the incomprehensible neutrality of the universe and space.
But let's keep on throwing plastic bags in the sea and living like there's no tomorrow.
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But let's keep on throwing plastic bags in the sea and living like there's no tomorrow.
You should stop doing that.
Re: Yeah well, he's 90 (Score:2)
I see this as a result caused by all those amazing astronomy pictures we have been fed during many years.
Those images exists, but the human eye is insufficient.
All this reveals how insignificant humans are in the scale of the universe. That's the shock effect.
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At his age, that's called a rehearsal.
CliffsNotes: There's no cavalry. No help comes over the ridge to save us.
Carlin: Earth will be fine. We're fucked.
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It is easy to lament our violent ways. And it is obvious that we can accomplish more if we compete less and cooperate more.
However, our violent ways are not simply some moral failing that we have chosen as an act of pure free will. They are written deep in our brains by millions of years of surviving in a physical world. Contention for resources is an inevitable consequence of the simple principle of conservation of matter. All living things must compete to survive, because there cannot be enough for ev
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Nobody expects our violent or competitive impulses to vanish. The idea is that we'll learn to subjugate them to positive desires.
So far, not working so well. But there are examples of success.
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I think maybe our standard for success keeps moving along with our successes.
For a very long time, human existence was very thoroughly defined by violence. As hunter-gatherers, other tribes were in competition against our own for scarce resources, so often encountering them meant fighting them. Whenever the population density happened to be low enough, tribes might trade with each other instead, but such arrangements would invariably turn violent when resources ran thin (unless one of the tribes tried to
Re:Yeah well, he's 90 (Score:5, Insightful)
... there cannot be enough for everyone.
In response I offer you the following quote [alearningaday.blog]:
"The late novelist Kurt Vonnegut informed his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.
Heller responded – “Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . enough.”"
The problem isn't that there isn't enough for everyone, the problem is that large numbers of people don't see 'enough' as enough. Logically, since co-operation leads to growth, and growth leads to a bigger pie, and a bigger pie means more for everyone we should all co-operate. Since we don't, it simply stands to reason that we're not logical. Or, perhaps, overwhelming greed and selfishness is not logical. Maybe the question we need to be asking is how do we change the structures and incentives of society to make greed and selfishness less appealing?
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When I said "there cannot be enough for everyone" that was in the context of the survival needs of our evolutionary ancestors. Every livable region of land has a "carrying capacity" beyond which its resources will be over consumed resulting in starvation. For the wolves hunting rabbits, there are only so many rabbits to go around. Wolf packs cooperate to survive, but if there are too many packs, they must fight one another to get their numbers back down, or they all starve. That pattern has repeated in
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But there really is only death up there, nowhere within over 3 light years that could possibly support human life. We're not going over 3 light years for a very very long time. We might get a probe or swarm of them to the nearest star sometime in the next century and a half, but not people.
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But there really is only death up there, nowhere within over 3 light years that could possibly support human life.
Mars?
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Are you seriously suggesting Mars can support human life? It has an atmosphere with a tenth of a PSI of pressure, made of carbon dioxide (95 percent), nitrogen (3 percent) and argon (2 percent). Usual temperature is minus 81 degrees F, watch out for those cold snaps of minus 200 degrees F.
No, you would quickly die on Mars, in minutes. As in two to four.
All other planets than Earth are utterly deadly to humans.
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Elon, your mom's calling, it's dinner time
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> People the age of Shatner basically spend their lives wondering who they know has died today
You're going to be a whole lot of fun when you're older.
My dad's 91. He spends his day arranging gigs for his trio. He has a running Saturday at a local pub, but anything else he can pick up he will.
Maybe you should figure out what you want to do for those two *decades* instead of thinking about literally the last thing that happens?
Re: Yeah well, he's 90 (Score:1)
If you talk to almost any 16-18 yo about what they think of 25-30 year old people, they have the exact same view that you are jaded, uptight, risk averse, old guys in bad physical condition and probably just waiting to die.
But i guess we will all agree that the 30 yo know better and the teenagers are just idiots who will grow up and understand the reality.
What makes you think you won't think the same when you are 80-90 ?
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If he were to travel into space and return alive.
Trump would probably look down and point out all the "shithole countries".
comments like this (Score:2)
I read comments like this and I know humanity is doomed. Does not matter what a few lucky people that went to space think. Some people just want to watch the world burn.
So much for Tribbles (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is right?
In the abstract I think that countless intelligent species must exist all around the universe, and swashbuckling adventures might be had if there were a way to navigate it. But in reality, it effectively doesn't exist because it's beyond our species' event horizon. Even light itself can't travel from one inhabited outpost to the next within the space of a human lifetime. It's like a lone survivor in the middle of the Pacific, unknown to anybody, dog-paddling to keep his head above the next wave. He is profoundly alone, and the existence of other people doesn't change that.
Re: So much for Tribbles (Score:2)
We know from logic that we are just a small speck of dirt in the universe. But we might never know when we'll found the next significant speck of dirt.
Significant in the way that it contains life as we know it. Not necessarily intelligent life.
Re: So much for Tribbles (Score:2)
"Significant in the way that it contains life as we know it. Not necessarily intelligent life."
There likely is intelligent life on other workds, but it could be so vastly different that we might not recongnize it as such. Star Trek did touch on this a few times during the franchise's run, but what was shown was the product of human imagination.
What we might find in real life might totally gobsmack us and be far beyond our possible understanding.
Re: So much for Tribbles (Score:2)
OTIH, we might look like oversized microbes that move in funny ways to them and they wouldn't be able to understand our lifeform.
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Re: So much for Tribbles (Score:3)
There is also quite a difference between being in a rocket ship in the early 21st century and a starship which can get you from place to place within hours in an already semi known/charted galaxy and there is a Federation with members from other worlds backing you up.
When man first sailed the seas tens of thousands of years ago, they likely felt the same way Shatner does.
Re: So much for Tribbles (Score:1)
Very Insightful.
No midpoints since old login started misbehaving.
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Re: So much for Tribbles (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s like staring across the unexplored ocean, before setting out in a ship. You may not realise life is hiding a few horizons away, but your journey may not take you far enough for you to realise.
Having now crossed the oceans we know human life exists and thrives in the beyond the ocean.
Travelling in space today must be the same. The dark void may be hiding civilisations that are closer than we realise, but are for now unattainable.
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Star Trek was all about the universe being this infinite place full of life and interest and intrigue. His actual experience into space was the opposite
Warp drive hasn't been invented yet, so... duh.
The way I see it (Score:2)
It's like a huge tranquil ocean with tiny dots that could have mysterious worlds (past and present) orbiting them that make the bullshit on Earth seem completely irrelevant.
But I have not actually flown to space so I don't know what my actual reaction would be if I was there.
Re: The way I see it (Score:1)
..and a while universe of microscopic life in the water right under our feet that we can't see.. ..and life that moves too slowly or too fast for us to realize it's life...
This topic is getting more n more metaphysical, I can post completely random string of words and I bet it will be profound for anyone who thinks deeply about it :)
Re: The way I see it (Score:1)
*whole
Not while
Re: The way I see it (Score:2)
On a somewhat related note, the human brain tries to find sense in something that is random or has no meaning, to the point yes you will start seeing faces or scenery in TV static, or start to hear music or incoherent voices in white noise (it's happened to me). This kind of thing I'm sure is the basis of many 'metaphysical' experiences
Re: The way I see it (Score:2)
Analog TV static
There are likely countless worlds like this. (Score:2)
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Those worlds are irrelevant to us compared to our own planet, because we can't get there, and may never get there. There's no planet B.
Re: There are likely countless worlds like this. (Score:2)
In the 20th century the biggest business goal was to make something throwaway. The problem is it made us wasteful and treat our planet the same.
Today we realise that a throwaway society is not in our best interests and that we need to change our habits. Just like a smoker, weening us off throwaway mentality is going to be a challenge, but necessary.
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Re: There are likely countless worlds like this. (Score:1)
No. If it was like that no other astronomers would ever have commented on it being so different than whatbwe can see or imagine on earth.
That's literally the meaning of 'unimaginable'. Not the unimaginable you are imagining.
Besides the fact that if we sent todlers they would probably not find anything different solely because of their lacking intellect.
Please adjust for above factors in your imagination and then tell us again...
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I guess he hasn't dropped acid then (Score:1)
Then again, Shatner probably has dropped acid
What He Didn't See (Score:2)
Bill, don't you ever look at the night sky? The lights up there? Well, those are stars. And around them are planets. And there are people that live on them, Just like us.
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He sees that as you do, from the ground and is just as happy to see it as you. What he also sees is that you can climb out of our atmosphere and look at it and suddenly you understand that no one is ever going there in a spacecraft. Meanwhile your body is filling up with microplastics, the climate is tilting and we are living through a great extinction. We have work to do and it is down here, not up there.
Well that's the solution we send (Score:1)
A pre-election trip? (Score:2)
Maybe sending the next two US presidential candidates on this joyride to space would be important? Before the debates and they should both go together.
I wonder how the debates would go after this?
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Maybe sending the next two US presidential candidates on this joyride to space would be important? Before the debates and they should both go together.
How do you imagine Trump would have reacted?
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Maybe sending the next two US presidential candidates on this joyride to space would be important? Before the debates and they should both go together.
How do you imagine Trump would have reacted?
Fake launch?
It's dead, Jim (Score:2)
nft
Who cares? (Score:2)
Old actor bloviates. Who cares?
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You did, enough to comment.
You evolved to love Earth. (Score:2)
You evolved to love Earth. This is a very literal thing - your basic unconscious desires and assumptions are all aligned with things on earth, not things in space. You can mentally conceive of expansion into space, but your assumptions about the very meaning of "expansion" are based on something more like landing on the coast of the Americas and shooting a deer and collecting some fruit for dinner. Your body tells you that you can find something to eat and something to drink if you try hard enough to fin
Canâ(TM)t take him seriously (Score:2)
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He's never been an intellectual, or even a person who gets along with intellectuals...
He did Shakespeare because it meant he was superior to other actors, a True Scotsman Actor.
What did you expect?
Thanks (Score:2)
Well said captain Kirk. There are not going to be any trips to the stars and only research outposts on the planets and moons of our solar system. Space is too big for us to get across. Out there is only death, just as there is at the bottom of the ocean and at the south pole. Meanwhile we are turning our beautiful planet into a dead trash can. Appreciate you reminding us of this fact.
Lack can spark many reactions. (Score:2)
Does seeing the death of a loved one make you appreciate who you have left? Or does it remind you of all our mortality?
Does being in a frigid area with sparse life spark an interest or fear we'll lose it all to climate change?
It's not that surprising to me the reaction was extreme. And that it didn't match what you'd preferred.
Quote from another William S. (Score:2)
The most peerless piece of Earth, I think, that e' er the sun shone bright on.
One Star Review (Score:2)
Is this his indirect way of saying the flight isn't worth the price?
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Huh. So it's a real thing. (Score:2)