Whitey's on the moon (again)

A rat done bit my sister Nell
with Whitey on the moon.
Her face an' arm began to swell,
but Whitey's on the moon.
Was all that money I made las' year
for Whitey on the moon?
How come there ain't no money here?
Hmm! Whitey's on the moon.

Gil Scott-Heron

Now, I hate to repeat myself, even when it gives me more opportunity to mouth off. And I hate to be a wet blanket as far as space exploration is concerned. (An earlier edition of me was all set to be the second person on Mars.) But I'm not as gung-ho as I once was about devoting as much attention and resources to manned missions as NASA seems bent on doing in the medium term.

Part of it, as noted, has to do with the incredible rewards of robotic explorers in comparison to the low risks they pose to our pocketbooks and our astronaut corps. Yeah, it's annoying to lose the use of an occasional satellite for whatever reason. I think it beats the national day of mourning that a lost manned mission would entail, though.

An increasing part of my objection to pushing for lunar bases or Mars landings in the medium term is similarly fiscal, but with a strong ethical coloring. Basically, the question is:

Should the spacefaring nations - which, not coincidentally, happen to be the Earth's wealthiest nations - spend the huge sums it will require to safely move a few humans off the planet when equal effort/money, judiciously invested, could clear up problems for so many humans on the planet?

In no way am I against manned space missions absolutely. We need to undertake them. I still want to get to Mars, dammit. Can we at least go after them once we've gotten our Gaian oikos in order and have exhausted what our satellites can do for us?

He Lifted Me

Because it was there, man...

On this first true wintery day, it lifted my spirits to read something good about the teenagers of this fair nation. One young Alaskan is set to join battle with the forces of irrational conservatism and order, the foe of all restive, imaginative youth--the local school board. All because he chose to exercise his divinely dispensed freedom to make an artistic statement in public.

He draped his school in a billboard reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus", taking maximum advantage of the free publicity of the passing Olympic Torch.

A lower state appeals court gave him the high sign, treating this as a matter of freedom of speech. Yet now he is being pursued by the board and lawmonger-for-hire Ken Starr in the highest court in the land.

I'd like to think that some high-minded principles lay behind his hoisting of such a hempen Hello. Apparently even the kid himself said it was just for the contact high of 15 seconds of press proximity. Still, why treat this as some high crime against the state?

Had he known his one brief, inspired act would force some very stodgy barristers and functionaries to have to say those four magic words repeatedly in open court, that would only have iced the cake. On those grounds alone, I salute you, young sir.