What was I Doing in 1969?

At the time of this writing, there is in the world a fading amount of hype (it being December already, after all) about the 50^th anniversary of one of the few hyped-up things regarding which I feel not only that the hype is justified, but that it doesn’t go far enough. No, I’m not referring to the dubiously celebratory event of my birth in January of that year. I mean the first time (and lamentably one of the very few times) that an Earth being set foot on a piece of rock upon which it was not born. I refer, of course, to the moon landing.

The prevailing attitude to the whole concept of a space program makes me nauseous. It seems that nobody wonders why it’s a “good idea” to spend research money on the best color for sneakers, or how to kill the most strangers, or which type of sport field artificial turf will cause the least cartilage damage over a decade of hurling oneself against another human being for cheers, which shade cheese should be dyed to make it look the most “natural”, which shampoo creates a feeling of empowerment (seriously?!?!), what percentage of which population believes in “God”*, and for the most part simply, “how can we teach ourselves and others and especially our children to cope with never questioning the fact that everything sucks and will continue to do so worse and worse because that is apparently how we like it”. Nobody seems to have a problem with the idea that we need to spend more money on figuring out how to stop torturing rabbits to find out what kind of lipstick won’t wear off on an intercontinental flight than on how we can stop, to put it simply, killing the only environment we have. Or even our own children.

I keep hearing this terrifying comment: “Why spend [whatever amount] on sending rocket ships to Mars when we can plant apple trees here?”

Well, to put it very, very simply, because the apple trees we plant here get bulldozed for some other group’s apartment complex before they even mature, whereas if we learn to plant apple trees in space, suddenly the Teeming Masses will experience a Pioneer Age. This includes such apparently unimportant aspects as: collective work for the greater good, sudden influx of resources, outlets** for those who are so compressed by the Teeming nature of the Masses that they need to react violently, increased local space and thus vitality for land and mankind, lots of new stories of those facing amazing new odds to be streamed at home for those who only want to do it vicariously... Humans are explorers, and if there was ever a time to explore, it is NOW.

That’s why I’m so disappointed that the anniversary of the moon landing is seen as some sort of celebration of some thing of the past, some more normal landing. Some quaint thing. It should be seen as that time we almost made it into the wider world, almost started seeing the first glimmers of the big picture. We should mourn that we never went further even as we glory in the fact that we made it that far… half a century ago.

So, in short, that’s how I feel about the moon landing and the year I was born.

* A title based on a linguistic term for a deity, or being greater than the average human with the ability to intercede for or at people on a pre-conscious level with events of reality-perceiving type existence. Nowadays when capitalized, this title tends to be reserved for three particular theocratic concepts, all of which seem focused on making their Earthly followers battle about which one is “the only one”. Although the assignment of the title “god” as a categorization of human perceptual expectations is very useful and can even be beautiful or transcendental or educational, it has in the past several thousand years become concertized as a term of exclusion used by ruling classes (“priest kings”) to control the behavior of the Teeming Masses.

** Safely away from everyone else