Posted on 12/25/2015 6:31:42 AM PST by Kaslin
Measure it any way you like, but this hasn't been that championship season of the "can do" spirit of America. Most of the presidential campaigners spend their allotted minutes criticizing what's wrong with the country, how others have made a mess of things and why voters should put them in charge of changing things.
It's difficult to find the formula through the haze of confusion and fog of rhetoric. There's far more blowhard nastiness than creative eloquence. That's what politics is about, of course, but it gets tiresome in the holiday season when we're craving inspiration from our better angels, if any have survived.
If you crave a reprieve, if only for two hours (considerably shorter than a presidential primary debate), dip into pop culture and see "The Martian," a technologically hip, feel-good movie about what the American spirit can accomplish, if only in a sci-fi movie. "The Martian," set in the not-so-far future, is about leaving a man on Mars and getting him back.
The movie, as you may have heard if you're in earshot of a sci-fi loving teenager (or adult), is about an astronaut, Mark Watney, portrayed by Matt Damon, who has been abandoned on the red planet by his crew. They thought he was dead. The story was lifted from a novel by Andy Weir, which is admired for its authentic scientific detail and mathematical accuracy. Its theme is rooted in challenges to the human spirit and the collective ability of man to find technological solutions to human problems. Life is not easy for a man alone on the red planet.
The spaceship crew, on learning from NASA that their abandoned astronaut is alive and well, are steeped in the tradition of believing that they all owe each other and that it's necessary to cover a mate's back. They desperately want to find a way to go back for him. They're supported by a multicultural network of brilliant young nerds, techies and whizzes at mission control. They don't know whether they can work fast enough to get the space cowboy before he's overtaken by unforgiving forces. But they're sure going to give it the old college try. This is nerd-cool at its best.
The movie has been described as "Robinson Crusoe" in space, or "Ulysses" on Mars and at times the planet Mars looks like Monument Valley, where John Ford spun so many of his classic Westerns. But the temper and tone of the story are more reminiscent of America galvanized by Pearl Harbor, when talented young men and women from every nook and cranny of America got together in factory and field to do what needed to be done to support the soldiers.
On Mars the focus is on one man, but between his resourcefulness and a high-tech team's problem-solving abilities, their science and math are the required backup for the derring-do.
Mark Watney, the lone astronaut on Mars, is a botanist, from a profession that has never before had such an opportunity for heroism. He understands his predicament, and stares into the camera for his video diary and tells himself with more than a touch of warrior bravado: "Mars will come to fear my botany powers."
NASA actually announced that scientists found liquid water on Mars just as the movie opened, but the botanist has to make his own water, drawing on H2O, the formula we memorized in science class. If not exactly Mendel with his peas, he figures out through mathematical calculations how to grow enough potatoes to keep himself alive.
"The Martian" could motivate a generation of young people to see the value of studying math and science. We remain woefully behind in international tests in science and math, with our 15-year-olds scoring 35th out of 64 countries in math and 27th in science, according to the Program for International Student Assessment.
It's probably a coincidence, but just when "The Martian" was arriving at a theater near you, NASA offered "NASA's Journey to Mars: Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration," which actually outlines a strategy for landing human "spacefarers" on Mars and bringing them home. It's an ambitious plan to propel a spaceship into the 141-million-mile journey from Earth. (You may never complain about a 5-mile commute again.)
While the candidates debate boots on the ground and taxes in the stratosphere, NASA yearns for boots on the surface of Mars. "We are developing the capabilities necessary to get there, land there, and live there," says NASA. John F. Kennedy rallied the nation with a call for man to go to the moon and back, requiring the dedication and disciplined work of an "entire nation." But can we answer such a call again?
Better to go to Venus. You could build a shirt sleeve environment if you were ok living just above the cloud layer. Ample material there for making water, growing food, etc. Think Lando Calrissians cloud city. You could walk around on an open balcony in a place like that with no equipment.
“The need for 100% diversity coupled with the need for 100% safety, has put space travel out of reach.”
The need for 100% diversity. coupled with the need for 100% safety, plus the need for 100% mulsim outreach, coupled with the 100% educational need to have good outcomes has put space travel, critical thinking, and moral values out of reach, proving our society is able to believe 400% is the same as 100% and feel good about the outcome.
Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of vast ignorance, we fear no learning for our Kardashian is with us until we arrive at the department store in the sky.
Regarding Mars: there is no reason to go to there other than to say, “hey look, we went to Mars.” There is no profit to be made. There are no new technologies to be developed which would make life on Earth better for anyone. We have already got Teflon from the Moon Lanch. How would life on Earth be any better for anyone here if an Earthling were to go to Mars?!
You are being sarcastic, I presume?
I had a discussion a few weeks ago with a longtime spook spec op submariner and was surprised that he said he would never go into space. I scared him
Heck I would go in a NY minute
I had a discussion a few weeks ago with a longtime spook spec op submariner and was surprised that he said he would never go into space. I scared him
Heck I would go in a NY minute
To PIF No I am not being sarcastic. Everything learned from going to the Moon has already been learned. Going to Mars would be like repeating the 11 grade. It would be of no use after having been successful the 1st time around. Yet, you tell me what would be so great about going to Mars other than saying, “we went to Mars.”
Oh dear. You actually believe all that? Do you know that something like 90% of all data has never been looked at? That none of it has ever been analyzed?
Do you know that much of the archival images and films have been destroyed or lost? Do you know for certain that the only benefit from the Apollo program was Teflon/tang, etc?
So all the major medical advances, computer advances, satellite advance which happen before going to the moon or as a result of going as just sops to be ignored?
Such beliefs make me wonder if you ever got out of the 11th grade ... You would have made a fine addition to the Spanish Inquisition during Galileo’s time; I’m sure you would have voted to show him the instruments and then the stake ... You should have been an adviser to Queen Isabella’s Court and put your foot down firmly against granting any monies to that lunatic Columbus.
Obviously you have no capacity to wonder or explore - best just contemplate your navel and hope everything works out. You do know that exportation was the basis of the founding of this country, I sure. It was OK, then but obviously costs too much - better to spend the money we don’t have because this country makes virtually nothing feeding the homeless, the disadvantaged, etc - all the liberal ostrich-like fantastical wet dreams.
Maybe he knows something we can only guess at ... the Apollo program did stop rather abruptly for no logical reason ... you got to wonder what it is about ‘going into space’ that would scare that sort of fellow.
Apollo “stopped abruptly” because Congress and the Nixon administration shut off the money. NASA had mission plans for moon landings up to Apollo 20, and other stuff they wanted to do with Apollo hardware, like a Venus flyby. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
They also shut down an operating nuclear reactor technology tested at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which was safe to turn off, punch the time clock for the weekend, and fire back up Monday morning. It didn’t properly support military plutonium procurement.
To PIF: Your hate mongerings against me are really childish. Spending billions of dollars just so Tom Cruse can grow a potato on Mars is wasteful spending. The advancements of going to the moon have already happened. Computers, communications, high tech, bio-tech. Mars has no atmosphere. The meteors don’t burn up in the atmosphere because there is no atmosphere there. Sailing to the new world was wonderful because of the new resources to be exploited by the old world’s peoples. With Mars there are no such opertunities. Your hate filled commentary was weird. You gave no reason other than a fantasy world of a future utopia...on Mars. Oh yeah...I read Ray Bradbury when I was a kid. A fun read. I am not the ignorant person here. Merry Christmas...I hope you replace your hate with responsible behavior.
Good Grief! Tom Cruse? You are waaay out there - not hate, fella, just dispise total ignorance such as you seem to like to post.
The rest of you reply is dead wrong - Mars does have an atmosphere just not as dense as Earth, etc.
End Conversation
Moon first. We need a real space station. Then asteroid belt mining. Then real interplanetary activities.
The Mars Atmosphere just not as dense?! Hows about 100 times less dense than Earth’s atmosphere and 95 percent carbon dioxide. In other words the meteors will crash to the surface and do damage. Why travel all that distance just to live in a hole in the ground?! As long as you do not use my taxpayer money, please fell free to do so. I tried to warn you. Please consider Earth as a place to live. There are sections here that are very nice. Question? What would you eat that you grew on Mars if you lived on Mars? How would it compare to a Thanksgiving Dinner on Earth?!
Galien.
I hear Martian Baked Alaska is scrumptious.
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