Things that make you go hmmm…
What y’all doing in space, fam?
It’s been a minute. And trust me, I did not plan on writing this piece today. I’m actually in the process of gearing myself up to come back strong later this summer to talk about some of the challenges I believe this year’s college freshmen will face, and a host of other education access and equity questions.
But, during a quick break on this welcomed slow Sunday, I read this article on Richard Branson flying into space today, and the future plans of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and I just couldn’t help but log on here to ask, “why?”
This whole thing reminds me of another random essay that I ended up not writing but thought about each time I walked past a restaurant that had erected its own outdoor seating situation to stay open during COVID. I get it. People have to eat and people need jobs. Takeout ain’t going to get all the things done. But what is this?
This is space travel.
Rather than figure out how to do better by Earth… a place with grass and trees and oxygen and barbecue, y’all are building million dollar machines to go… nowhere… but far. Where your pee floats, it’s dark outside theee whooooole time, and I’m guessing the WIFI sucks (though, I always wondered how are we getting photos from Mars landings and people were talking to astronauts on the moon back in the day, and yet my Zoom crashes when my kids are binging Disney+. Clearly they’ve been holding out on the network strength).
I don’t know. I guess “discovery” is a helluva drug.
Or maybe it’s me; maybe I’m the crazy one for fighting against racism down here on the Mother planet?
Or maybe Wall-E had it right all along?
