Leaving aside any doubts about the feasibility of the project for the moment, this is indeed an awesome project. The car was cooler, but in terms of outreach potential, sending up highly culturally influential people is an obvious (yet masterful - no governmental space agency would ever do this) way to win sustained support.
Were there to be another such publicity stunt, as it will inevitably viewed by the cynics and diehard scientist types who insist that research is the only goal, and were someone somewhere to make a horrible mistake and give me control of the invitees, I'd conduct a psychological experiment. I'd take :
- One Flat Earther, just to see how stupid they are.
- One absolute total cunt of a politician, to see if they can be redeemed.
- One person selected entirely at random from the entire global population, subject to health and age restrictions.
- One person with absolutely no interest in space research whatsoever.
- One person who ticks all of the minority boxes, e.g. a black disabled transgender lesbian divorcee army veteran.
- One person who ticks all the privilege boxes, e.g. a white male caucasion billionaire.
- A complete sci-fi nut.
- Someone's racist grandmother.
I haven't yet decided if they should be kept separate or allowed to interact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mbMAvDu-3g
Ooo, let me just toss my name in the hat for "sci-fi nut"...I'd happily bring along my entire Iain M. Banks collection. :-)
ReplyDelete