Today I put up a link to that video of SpaceX\u2019s booster rocket returning to the launching pad like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.\u00a0 It was beyond amazing.\u00a0 It was preposterous.\u00a0 How could the control system of this rocket have it fall out of the sky like a stone, then brake and maneuver under power and stop in mid-air exactly at the docking station and be caught by a mechanical hand as if it were a ballpoint pen.\u00a0 It\u2019s beyond technology it\u2019s some kind of black magic.<\/p>\n
Well, it did me good to see something positive online for the first time in years.\u00a0 Sure, it doesn\u2019t really impact my life in any way that can be measured.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even own any stock in SpaceX.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t really think that going to Mars has any benefits for humans that could be identified in the next hundred years.\u00a0 But what I am seeing is men using their intelligence to do things and make things that have never been done or made before.\u00a0 And every time this happens the side effects from such an endeavor always produce benefits that no one had even considered.\u00a0 Computers are the side effects that accrued from trying to crack codes during WWII and building missiles and rockets.\u00a0 We needed machines that could do the ballistic calculations faster than humans could.\u00a0 If Musk manages to convince the US government to send a mission to Mars, I don\u2019t doubt that the fallout from that project will be more useful than the information we get from going to Mars.<\/p>\n
Humanity is a misbegotten collection of mostly psychotic apes.\u00a0 Every time I look online, I see examples of brutality, depravity and stupidity that should cure anyone of having hope for this world.\u00a0 But something like this gives me that rush of excitement and reminds me of what seemed possible back in the days when I was young.\u00a0 Instead of the drab, hopeless world that the Al Gores and Greta Thunbergs try to convince kids to despair about; where we eke out a miserable existence under pathetic wind turbines and solar panels, we could have a world where the world\u2019s energy needs could be completely provided by any number of powerful technologies.\u00a0 Instead of the phony equity of fake scientists selected by racial and sexual quotas we could go back to a meritocracy where the best would be rewarded by the chance to achieve real breakthroughs in all the STEM applications.<\/p>\n
Watching that rocket land on a dime in mid-air was like a shot of adrenaline.\u00a0 These things can still be done and they should be done.\u00a0 Hell, I would rather the US government had given SpaceX every penny of the 200+ billion dollars that they threw at the senseless and barbaric Ukraine war that we ginned up.\u00a0 If we had, we\u2019d probably already be on Mars.<\/p>\n
Okay, I know this was all just pure emotion.\u00a0 I let myself get caught up in that \u201cRight Stuff\u201d rah-rah feeling.\u00a0 It reminded me of the sense of wonder I felt reading all those science fiction stories that Heinlein wrote back in the stone age.\u00a0 And it has absolutely nothing to do with present day America.\u00a0 The land of illegal alien cannibals that we pay billions of dollars to invade our country.\u00a0 But for one shining moment it felt good.<\/p>\n