A couple of days ago, I was a bit astonished to read the following gush from American Enterprise Institute smart guy James Pethokoukis at his substack blog Faster, Please!, urging American school teachers around the country to focus their students’ attention on the launch of Elon Musk’s “Starship” super heavy booster:
Not only does Starship provide a teachable moment — current events, economics, history, science — but also an aspirational one. For their entire lives, these kids and their older classmates have been fed a diet of dystopian images about the future: out-of-control AI, chaotic climate, extreme inequality, and plagues that will either kill you or zombify you. … Starship provides an opportunity to present a different vision of what the future can be.
But not today, obviously. As you can tell from my “tart” tone, I’m not at all on board for the Mars Express, and not just because the rocket exploded—which, experience has taught us, they have a tendency to do. The “big pitch” for this launch was that—for the first time—the entire rocket assembly could be recovered and reused, resulting in a staggering reduction in costs. But, clearly, not today.
But my tone would have been just as tart if the rocket launch had gone perfectly, and the whole shebang had been recovered, and without a scratch to boot. Because the whole notion of going to Mars is insane! Literally, because anyone who makes the trip will be in that state by the time the Red Planet actually heaves into view. Human beings are not built for a zero gravity, zero oxygen, -273° F temperature climate, and the fantastically expensive, and fantastically confining, accommodations necessary to simply keep a human being alive for, you know, several years, will, if it “succeeds” at all, deliver little more than a band of semi-sentient mummies composed of those entirely insane, and thus dying because they are incapable of caring for themselves, those longing for death, and those who have already embraced it. Dystopia much, amirite?
Why would anyone think differently? And why, in particular, would strikingly intelligent people like Mr. Pethokoukis, who is, I suspect, in sheer brain power easily my superior, think otherwise? Because they find themselves, at heart, of Hamlet’s disposition, believing that “this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er hanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeareth no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
Well, that is a problem. Evolution has stuck us with a brain designed to allow us to outwit our beastly brothers and now we find we have outwitted ourselves, allowing us to both glimpse the infinite and foresee our own doom, and thus wonder why we are given so much for no other purpose than to have it all taken away, and often under the most humiliating circumstances. I don’t know if my own lack of distress is “wise” or merely bovine, but I do recommend regular doses of Spinoza, Shakespeare, and Mozart, with generous helpings of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk on the side.
Afterwords
I will offer my own very unkind comment on what drives Elon Musk, who in the past year or so has been giving us a very good demonstration of the ill effects possessing hundreds of billions of dollars has on the human apprehension: It is very well known that Mr. Musk is on very poor terms with his father. I believe he believes, somewhere in his subcortex, that if he goes to Mars, he won’t hate his father any more. I believe that if he actually does make it to Mars, not in such shape as I imagine but rather as he envisages, he will find that nothing has changed. A change in altitude, however spectacular, will have no effect on the human spirit. If you don’t hate your parents—and I don’t hate mine—count yourself fortunate indeed.
A Note on the video
The only video I could find seems to be from Musk’s own outfit. The poor announcer is obviously put in a very awkward position and I hope no one will think I’m making fun of her or all the other people present who had their spirits dashed as well. I don’t think a flight to Mars is literally impossible, but I do think it is almost infinitely more demanding than enthusiasts wish to admit, that it is not at all worth doing, and that even a “successful” mission would end in tragedy. Perhaps a century or two of remarkable progress would make such a journey “feasible” in a meaningful sense of the term, but even then humans would just be suspended in an astoundingly complex neo-terrestrial cocoon that would be nothing like “space” as people like Mr. Musk and Mr. Pethokoukis imagine it. Earth is our home, and I find it a good one.
UPDATE
Bloomberg provides an excellent overview of Musk's insanely complicated “plan” to get to Mars, which I find utterly ridiculous, both in its entirety and in its every detail.
Well I found there will always be people that will buy into anything, no matter how Far Fetch it is .
People bought over a million dollars in Pet Rocks , as a prime example
Certainly we could spend our money more constructively than dying on Mars.