We Came In Peace For All Mankind
Jul. 20th, 2006 05:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
filkertomThirty-seven years ago today.
Okay, Congress has got its head up its ass and NASA is perpetually tongue-tied. How would you sell the need to greatly expand the space program to the public? You have three reasonably short sentences and no big words -- think "sound bite". Ready, set, go. (I have my own version, which I'll put here later so as not to Heisenberg the thing.)
Okay, Congress has got its head up its ass and NASA is perpetually tongue-tied. How would you sell the need to greatly expand the space program to the public? You have three reasonably short sentences and no big words -- think "sound bite". Ready, set, go. (I have my own version, which I'll put here later so as not to Heisenberg the thing.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 10:19 am (UTC)"Because it’s next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on the timeline of exploration, and this is what’s next."
ummm...
Date: 2006-07-20 10:31 am (UTC)World go boom, be somewhere else...
Real Real Estate
Billboards the size of planets
Elbow Room, Elbow Room (yeah School house rock!)
Cynical:
"If we colonize other worlds, there will be more loopholes for employers..you think mexican employees are cheap?"
Practical:
"We must leave this rock eventually."
Sorry, everything I can think of would be rather mean spirited I think.
Re: ummm...
Date: 2006-07-20 01:19 pm (UTC)hahaha! Brilliant!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 10:37 am (UTC)Eventually, some day, the sun is going to explode, and the world will be burnt to a crisp. If we've not found a way to leave this planet for others, then everything we've ever accomplished will be lost.
Sadly, I don't think that will be understood very well by the congress critters, but that's the best argument I've ever heard.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 12:26 pm (UTC)"No. We have to stay here and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars." - Sinclair, Babylon 5: Infection
Still one of my all-time favorite quotes from that show.
Selling it to the public is a different matter though...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 11:06 am (UTC)Space exploration doesn't have an easy cost/benefit analysis. But most people over the poverty line, and even most of the ones under the poverty line, have benefited from the results of the space program. Do you have a microwave, or a tv that was built in the last 30 years, or a teflon coated frying pan, or, or, or... So many things that you use every day came out of research designed to take the human race into space.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 11:13 am (UTC)Because exploration drives science. Science solves problems. You want to solve the world's problems? You have to explore.
Long form:
Necessity is the mother of invention. Two things historically have been the major sources for inventions - exploration & war. Exploration has the added benefit of discovering new sources of things for science to play with as well as providing problems for science to solve. There are many forms of exploration. Space is only one but it's the most logical "next step" other than the oceanographic areas. (plus, solving space problems tends to solve oceanographic ones & vice versa - something about dealing with adverse environments? *G*)
Then hit 'em with examples - Katrina or the Tsunami for instance. 100 years ago, how much higher would the death toll have been? NOT just from the fact that satellites provided warning & notification once the disaster occurred.
Then start over with the next group of peopel - it takes a LOT of repetition. Unfortunately, a lot of the folks who don't like space don't tend to like history much either. :(
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 11:15 am (UTC)"Because it's there. Because it's where we came from. Because humanity's long term needs extend beyond dinner tonight.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 11:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 11:21 am (UTC)No?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 11:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 11:56 am (UTC)Sorry, no sound bite
Date: 2006-07-20 12:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 12:23 pm (UTC)The Space Program gave you that -- what have you given the Space Program?
Space -- Because it makes sense."
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 12:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 12:55 pm (UTC)People. We don't have to sell Space Exploration to People. We have to sell Space Exploration and Colonialization to Corporations. Find a way that Corporations can make a profit and the world will follow.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 01:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 01:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 01:54 pm (UTC)Goosebumps of GLEE.
My Take
Date: 2006-07-20 01:36 pm (UTC)There's only one place left to explore: outer space.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 01:44 pm (UTC)before it's too late!
It's hard not to play the fear card here, but it does seem to be what people respond to (or at least the drug companies think so and have made millions off of that angle). Maybe it's NASA's turn to rattle a few cages.
Hugs -- Khadagan
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 02:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 02:08 pm (UTC)This is my wedding anniversary - I wanna spend it in the effin' Tycho City Hilton!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-21 12:15 am (UTC)And don't forget that in 1976 we had our first soft Martian landing.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 02:29 pm (UTC)I can't think of anything to add from the practical standpoint.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 02:34 pm (UTC)I suspect it will be a Monty Python party this year.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 02:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 03:01 pm (UTC)Which makes me think, did you ever see ...And God Spoke???
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 02:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 02:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 03:04 pm (UTC)"Minerals, science and cool new technology - there's money in space all right. Money that could lower your taxes - unless the Chinese get it first. Vote for NASA, and put that money where it belongs."
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 03:24 pm (UTC)---------------------------------------------------------------------------
BIG, BIG ROCK. STARFIELD IN BACKGROUND.
Deep Voiceover: "The future is coming."
ANGLE SHIFTS, SHOWING EARTH IN DISTANT BACKGROUND, BEHIND THE ASTEROID.
Deep Voiceover: "Are we going to meet the challenge?"
SILENCE. EARTH GETS A LITTLE BIGGER.
Deep Voiceover: "Or will we wait for it to surprise us?"
ZOOM IN AND SHIFT ANGLE. WE SEE A SPACECRAFT ON THE ASTEROID, AND ASTRONAUTS DISEMBARKING, MOVING PURPOSEFULLY, CARRYING HEAVY EQUIPMENT.
ZOOM OUT AND PAN, SIDEWAYS TOWARDS EARTH IN AN ANGULAR PATH. WE SEE OTHER SPACECRAFT EN ROUTE. VIEW COMES TO A BUSY INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, ANOTHER SPACECRAFT UNDOCKS, CURVE OF EARTH IN BACKGROUND. ZOOM INTO SPACE STATION WINDOW TO SEE SMILING ASTRONAUT, HOLDING SOME GADGET OR SENSOR.
Astronaut: "The universe is changing all the time, touching us in ways we don't expect. We're working in space to make the future better, safer, and more productive. The tools we use have been applied on earth to predict and prevent some natural and environmental disasters, cure diseases, create new industries employing millions of people, or even just find your kid at the mall. We've just started the exploration of space, and each small step has a new set of obstacles that we have to overcome. But the future has its own schedule and it won't wait for us. We don't know what we'll discover next, but with your help, we'll be out there to find out. Thanks for your support."
THEME MUSIC. NASA LOGO AND TEXT:
"NASA -- Facing the challenges of the future."
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 03:49 pm (UTC)Yes, I listed science last, though it's the most important; the majority of people (and especially of those who have serious influence) won't count it above the other things that appeal to their greed. :-(
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 04:11 pm (UTC)In my lifetime, no human being has ever set foot on the moon.
I have never seen live images of astronauts, beamed from the lunar surface. I have never waited breathlessly while radiotelescope operators risked scraping their dishes to pick up a signal from the horizon. My radio has never crackled with the effort of relaying human speech from a quarter of a million miles away.
I am thirty-three years old.
I grew up wanting to be an astronaut, to place my own boots on that regolith and watch the dust settle languidly. I grew into a youth who read every space book in the library, watched every documentary, devoured the articles which proclaimed a bright new future for the species.
I grew into a young man who longed to build the machines that would take us back, and then a not-so-young man with dreams of financing a return to Luna, back to its inky skies and pale dry seas.
Now I look up at the moon, and wonder if I will grow old under a lifeless gaze.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 05:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 05:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 06:16 pm (UTC)Maybe that's what we need. Muppets advertising the space program!
*wanders off humming "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday"*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 05:24 pm (UTC)"If God has created intelligent life, then it is our duty to go forth and spread the Word of JEEEEEzzuuuussssss to those poor backwards savages."
Or perhaps you prefer:
"God has made many worlds, and He has given them all to us for our use and His glory. Let's get going."
Would those come back and bite us in the ass? Yes. Would they work? Yes.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 05:38 pm (UTC)'nuff said.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 08:31 pm (UTC)sound bites
Date: 2006-07-20 08:29 pm (UTC)Let's face it, why do all the dirty work on the planet?
(picture of factories)
Let's move them out of the yard so we can plant more trees...
No one expected Velcro, teflon, Microwave ovens, etc, etc to come from the space program, but now they are a part of your life. What could be next?
and in the "works for geeky old me, but probably not for the masses"
Space, because being at the bottom of a gravity well is bad tactics!
Re: sound bites
Date: 2006-07-20 11:11 pm (UTC)Our side's already right, no need to gild the lily! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-21 11:49 am (UTC)O RLY?