I don't NOT think space is cool

Of all the ways I’ve become bitter and disillusioned over the years, the one that sucks the most is about space. I used to think space travel was the coolest shit imaginable. I didn’t just want to be an astronaut when I grew up, I wanted to go to Space Camp. That’s how big a dork I was much I loved space.

Even through the 1990s, it was possible to believe that we were simply living through a fallow period and that we’d soon get back to the moon, and travel even further after that. When tech leaders stepped up to offer visions of Mars colonies, it seemed like we were back on track. I will spare you the gory retelling of how those same tech leaders went on to ruin all that was good and pure in this world, but sure enough they ruined the idea of space exploration, too.

It became impossible to ignore that dreams of offworld travel were not a shared one among all peoples of the earth, but ego trips of the very few richest individuals ever to live. When they talked about terraforming Mars to support human life, you had to ask why they didn’t give the same consideration to the planet we already lived on. They would ruin this planet in order to make another habitable. And of course the biggest question was: who was included in their vision of extending human consciousness to the stars? And who was implicitly excluded?

For the moon, Mars, and anything else to avoid becoming a capitalist or nationalist hot potato would require us to change the way we’ve done absolutely everything since industrialization. Sure, it’s possible, but what evidence have we seen that it’s happening? A smiling group of multiracial astronauts making heart symbols with their hands?

Going to the moon the first time was an incredible achievement, which was also primarily motivated by an ideological battle between superpowers. If you want to know why we didn’t go back, it’s because we won the battle. Now we’re facing another one, and no one is being particularly coy about it. We’re going back to beat China. America will never give up the moon again.

So it’s not that I want to be the proverbial punchbowl turd, but I find it very difficult not to wince reflexively about the whole thing. There is still so much to learn, and there is something inspiring about people willing to leave the safety and comfort of home to venture, however shallowly, into the cosmos. I love all that. But humanity could go light years from earth and we’d still trapped where we came from.