Honestly I don’t even think I would care if they had landed. If they were setting up some sort of base I’d be into it – mostly to geek out over the new tech and techniques that would have to be developed for construction, environmental control, etc. But for just boots on the ground? Still kinda meh.

I’d be excited for boots on Mars, but again maybe for the same reasons - just to get people there and back would require an almost unthinkable (today) level of development and dedication of resources.

First of all, “merely decorative” has a big impact on our physiological and psychological well-being; urban greening appears to be able to improve things from respiratory difficulties to stress, anxiety and depression .

Second, “merely decorative” isn’t even true. Trees lower both surface and air temperature in cities in a meaningful way (on the order of a couple of degrees on a well-treed street – that can be the difference between “ah, it’s a nice day for a walk” and “holy crap it’s hot out”.

I will admit this is one place where I use LLMs extensively. If I never have to edit another arcane config file, yaml, etc it’ll be too soon.

Plant some more trees and rooftop gardens and you’ve got an official Solarpunk setting

That’s an interesting point. There’s zero engineering elegance on display here, and while I’m sure there are some cool, new things going on under-the-hood, it mostly looks like every other big rocket we’ve launched in the last 60 years, and not half as cool as the (admittedly stupid) Shuttle. And the Shuttle did at least have a lot of clever engineering going on to compensate for the (again, stupid) design choices that were driven by so many different and conflicting potential mission profiles.

It doesn’t help that a lot of people in power seem to take issue with objective realities.

Yep, I am definitely more excited by space science news. I’d say I’m just more mature now and interested in more grounded “pure” science, but it wasn’t too long ago that I was giggling like an idiot as we watched the 2 falcon heavy boosters landing back on their dual pads at KSC, so I don’t think it’s entirely just a loss of child-like wonder (though it’s wearing thin these days, gotta admit).

The Apollo program was also a political tool, but it was astounding (not that I know first-hand, just hearing what my folks have said, and even they were fairly young at the time). Artemis doesn’t have the same caché, I guess.

Yeah I’ve been thinking maybe this is it – it’s still technically impressive and I have nothing but admiration for the teams who have pored their sweat and tears into making sure it’s safe and reliable, but it’s kind of a ‘so what?’ moment.

This is the only reason I keep a Sirius/XM subscription going (that and I got a cheap rate after trying to quit). While DJs are mostly insufferable, some of them do know what they’re doing and can prep a set list, talk intelligently about it, and give you more than just algo-slop.

Unless you’re going to spend the rest of your life in a cave somewhere (an increasingly good-looking option), then it’s a legitimate matter of perspective imo. Every activity carries some inherent risk, and my current viewpoint is that domestic entities are the worse option compared to foreign ones. Will China/Russia try to use US data to influence US elections? Of course. But you know what? So do US-based political operatives. So does Meta and Microsoft. The difference is that Meta and Microsoft have unfiltered access to our data (we give it to them), and the direct ability to lobby/bribe our politicians. Might a Chinese company try to sway my opinion on some Chinese/other foreign topic? Yes, of course. But so does every big tech company, every cable news operator, and so many millions of US-run websites. The domestic operatives have more access and are capable of doing more damage.

Probably for the same reason I’m not concerned about Chinese companies collecting my (US) data – what the hell are they going to do with it? I already know all the terrible things that my local/national companies and state/federal government are doing with citizens’ collected data; there’s real, well-known risk there. Compared to local actors, foreign ones are not nearly as incentivized to do anything with it.

AE Marling has some good world building and entertaining reads. My favorite is Missing Mermaid

Time, assuming I could choose when to stop.