Because humans have a higher logic and reasoning than other animals they can manipulate lower species.  This explains a lot of things including (but not limited to) the following:  House plants, Siegfried and Roy, Barefoot Contessa, the horse drawn carriage, Hannah Montana, Sea World, Hannibal’s crossing of the alps and eggs benedict.

Because of this higher logic humans are also given the ability of foresight; we can perceive dangerous scenarios without ever having experiencing them.  We are observational learners.  This is good, but it is also the same reason we are cowards.  And it’s also the same reason that, when we decided to go into space, we sent monkeys.

We sent monkeys.

We sent monkeys in a fucking rocket ship to space.

We sent monkeys in a fucking rocket ship to space, and most of them died.

Sad story.

True story (read it on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeys_in_space)

Now, since I am a human being blessed with the wonderful attribute of empathy, I put myself in Albert’s (that was the monkey’s name) shoes.  I tried to think about what his inner monologue would have been during the entire glorious, but ultimately fatal, experience.

Here is what happened in Albert’s mind:

“Nice, just hanging out in the laboratory getting some blood work done.  No problem, this is cool.  Sweet, a new hat.  Cool, cool.  More tests, more tests, great.  Can I go back to my cage now?  Motherfucker can’t a monkey just shit in his hands and rub it on the wall? Tests, tests, alright.  Hey – where are we going?  Oh, I am not getting on that bus.  Hey, get your arms off me, dude.  Stop it!  I can’t believe they are strapping me into a chair on this bus.  What the hell is going on?  Albert, pull it together, just relax.  Relax.  It’s just a test.

Where is that counting coming from?  Who’s counting?  Why are they counting down?  What the hell is going on?  Whoa, whoa, whoa, I just shit my pants.  I can’t even throw it anywhere.  My hands are tied.  I shit my pants, in a bus, with someone counting down, and my hands are tied.

This isn’t a bus.

Where am I going?  Why is it shaking?

I don’t feel good.

I’m going to throw up.

I threw up.

I threw up and I shit myself, in a bus that’s going through the air.

Why is the ground getting smaller?

Why is it getting dark?

I don’t see any bananas.

My shit it floating with my throw up.  Everything is floating.

When I get back, I can’t wait to see them try to clean this up.

It’s going to be so hilarious.  Jarrett’s going to be so pissed off.

I’m thirsty.

I can’t breathe.”

The Exception Not The Rule

Everyone thinks that the life of an astronaut is all thrills and frill… Well everyone is wrong.  The life of an astronaut is boring and filled with work.  No Fun.  No Space Raves!!!

The Life Of An Astronaut from Blommit on Vimeo.

--- Rocket$ not Tree$

On a recent episode of his show “Real Time,” Bill Maher delivered an excellent monologue questioning how and why the profit motive came to be so powerful in America. He argued that Medicine, War, and the News were all at one point not-for profit endeavors. They existed simply for the benefit (or in War’s case, detriment) of mankind. But somewhere along the way people decided that these things could all become money-makers, so they found a way to do it – all the while pining for the “good old days, when everything wasn’t about money.”

His case got me thinking. Is Space the next great money-maker of the human species? In 1969, when we landed on the moon, Neil Armstrong described it as “One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.” In recent years there has been talk of going back to the moon. I’m curious, who will the giant leap be for this time? Will the shuttle leave the moon’s surface with a flag for Microsoft waving in the distance? We’ve already got Virgin Galactic offering people the opportunity to spend a few hours in space for a mere $200,000. You can go to the mall and buy Moon boots, Milky Ways, Mars Bars, Space rocks and Astronaut Ice Cream. Hell, if I wanted to, I could go online and buy Jordan a star! (Don’t tell him yet but I already did. It’s a small, bright one. You can see it at night. It’s on the left).

We barely know more about what’s out there now than we did 400 years ago when Galileo was studying the stars. Space is a mystery to us. It’s intriguing, enigmatic, sexy, and thus, profitable. But who knows? For all we know, we could be way late to the dance. Who’s to say that dibs hasn’t already been called on most of that shit. We may call it Pluto (and then kick it out of our club, poor little guy), but what if someone else has already proclaimed it as Zardoz presents Yakfudz. As far as we know, we live in the Milky Way. But is it really out of the realm of possibility that we may be in fact living in the 63rd Targozal District, brought to you by Hooooooooksnf?

What I’m trying to say, Earth, is slow down. Let’s take some more time to really explore and discover all of the amazing things that are out there before we go thinking of ways to cash in on them. There are countless profitable roads to travel down right here on our little blue dot. Hell, I’m sure if we really put our minds to it we could come up with plenty more “inherently free entities” like health and information to charge for. This whole “air” thing seems to be catching on pretty well…

When men kill I ask

Where have you gone Carl Sagan

You’re too good for us

—

Rise and go outside

Look at the sky and realize

It’s fine not to know

—

Gaze into the sky

And ask yourself this question

Why not ask her out

—

Why must space be black

Why not white or green or blue

Or something weirder

—

We are flecks of dust

In a vast timeless cosmos

Eat the damn Snickers

—

We are all trapped here

And not even astronauts

Can escape this place

—

Sometimes I listen

To sad music on iTunes

And think about space

—

For forty years now

We’ve only gone to the moon

What about the rest

—

Shiny blue marble

Spins In cold black emptiness

Why is it you’re here

—

It pains me to think

Human beings can never know

All that is out there

—

Gravity is good

For the exact same reason

Gravity is bad

—

It will hurt your mind

To comprehend what it can’t

So keep your mind here

—

We are only one

Of one hundred billion earths

Millions galaxies

Romance.  Adventure.  Space travel.

Ruined.  For forever.  By Hollywood.  Forever.

These genres, as they exist in real life, are boring.  They will never be as exhilarating, or as passionate, or as dangerous, or as suspenseful, or as scary as they are when played out on the big screen.

No one will ever kiss in black and white quite like Carey Grant or run from a giant rolling boulder in an ancient temple filled with booby traps quite like Indiana Jones or fly an X-wing through the starry darkness of a galaxy far, far away quite like Luke Skywalker.

We, as “normal people”, meaning those that exist in real life and not on film that clicks around a reel, are doomed to underperforming and a life of letting others down because we cannot live up to the expectations set by Hollywood.

It’s sad really, and not entirely our faults either.  Few people ever get the chance to try to switch an ancient idol with a bag of sand that weighs precisely the right amount at precisely the right time or fight an intergalactic battle against an evil empire led by a seriously old man who shoots blue lightning out of his finger tips and a half robot half man man who can strangle people with his thoughts but still has real feelings for his estranged son and daughter.  Like it or not, it just doesn’t happen.

We do get opportunities, however, but these are often boring and not apt to creating heroes.  There are the freak successfully landing a plane in the middle of the Hudson without injuring anyone on board situations, but those are extremely rare and often not successful anyway.

In most cases, our opportunities include things like picking up a falling friend while white water rafting and flying to the moon and riding the ferris wheel with the lady we are mad crushing on but can’t talk to because of the intensity of our crushing, and other boring things.

In the past, these chances would be filled with potential, and the outcomes would often times lead to super heroism.  Not because they hadn’t been done yet.  Because Hollywood hadn’t been done yet.  But then came Hollywood.  And Hollywood did everything better than we ever could.

It is difficult to talk about space travel when our nation, our world, is gripped by a throat tightening, chest tightening, belt tightening recession.  The stars seem further away.  “All that rocket fuel could be used to warm my babies!” the crowd howls.  These are valid points.  It is hard to build towering, steaming birdcrafts when people are going hungry.  There’s just something about watching those booster rockets fall, massive pieces of litter that we cast off like climbers sucking down tanks of O2 on their way to the top of Everest. Those guys are always millionaires.  Recently, as far as nations go, the US is not.

And I would agree with these sentiments.  Would, but for some little gnawing in the back of my mind, the one that pushes me towards giving away all my stuff and moving to a shack in Panama, living off free-dived mollusks.  Because as important as heat and plasma TVs and health care are, they’re only important to me me me and you you you.

Wernher von Braun knew that space travel is important for Us.  And he doesn’t mean you and me.  He means every human that has ever lived and ever will live, including the human that might someday be the last human if we don’t get our act together.

I’ll let Wernher close my set for me.  Goodnight everyone.

***

“Here on Earth we live on a planet that is in orbit around the Sun. The Sun itself is a star that is on fire and will someday burn up, leaving our solar system uninhabitable. Therefore we must build a bridge to the stars, because as far as we know, we are the only sentient creatures in the entire universe. When do we start building that bridge to the stars? We begin as soon as we are able, and this is that time. We must not fail in this obligation we have to keep alive the only meaningful life we know of.” – Wernher von Braun, as remembered by Tom Wolfe.