They starved millions, consigned millions more to poverty and worse, brutally imprisoned half of Europe, but hey, at least they were woke in space. Not like that evil Amerikkka that inspired the world with its White Man space program. https://t.co/3JCmpIJI7j
More thoughts from Karol Markowicz (who was born in the Soviet Union):
Sure, Communists tortured and executed dissidents, starved their own people by the millions and operated gulags — but have you heard about their amazing space feminism and space intersectionality?
“Cosmonaut diversity was key for the Soviet message to the rest of the globe,” the writer, Sophie Pinkham, wrote. Her piece reads like something from an old issue of the Soviet newspaper Pravda boasting of the achievements of the Soviet space program.
It’s not like this is anything new from the paper.
[Bumped]
[Update a few minutes later]
Why is it that every time something has the potential to bring us together – in this case the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 – leftists media outlets do their best to undermine the notion that Americans should be proud of their country?https://t.co/MWATdUwlXe
Writes about the funeral of his father, a WW II vet (among many other things). He was three years younger than mine, who has been gone now for forty years.
I also subscribe to the theory that tech hubs have brought people together who might not have met in previous times, and their kids are getting a double dose.
“You put some Samoan on his little canoe out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at night and he doesn’t really know where he’s going, he doesn’t know how to get there. He can see the stars, they’re his only friend out there, and he’s not talking to anybody. That guy is lonely.”
“I didn’t experience that kind of loneliness,” he said. “So I did not have Mission Control yakking at me for a full two-hour orbit — for 40 minutes or so I was over there behind the moon — but I was in my comfortable little home. Columbia was a nice, secure, safe, commodious place. I had hot coffee, I had music if I wanted it, I had nice views out the window.”
“To depict me as in despair or something and so lonely as in, ‘Oh my gosh, I could hardly wait to get back to the human voice coming directly up from Earth,’ yeah, that’s baloney.”
Not a lot new here for people who read Vance’s book (or the more recent ones), except he thinks he could put Starship on the moon in two years. From now.
He also describes how he was inspired by Apollo, so that is one good thing that came of it (besides winning a battle in the Cold War).
I still recall the day that I saw a truck come by and threw the contents of both the recycle bin and the trash bin in the same place. But we still separate, for no obvious good reason except, I guess, if not to virtue signal, to at least avoid opprobrium from the neighbors.
I almost hit a guy in my neighborhood this week driving Patricia to the bus stop. I was in a four-way stop intersection, about to pull out, when I catch him coming from the left out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t even slow down for the stop sign, let alone stop. It would have been Darwinian if I’d hit him, but I’d still feel terrible.