#human race

[webweabings]

TO RETURN TO MY TREES

“The Overstory” (2019), by Richard Powers; // “Wild Fruits: Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript” (2001), by Henry David Thoreau; // Kim Novak; // Chinese Proverb; // “To the lighthouse” (1927), by Virginia Woolf; // Santosh Kalwar; // Albert Szent-Gyorgyi; // “Cosmos” (1980), by Carl Sagan; // “Timeline” (1999), by Michael Crichton

[voidaxolotl]

If aliens every came down to Earth and asked me what big organization perfectly summarized the human race, I think I'd point them towards NASA and the reactions the human race has to them. Because with the information I do know... it is perfect at showing just that.

We as a race trive to explore, for the adventures of learning new things and seeing the unknown. Traveling beyond our home to find new land, new people, new experiences.

NASA's mission is to travel space, to continue to send things and people out to learn more about the universe we sit in and the scientists there can be so emotional about it all. They got the whole world sobbing over a drones last seconds of battery power before it shut off for good, they keep getting us excited about new missions and sometimes wax poetically about space without even meaning to- about whats out there or about how what we find could further help us here on earth.

It is beautiful and emotional and NASA can be so romantic in what it does. I mean- look at Artemis II, it had parts from failed missions, bringing those with it to space and back and the reaction to it all was just... Beautiful. Just scrolling on tiktok you can see people talking about how all the failed missions were watchinv over Artemis II to get everyone home safe, or how Artemis II was able to bring those failed missions out to see space or to finally bring those missions home and it all made me cry because its all so sad but so beautifully human of us to do that.

"The Challenger finally got to see the stars and The Columbia was finally able to come home"

"Apollo I protected the launch, The Challenger protected the ascent, Laika and Felicette protected and guided them to the moon and back, The Columbia protected the landing"

Its all so heart breaking but in such a good way. It made my chest ache and made me smile because so many people used Artemis II to heal and to bring back all the history of those failed missions in a way we can all digest.

And yes, I know NASA has done terrible things. The Challenger is evidence of that. But humans as a whole can do terrible things, there are rotten apples in the basket of humanity but thats not what I'd ask the aliens to dwell on. I'd ask them to look at how everyone reacted to those bad moments, towards those bad people. How engineers and scientists BEGGED and pleaded because they knew it was dangerous and they cared so much even if they never met the 7 who went up and especially if they did. How those watching looked upon the sky and still held the memory of what they saw, mourned it when they didn't know those astronauts. And to look at how we still kept going.

Kids still grew up wanting to see space, or to help others touch the stars. NASA was still able to keep making missions to continue to explore the universe- we still sent people to space! Even after watching how people purposefully put 7 peoples lives in danger- how they had killed them, others still put their trust in NASA to get them and their loved ones safely up there then back home. And if that isn't so beautifully human of us.

We collect in front of radios and tv's and in groups on grass to watch each launch we can. Its easy to miss the news of it but those who do know come to see the lift-off. Are there to cheer and support and dream and wonder! We put peices of failed atfempts together to help it work, and when it still doesn't or it goes horribly wrong we still keep trying.

We're at the core of our species are stubborn and kind and clever, we romanticize everything we do both past and future, we get emotional over animals smaller then us and on our food chain, we cry over inanimate objects singing during its last ounce of battery because we accidentally programed it to be so human and to be so alive! We came together and cried over an anglerfish swimming to the oceans surface, we're currently trying to help one whale get back into open waters since the beginning of this month!

We can be so cruel and unkind, mean and torturous, but those around the cruelness will meet it with patience and pleads to be better.

To be kind, to be human.

[athanza]

Can we please please PLEASE go solarpunk instead of brutalist cyberpunk?????????????

[howifeltabouthim]

'I have no general respect for the human race. They are a loathsome crew and don't deserve to survive. But they are destroying themselves quite fast enough without my assistance.'

Iris Murdoch, from A Fairly Honourable Defeat

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[apheda1914]

We're all just bones, meat and blood...

[ometochtli2rabbit]