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Trixter of the Moon Council

It’s wild how fast I lost interest in space travel when it stopped being presented as a collective accomplishment and became a competition between a handful of morally bankrupt white men.

25 comments
Matt :verified_mastodon:

@trixter exactly this! When it veered totally into hyper-capitalism territory I just completely noped out. And it’s gutting, I absolutely love our rich history of space exploration

Dr Manabu Sakamoto (he/him)

@trixter A lot of people (even in the online science space) have been asking why we’re losing interest in the private sector space enterprises and I’m honestly baffled why they’re still excited by it and trying to hype it as some achievement for all of humanity when it’s just a rich boys club…

Fifi Lamoura

@trixter Yeah because it stopped being about exploring space and became about mineral exploitation and warfare. There's no actual love of space or the stars involved in Musk's manic capitalism.

Patrick Morris Miller

@fifilamoura @trixter I think it's about building his doomsday bunker somewhere where we can't pour ammonia into the air shafts.

Sevoris

@fifilamoura @trixter First year, posting about return to the moon.

Next year, you start seeing the articles on spaceflight communities about the US wanting to buy propellant.

Then you get to the part where Space Force talks about cislunar surveillance satellites and it just all spirals from there.

The way the US talks about space now, the second thing they’ll put in orbit around the moon after some science sats are military satellites.

Josh

@trixter Totally. For me it started with that stupid car going into orbit...

Hot Dog Water

@krnlg

Elon’s the kinda dumbfuckalope wannabe I always made sure wasn’t around me on acid trip weekends, where a VHS tape like Heavy Metal might be playing looped on a TV in a closet, because he’d constantly be trying to make moments with everyone and mark them, instead of living through them.
Sending that car was cringey and the most “Please verify I’m fucking cool!” thing he could’ve done. The many trillions spent on spitting things into space, and it comes down to bling.

boiga

@trixter to be fair the whole "space race" of the 60's was a dick measuring contest between superpowers, and this I don't like. But things like Hubble/JWST, made to gain knowledge about the universe, this I like.

Jenkins

@trixter what a great insight. absolutely. Thanks!

Easelbitch™️ :verified: 🕉️

@trixter

Does anyone on here ever not whine about capitalism?

specked :verified:

@NaturaArtisMagistra @trixter They reap the benefits of capitalism, only to turn around and criticize it. Capitalism: The worst economic system, except for all the others -Churchhill

Rupert

@NaturaArtisMagistra @trixter I'm a business owner, and a landlord. I've done very well out of capitalism.
Capitalism needs to be saved from the capitalists. Before we all end up on guillotines.

Big Head Tales

@trixter
It's not about science and exploration anymore, it's just a bunch of billionaire sociopaths competing to launch bigger penises into orbit for something, something, commercial space, something, public money please.

Urzl

@trixter I think it goes a smidge further back for me, when the world's governments collectively decided that we would go ahead and extend our Terran conflicts into space, there was no more good going to come of it.

Everything from there on out has been taken from humanity and given to the military-industrial complex instead.

Sam Minnée

@gooba42 @trixter the good old days, when America and Russia nobly fought to see who could have the best rockets, which were definitely only useful for exploration.

Urzl

@sminnee @trixter The ICBM was definitely dual purpose as a carriage platform but the "we will never militarize space outright" was a solid ethical rule we should have kept.

Now we're talking about China blasting civilian comm sats with lasers, Russia wants to launch anti-satellite nukes and we're already talking military installations on the moon off and on.

We went from a generally positive mixed bag to all bad, all the time.

iAmAnEngarneer

@trixter A loss of interest in the collective achievement for the sake of the interests of morally bankrupt rich white men describes our government kinda frighteningly accurately.

David J. Atkinson #🟦

@trixter Totally understandable. Personally, I’m thrilled by commercial space (but not about the personalities). It means the technically really hard and expensive part of access-to-orbit has been solved. Previously, #NASA and other national space agencies were the only ones who could handle the cost and risk. Now, many companies compete in commercial launch services and the cost is continuing to go down. Demand is high and growing. NASA can now focus on lunar and beyond Earth orbit.

DELETED

@trixter

Yes, and I felt the same when Reagan was hell-bent on militarizing space.

Les Orchard

@trixter It makes me so, so sad. And space exploration is one of the things most likely to get me weepy & verklempt

Leen Kievit

@trixter I should still have a binder somewhere with newspaper clippings about the Space Shuttle missions which I cut out as a 14-year old.

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