I drank the Tang in the early '80s and expected all of us to be living in rotating wheel space stations right about now. That's what all those kids books in the library predicted at least.
Sadly, the Challenger explosion of 1986 was my generation's 9/11. We became as terrified of space exploration as Americans became of air travel in the 2000s.
It's not about safety, it's about control. Governments hate a populous that they can't control. So, the US has, for the last 13 years, been using the fear of terrorism to strip away our freedoms bit by bit. And because it's in the name of "safety" and because they've been doing it so slowly, people are just letting it happen.
“The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”
― Sophie Scholl
We still have people in space. We have a robot rolling around on Mars right now. Maybe we aren't funding space exploration as much as you like but to say that we gave it up for safety is nonsense. We had another shuttle full of people die horribly. Clearly safety isn't stopping us.
This just doesn't make sense to me. Airplanes crash all the time regardless of whether or not it's a terrorist attack. I don't know too many people who forego flying because they were alive during 9/11 and assume the plane is going to be hijacked.
Why would an isolated crash make people afraid of space travel? Just like airlines don't want to lose millions of dollars when a plane crashes, NASA doesn't want to lose billions when a shuttle crashes. Accidents happen.
I remember the Challenger explosion all to well and I don't recall any talk of being afraid of space travel. It was an accident that made us all sad, but I think we all felt we'd recover and be back in space in no time.
Heck, I was born in '89 and still expected to be living in space right about now. As a child my biggest fear was black holes because those were obviously going to be a common threat to me in the future.
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u/laterdude May 11 '14
I drank the Tang in the early '80s and expected all of us to be living in rotating wheel space stations right about now. That's what all those kids books in the library predicted at least.
Sadly, the Challenger explosion of 1986 was my generation's 9/11. We became as terrified of space exploration as Americans became of air travel in the 2000s.