A US spacecraft launched from Florida to land on the lunar surface encounters propulsion problems.
Due to a power issue, it looks like the lander may now no longer have sufficient fuel to make a controlled landing on the moon. This was the lander that was set to carry human remains to the moon despite objections from the Navajo nation. Hopefully, this discourages any future attempts at such a stunt, since instead of a permanent mausoleum your ashes may instead be stranded in orbit or scattered amongst the moon dust if the thing crashes.
im not justifying this billionaires attempt to claim the moon, but the moon doesn't really have an ecosystem to interrupt, so remains in and of themselves aren't really the issue, moreso the billionaires implicitly claiming it, i think
The moon, like most things, should be treated as a commons. Very few people give a shit about the ashes of one single person, but opening the floodgates to enclosing one of the last remaining commons that have ever been walked as capitalists claim all they can is something that benefits only those capitalists, to the detriment of the rest of us as we need to watch whatever bespoke advertisements are put on the Lunar Billboards in the future.
That and the moon itself is a sort of artifact in the loose sense, one of a handful of cultural touchstones that connects to concrete, objective features of our universe and yet is shared even by ancient cultures that have no knowledge of each other. There's going to be some amount of "defacing" in the process of lunar missions regardless, but at least that "defacing" is for the purpose of exploring and understanding the moon, and not just a dumb vanity project that steals from every future generation to benefit a wealthy lump of charcoal.
Edit: At risk of seeming like a smug bitch I do think being cremated and put into waste wouldn’t be the worst, it would literally return me as part of the natural cycle which could be cool as fuck. It would be cooler than being buried on celestial bodies 9 times out of 10, actually (that last 1 is for if climate change somehow manages to sterilize all soil on Earth and reduces it to a mars-like husk of its former self).
wait so it would be morally wrong to get my ashes railgunned onto the moon? Because that's the coolest way I can think of for my corpse to be disposed of
What's the point of being buried or spreading your ashes in a place that your loved ones can't visit? Even if you have your ashes cast into the ocean they revisit said shore.
What's the point of being buried or spreading your ashes in a place that your loved ones can't visit? Even if you have your ashes cast into the ocean they revisit said shore.
They can visit it by looking up any time
Eventually, everyone will forget me. The knowledge that I'm going to have an awesome death ritual is more important to me than a legacy that will die anyways- Though, of course, I do care about my future loved one's happiness, too
I only recently realized Laika became such "A Thing" for Red Scare reasons. Long before Laika, the macaque named Albert was killed by the US Space program, and the subsequent primates who -- having been denied the dignity of being called something beyond version numbers -- were named Albert II - V, all either died in transit or, in II's case, on impact with the Earth (I think V burnt up on re-entry, but I'm not sure). It was only with Yorick ("Albert VI") that one actually got to breath Earth's air after reaching space, which took place after a pair of Soviet dogs survived their return.
Not that Laika's case wasn't sad, but I think it's comparatively overblown to talk about the Cruel Soviets.
Edit: I feel obliged to acknowledge the irony that the one named Yorick survived where all his predecessors died.
Jesus Christ, maybe we should make a sun cannon to remove nuclear waste and then leave the rest of space alone. We obviously are not good at touching it without cruelty.
Edit: Maybe not even that, we'll probably miss and somehow hit a baby.
Wait so like we also think making theoretical orbiting space memorials in far off planets would be wrong? God I’m woefully uneducated on the subject of space pollution, I’m sorry for having this kind of liberalism everybody. I’ll try to educate myself before I speak next time
I have committed the most horrible version of liberalism and spoke without knowing.
For any fellow cracker saltines that don’t understand the context, the Navajo nation views the moon as sacred in their beliefs and cosmology and ANY form of human remains there is therefore really, really fucked up.
I was really confused why people were so hostile until I looked it up JUST NOW. I assumed, in my infinite white cracker arrogance, that it was merely the claiming of a segment of the moon that was seen as horrific, and not the act of defacing it with human remains in and of itself, which I can now (and should have from the beginning) understand given how it would be like literally throwing human cadavers into a church but at a much, much worse level. Like throwing gore into Heaven level fucked up shit.
I legitimately feel terrible for this and I’m sorry I didn’t do this bare minimum cursory research. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to not connect how all kinds of burial would be equally fucked up, and I’m sorry I was such a liberal at all.
Please forgive me. I really don’t want to hurt anyone or defend this kind of deep disrespect and direct ignorance of what indigenous people have been saying. I will try to do actual research next time before I open my saltine mouth. No one HAS to forgive me, this is something understandable to be permanently angry at me over, I just want to ask anyways.
Why am I even commenting this? Well, partially because I’m an insecure cracker that needs to transmit it’s dumb feelings online for affirmation. Secondly, because it shows I’m not just some lib trying to le epically own the “OPPRESSIVE, EVUL” indigenous people for my own cynical ends
The moon belongs to everyone; we should resist those who want to turn the cosmos into the playground of the rich. There is no scientific or public value in erecting such a mausoleum with public funds just because a few (presently dead) billionaires thought it would be neat. The fact they could afford to partially fund such a mission just goes to show that they had far too much money to spend in a productive or even recreational fashion: that money should have been expropriated and NASA or any other space program shouldn't need to be servicing such macabre fantasies.
Of course, many cultures across the world have had and continue to have a reverence for the moon along with the earth itself, and turning it into a graveyard for the fanciful rich should be generally offensive.
we should resist those who want to turn the cosmos into the playground of the rich.
we should bar people from making use of the moon, in the spirit of it belonging to everyone
Of course, many cultures across the world have had and continue to have a reverence for the moon along with the earth itself, and turning it into a graveyard for the fanciful rich should be generally offensive.
we should bar people from making use of the moon, in the spirit of it belonging to everyone