Delightfulskywalker - 🥀

Luke in the Millennium Falcon A New Hope (1977) // The Last Jedi (2017)

TRAPPIST-1 Planets - Flyaround Animation

Credit: NASA/Spitzer

Had to post this somewhere.

I’ve been thinking about Elon Musk’s Tesla.

The guy shot a car into space. A freaking car. With a fake astronaut in the seat and the words “Don’t Panic.”

And people are seeing this as this bizarre conspicuous consumption or a weird Tesla publicity stunt. As a one percenter…

…but the more I think about it, the more I realize something quite simple.

This guy had to launch a test load. He had to put something on that rocket. Given the power of the rocket, whatever they launched as a test load had to be heavy enough to properly test the biggest rocket we’ve launched since the Apollo program.

It had to be well built and solid enough to survive the launch. Now, because of the size of the load, it had to be put into a stable orbit not, as happens with smaller test loads, set to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

So, assuming everything went well, whatever they put on that rocket? It’s going to be in space for a long time. Assuming it’s not hit by a bit of debris, or an asteroid, or whatever, it could be up there for millions of years. It’s in space, so it’s not going to rust or corrode. It will eventually develop pitting from micro meteor strikes, it’s not going to last forever.

So, what does the guy send up.

A freaking car with an astronaut in the seat and the words “Don’t Panic” printed on it.

It’s corny. It’s tacky. But what else is it?

It’s art.

It’s something that’s going to still be recognizable as art in a few thousand years. After we’re all dead. Heck, it may still be recognizable as art after our species is dead - extinct or evolved into something else.

Given the fact that he had to put some kind of object into a stable orbit in the solar system, Musk picked not just art, but ridiculous art. The kind of thing that hangs from diner ceilings, the kind of thing a kid would put together.

He put something out there that screams to the void “This is us. This is humanity. This is how utterly silly we are, how completely frivolous.”

And you know what, if the first..or the only…thing an alien civilization sees of us is Elon Musk’s stupid car, I’m quite happy with that.

They might not be able to decipher the message, but they’ll know somebody was here who, given the power to fly into space used it to play.

I’m quite happy with that.

Rika | Jihyun | Jumin | Zen | Seven  | Jaehee  | Yoosung | Unknown 

♡

the moon asks a question by dirgewithoutmusic

illustrated by purutsukid

Research

What would aliens think about research? By that, I mean the research of treacherous things, like volcanoes. Humans can send in drones to get samples or survey an environment, but sometimes, and especially in the times when research methods weren’t as advanced as today (or at times of space travel).

For example, Isaac Newton stuck a needle in his eye and poked around to study how humans perceive colors. (He did learn a lot but… eugh.) Sir Humphrey Davy generated chemical reactions and inhaled (potentially dangerous) gaseous products to note what happened. One scientist tried heart catheterization on himself when he couldn’t get approval to try it on a human.

Maybe aliens would think that humans were pretty dumb for doing all that, but it was early on, and these guys have learned better now.

Oh, no. There is currently a lava lake in Antarctica that occasionally spews a fall of fire now and then. Scientists go to that lake, in the freezing cold, with the risk of lava bombs spewing at them, to take measurements and make observations of the area. Sure, there are sensors too, but scientists still go to physically visit the area for data.

Scientists will go into submarines to study the deep ocean, a place with little or no sunlight and strange, possibly dangerous creatures. In addition, the pressure underneath all that water is immense. If a problem happened and the submarine was damaged, results could very easily be fatal.

Speaking of nature, there are scientists who will go into rainforests to meet 9possibly hostile) natives living within, or to learn more about animal behavior. It’s very risky work. There is a constant threat of predator attacks. The plants could kill you if you don’t pay enough attention. You could very easily catch a disease from the wildlife and fall gravely ill.

And what about space travel? Humans stuck themselves on rockets loaded with fuel and tried to get outside of the atmosphere. Sure, they ran tests and simulations, but no one knew for certain if it would really work. Some rockets exploded, killing the astronauts within. It was a very real possibility for anyone in a rocket but humans kept trying anyway.

Sure, humans take every safety precaution they can think of. Sure, they spend lots of time, energy, and resources to keep fellow humans as safe as possible. They still knowingly place themselves in possibly extremely dangerous situations for the sake of science. How strange is that?