I just finished an article about how NASA got it's start. Although its legacy dates back to the days of the Wright Brothers' first flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, NASA really began on October 4, 1958 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the worlds first satellite.
The fear that lonely orbiting little round beeping ball caused was immense. Although considered only fear mongering and fantasy before, suddenly many nightmarish possibilities seemed to be real to American politicians. Things like Soviet platforms in space, dropping bombs wherever and whenever they chose. Maybe a man-made Soviet moon, providing constant surveillance of American secret sights with no possible counter measures. Even the Soviet colonization and military installations there seemed not just possible, but damned likely!
Thus, NASA was created on July 29, 1958, to make sure America got all of those things first.
Now, there can be no doubt that war and threats of war have been the impetus behind some of our greatest leaps in technology. From airplanes to aerodynamics, balloons to bullets, radar to rockets, new energy to new electronics... most of the advanced technology we have today has either been created or at least drastically improved because of our never ending pursuit of having better weapons of war. We owe so many of the things that make our lives better, more comfortable and convenient to the so-called "Space Race", which has it's roots in war.
That, as they say, has been a double edged sword. And, I wonder if it'll ever change, or even if it should. Whose to say?
However, with the advent of AI technology and our current POTUS' obsession with a "Space Force", I wonder where our pursuit of war and weaponry will lead us. When I was young, the common Armageddon fantasies were about our own technology, thinking machine brains and robots we created to make our lives better, deciding in a millisecond that humans were really not worth the hassle anymore. Accordingly, the machines decided to wage war against their creators, wanting to exterminate all of mankind.
Humans, trying to make their lives better, but instead sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Good movies, good times. Those movies made Schwarzenegger rich.
But, that's just the stuff of fear mongering and fantasy. Our relentless pursuit of war and weaponry couldn't be the cause of our own extinction, our last and most perfect irony, right?
Right?
If not war, then the forces of capitalism plundering the earth for its resources.
If the Universe were to present a grade for Humanity's performance in Self-Preservation 101, it would get a well-deserved "F."
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Agreed. In fact, the way we have been behaving the last few decades, especially in America, I'd say Nature is warming up for another Extinction Level Event. I used to think that would be a bad thing. But, as we can't seem to rise above the level of "Chimp with a Machine Gun" mentality, I'm warming up to the idea myself.
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A sad realization that I am reluctantly accepting.
Climate change is activating Mother Nature's pest control system -- hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires. If we weren't so "advanced," we would be trembling in fear and changing our destructive ways.
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Some of us are trembling. Others, blinded by their greed and over certitude that their god will not allow any serious harm to come to us, unless of course it's the End of Days. In which case, they think, they win there too. They are on a suicide mission and you can't reason with a suicide bomber.
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