Get it together NASA

When NASA ended the shuttle program, I was emtional. It makes sense, it's always sad to see something amazing die. Since then, however, I have found that whenever I encounter shuttle/space exploration story on NPR, blog, etc. I get teary and sad. I'll fully admit ever since I had my daughter that I get weapy at the drop of the hat, but usually that is associated with children, heartwarming or tragic events. The death of the shuttle program is disappointing, but not necessarily tragic. So why all the sad tears?

Let me explain my point of view:

I am a huge nerd. I worked as an Astronomer, and have done some serious amature astronomy. I love ALL Star Trek, Stargate, Farscape, and every space-based SciFi that I have seen, so far. While I was enjoying a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine over Christmas, the answer dawned on me: I love the Star Trek universe best of all. Not the universe as envisioned in The Original Series, but the universe created in The Next Generation and subsequent series. A universe where there was a moral responsibility governing the crew's actions: the Prime Directive. There was also a structure for holding these madeup characters accountable and punishing them. All of this selfcontained and mostly consistent. This moral compas was present in Stargate, Battle Star Gallactica (new), Firefly, and even to a certain extent Farscape. I believe the morality and soul of these shows was required by the military structure of the shows. Farscape is a bit of an outlier, but three of the main characters came from a military backgrounds and thus were instilled with the same sense of morality and accountability of the other series. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the military is excellent, and that it doesn't allow for sociopaths to act out sadistic fantasies. But why couldn't it be better in the future?

Where we are now:

NASA losing its funding means there is a void for space exploration and as NASA's head stated they hope that private companies will fill that void. This is what I am thinking is the root of my surprising despair at the situation. Unless NASA gets its funding back, my dream that somehow, someday we would evolve into some incarnation of Star Trek verse probably won't happen. Instead, our exploration of outerspace will be done for profit. As one story I heard reported: A private company is hoping to offer private citizens trips to the moon for a cool $1 Billion dollars per seat by 2020. 

There are several reasons why this outcome should not be a surprise to me. 1) Unless we develop replicator technology from Star Trek, we won't be freed up to improve the life of the everyman. 2) As  demonstrated in Firefly, Stargate and to a lesser extent Star Trek: governments and military agencies are paranoid and aggressive. The government of the Firefly verse was the root of all evil, manipulating its population with violence and force. A major plot device of the Stargate franchises was the federal government's and international oversite committee's perpetual xenophobic tendencies and intervention with the military actions. At the same time, there isn't a good narative without a Darkside. 3) Nobody's perfect. For all my hoping that we can develop a harmonious egalitarian society, there will always be people who are egomaniacal, power-hungry, and exploitative. I just choose to be optimistic and hope that we can route out these bad traits and begin to function as a global society.

Why the commercial future bothers me:

If corporations are the way, then I see us becoming the distopic future of Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash and Diamond Age: tribal and victim to the splinter groups of our society.  The notion that a multi-planetary corporation will have the same heart and soul as Starfleet, the Brown coats, or Stargate Command, seems unlikely to me. Perhaps this is because all we ever seem to hear about multinational corporations is how they have destroyed the Gulf of Mexico, poisoned our waterways, lied to us about cigarettes and other products we buy because we are stupid sheeple.

Simply, this all boils down what we define human nature to be: cooperative or divisive. I don't want debate whether Hume, or Marx, or Hegel, etc. is right. I just want our space shuttles to fly again. For years I have joked that Gene Rodenberry was from the future, like Rasmussen in Star Trek: TNG's "A Matter of Time." was from the future and had come back so he could become rich by inventing everything from the future today. With NASA being defunded this can't possibly be remotely true. And I think that is a bummer!

ProtoUniverse

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