Space is the coolest thing

A while ago, I was discussing human achievement with a group of friends. I brought up space travel, in my mind, space travel is probably one of the greatest things mankind has done so far. Basically everyone else responded by asking "Where’s the point?" huh.

Well, I know a lot of people are just dumb as heck so I put it off. Until I slowly realized basically everyone has this exact same outlook "Where’s the point". This was, to say the least, slightly disheartening. I love space, its my passion. What the hell is wrong with you backwards bastards? Ok, let me start by squaring away that one issue that keeps arising "Where is the point". Little do you know but NASA is basically responsible, in some way, for almost every single device you will use today. Starting with the most obvious, your keyboard, Mouse and even your computer itself are all the result of research and development by NASA. If you make a phone call today, or browse the web on your phone or use a GPS to find the shops near you, NASA is to thank for that. Oh well someone would have made those eventually, No, no they wouldn't have and even if they did, at least ONE of the following important discoveries and technologies would have slipped past their dumb earth brains;

• Pacemakers

• Bar Codes

• Smoke detectors

• Almost everything in an ambulance

• Cordless electronic tools

• Memory cloth

• Fuckin' baby food

• Water purification

• Solar Energy

• Cancer detection

Most of the devices up there have probably saved thousands of lives in the time its taken me to write this. And that’s just a small smattering of the 30,000 or so by products of the space race. Man they must have spent tons of cash on that right? Wrong you moron. They spent less than 1% of the national budget of the US on developing all that shit. That’s less than 1 cent for every dollar an American makes.

Its probably one of the best industries too, all that tech creates jobs and income and taxes for people and the government. It’s estimated that for every $1 spent on NASA, the US gets $7 back in the form of new jobs and taxes from those jobs. I mean screw taxes but that’s one hell of a return.

And just for you guys out there that don't get motivated by silly shit like "World shattering inventions" and "Devices that save millions of lives" or "taxes" what about the fact that exploration is the single greatest thing humanity does that separates us from animals? Since the dawn of time we've had brave, stupid or just hungry and lost people finding new, incredible land then fucking it up forever. For me, that’s what space is about. For less money than you will spend today on the cost of the electricity to heat up your hot pockets, humanity is going into the dark, scary world outside of the safety of our planet in the name of exploration and finding out cool shit.

Now that we have THAT out of the way, lets talk about all the cool stuff you get out of space travel.

The big one is asteroid mining. Boring sounding I know but asteroid mining is, literally, something that could save the entire planet and introduce a new golden age of humanity. Ok maybe that’s a bit much but follow me here.

You know how in space movies everyone always has whatever they want? I mean apart from like, Mad Max or anything else set in GRIMDARK, resources in these places are infinite, enough to build space stations the size of moons, to send craft all over the universe, establish worlds and build fantastic machines. Guess what? We already have that shit a couple of miles above your head. Above you are approximately 450 big rocks full of gold, iron, copper and whatever other raw materials you can imagine. By rocks I mean one of the closer ones is 2.5km in circumference and is made of gold.

I shouldn't really have to say any more "Massive rock made of gold" is probably enough for most anyone, but I'm insane, crazy and drunk with power so I'll go on. As well as being a gangster rapper's dream, the solid gold asteroid also holds massive amounts of other, useful stuff like tin and iron, which can be used to build MORE space stuff. Yes you earth people can have some of it too, seeing how its much easier and cheaper to drop stuff to earth than bring it up to space.

This builds into the next stage, colonization of space. Naaah nems, that shit is futurewacky stuff. Costs trillions and we dont have the tech.....oh we DO have the tech? and you can build it completely with space materials? Welp I guess I'll shut my big strawman-mouth then. woop-doop-de-woop.

In closing. Space is so kickass all the shit I just talked about for a page or so is stuff within an hours flight away from Earth. I didn't even touch on the stuff that’s just plain "cool" that naysayers would say "has no applicable benefits for mankind". If there’s one thing you should take away from this, its that we live in a time where, if they wanted to, we could have everything I just described within a decade of work. The tech is there, the profits are all up there, all we need is someone with the cash and the personality to get it going.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. - Carl Sagan

-Nems

P.S. just in case you were also thinking that cash has to be mountains of the stuff? I estimated that the whole project would cost less than $60 Billion. That sounds like a lot until you realize that the money you’d make back, and the jobs it would provide outdo that number tenfold.

Book 6 - Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

A timeless tale about the monster within us all, the perils of indulgence and friendship.

What can be said, its a classic. Its very very well written, perfectly paced and the characters are all fantastic people. For those who haven't read it, do so. Its not what you may think, the actual structure of the book is mostly the account of Jekyll's best friend, a lawyer named Utterson. One thing I found was that the book was still as thrilling and interesting today as it was when it was written.

While you all know the book is about the duality of human nature, I think one part of it that is missed is the way the book deal with friendship. Jekyll's friends are the ones telling the story for the most part and you get an intense feeling of love they have for their friend and the terrible fear they have for him when things start going wrong. Its not the main focus of the book, not even nearly, but its important enough that it made me think.

Read this, its only 100 pages or so and its famous literally because people who didn't read started reading because of this book.

Book 5 - Down and out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Immortal SuperFuture tale of intrigue set in Disney World.

This books premise is so nuts its difficult to actually type it. I'll do my best. It is THE FUTURE and people can now live forever via a bizarre cloning process that leaves you with whatever memories you had at the time of your last backup. The world has changed fundamentally and the book takes place in Disney World, now considered one of the greatest works of the 20th century. For some reason.

Superfuture in Disney land was enough for me to grab a free copy from the authors site, but it didn't live up to what it was aiming for. While I'm not pissed off at it or anything, it just felt like its messages and commentary on the human condition were a little empty. God knows it tries hard, but in the ocean of unexplained, difficult to understand concepts, and silly names, This book was basically a big pile of neat ideas (the idea that the currency in the world is based solely on what other people think of you) jumbled together into a silly plot that takes itself far too seriously.

At times I felt like I was missing something, like there was a big idea just under the layer I was reading at. There are parts of the book that are genuinely exciting, fun and thought provoking, so it succeeds there. I guess I was mostly annoyed that it didn't keep that up through the book.

Its free, so go look it up if you like the concept. Just be prepared for endless pages of flashbacks and the word Whuffie alot.

Book 1 - Flatland by Edwin Abbott

The idea of a book based completely in a 2D world where the main character is a square was...interesting to say the least. So I jumped on Project Gutenburg (the best website in the world for me right now) and grabbed it.


Good plan. This is such a fun read. The book's main point is to paint a satire of Victorian culture, something that becomes evident as soon as the book picks up a mallet labelled "Civil Rights" and starts beating your face (which is now labelled as "Oppression") until your brain flies out of your skull (which is now labelled hate or something i dunno this political cartoon joke died before I started to write it). The book literally refers to women as a single lines that are seen by every other shape as almost animals, but they have the ability to quite easily massacre everything in Flatland (cause they are the pointiest). Very good social commentary, if a little strong.

The visuals and concepts of higher dimensions are the main reasons I loved this book and they didn't disappoint, Every single chapter blows your brain with accurate ideas of how a 2D creature might "see". I couldn't possibly begin to explain most of it to you so I'll just say stop being an illiterate slob and go read it, its free cause its older than dirt but, like dirt, its deep, more complex than it seems and brown.

-Nem

Book 2 - Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell

Sci Fi writer finds himself in Dante's hell. Oh my.

I have a confession to make. I have never read all of Dante's inferno. Cause its boring as fuck. It's a book that requires a massive amount of footnotes and prefaces to ensure you know who the hell is talking and why. I'm sure at the time it was a rip roaring ride but I'm not an 14th century Italian. What I am is a 20th century nerd. So when I read about a book that starts with a sci-fi writer killing himself and ending up in the very same hell that Virgil walked, I thought Why not.

I don't feel right calling a book "pointless" cause I guess at their heart, alot of books are pointless. but this one doesn't even tell a new story. I guess the inclusion of a bunch of different characters from various times and places is kinda neat but, I dunno, could have been alot more creative. Theres no real message or criticism or anything, unless the author's self insert's constant ramblings to himself count. One main issue I had was that it leads you along for a very long time on two plot points that are both painfully obvious and played as if they are incredible mysteries.

I don't have much more to say about this, it was alight I suppose but I wouldn't recommend it unless you really like the idea.

Book 3 - Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn

Prequel to Mass Effect, famous RPG, dialogue and alien sex sim.

My secert love of Halo books made me read this. I don't care what you bitchs say this book has a part where a giant rino alien uses magic powers to throw an APC 30 feet into the air so screw all of you. I really enjoyed this as a mindless, space military tie in. Its written functionally enough, got a decent enough plot, clears some issues you may have with the plot of the game and is just really fun to read. If you like Mass effect, you'll probably like this.

Book 4 - Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang

Angels, God, Hell and Fallen Angels exist as real, frequent, and problematic as Tornadoes.

I kinda liked this book, the message of Humanities place in a world where the promises of angels and the like are actually met is really strong and even through the almost mechanical way its written there's a very dark sadness to the whole affair. The plot revolves around visitations from angels, which sometimes will heal you, sometimes result in your death from the effects of the angel. The people who see these angels hardly even care what the angels have to say, they just want to feel the magic light that surrounds him when he arrives or leaves.

If you can get past how utterly mind-numbingly boring its written, it's actually a really great read. short too so you can't complain about it. Theres far too much story and message and underlying plot for me to get into in these short reviews, but it is a solid experience.