By all rights, this should be something I am deeply passionate about. I’ve been in tech/engineering my entire adult life and was obsessed with NASA as a kid. I even live on the east coast of Florida and can sometimes see the launches/landings over the ocean. But I just… don’t care at all. I’m not suffering from depression or any other malaise, and generally things are fine. But I haven’t clicked on a single link or looked at a single image. I know this has not been the case for many, many people, so I’m wondering what might be different about this launch (or really the whole program in general), and curious if anyone else has found themselves feeling the same.
I literally don’t even want to watch Project Hail Mary.
I think of all those space movies where the Earth has to do something together. Where it cuts to listeners in Paris, Beijing, Zimbabwe, New York, and Moscow before going back to some Mission Control center saying “We’re counting on you.”
Then I realize, in reality, there would be American cultists actively fighting any kind of effort to save the world, or run a giant “DEI WILL DOOM US” campaign because one of the astronaut crew is part Asian.
I want these stupid fanciful astronauts to see that we actively don’t have the circumstances to create these wonderful worldwide moments of joy anymore because of the overwhelming levels of sick hatred they’ve created in bankrupting our world of empathy and flooding it with religious propaganda.
The people personally funding rockets could have cured cancer everywhere with their savings. I honestly think if a lethal meteor was headed for the Earth, they’d want to live, but they’d invest everything into trying to save themselves rather than trying to save everyone.
Project Hail Mary doesn’t do that, from what I recall. I think it’s just the US government/military collecting a bunch of scientists. Maybe it’s cut from the adaptation. The mission has a lengthy timeline of decades while the existential threat is already harming the planet. It doesn’t really paint the Earth in any kind of dreamy co-op light from what I recall.
It’s a beautiful movie. I like hard sci-fi drama. My SO does not. We both enjoyed it as it split the difference. It has some beautiful visuals along the way. It’s far from “men being dicks in space” like Ad Astra and it doesn’t do the Armageddon thing with the global livestream. I’m not saying you have to watch it, but it’s just a nice, well done movie worth the time IMO.
You’re criticizing NASA, a public entity, as if they are in the same club as the billionaires making phallus-shaped rockets and putting pop stars into space. They’re not the same.
Also, the Artemis Program’s entire budget so far, over the span of ~ a decade is 93 billion. The US spends 997 billion on its war machine every single year.
Maybe they could bomb, shoot, or invade 10% less in the future and give that money to support those in need?
I actually wasn’t even trying to criticize NASA. “The people personally funding rockets” refers to private companies like SpaceX.
My only criticism to NASA isn’t really on their funding, but on their general goals of spreading joy through their accomplishments; of having Hollywood movies where we see the whole world unite around a shared cause.
The sad reality is, that reality could be as simple as “our planet doesn’t blow up” and we’d have some people remark “MIGHT BE WORTH IT TO KILL THOSE EVIL LIB’RULS” or “Finally, we achieved Armageddon! And here I thought we needed to purge the West Bank first! Where’s Jesus and the risen army?”