Why are Wasting Money on Space?

Beauty and wonder are lost on some.

Why spend billions on space research when there are hungry people on Earth?

Perspective Time: NASA gets seven billion dollars annually. Americans spend one hundred and fifty-four billion a year on alcohol.

The Space Program is only one half of one percent of the budget. It’s also one of the few investments that pays back. For every dollar spent on Space Program research, it gives back eight dollars to the economy. All the money from the patents owned by NASA go directly into the US economy. Can we afford to give this up?

We went to a desert and didn't kill anyone. That's noble.

I could also rephrase the question: Why do you feel you need to spend money on luxuries when you know you could help people? It’s more apt to say “Why would you spend money to further your own education if you could just give your tuition money to the poor?” It’s an investment. Learning and exploring is always worth it; it just happens that the Space Program is paying back wonderfully on paper, too.

I’m glad that it is paying back, because people don’t understand the true value of exploration. If there is a population greater than 1, we can assume there will always be problems that affect people. If we believed we could cure the problems by staying put and learning nothing, fine.

That’s nowhere near the case.

Have humans done anything worthwhile without exploring?

Two things motivate human learning and progress: exploration and war. As a race, the need to advance, to become more, is absolute and I would much rather have my money go to exploration. I’d rather learn the beauty of a distant nebula when viewed in different wavelengths, than spend hundreds of times more to learn that 2000 more Americans died in the Middle East last month.








Space program research had led to:

• Miniaturization and mass-production of electronics. We’d still have clunky black and white TV’s and room-sized computers that do little more than a calculator without the Space Program.
• Health. We have more accurate and affordable ways of detecting and treating breast cancer. We all know a breast cancer survivor, even if we don’t know we do. Thanks, Space Program! We also have the artificial hearts.
• Ball-point pens. Wouldn’t you love to have to carry around an inkwell?
• Food. TONS of benefits in growing food and making it healthier. When the USDA adopted measures learned from the Space Program, salmonella dropped two-fold. We can now produce much more food with the same or fewer resources. There’s your hunger argument right there.
• GPS has and will continue to save lives, allowing first-responders immediate location details.
• Heroes that don’t wage wars, or shoot one another. Not only that, but we go the extra mile to cooperate internationally and foster good will. Children have hope that they can do something big. To make a difference without being a warmonger or Hollywood piece of fluff.
• Why Mars? The technology developed for examining the surface of Mars has been turned on documents charred in the eruption of Mount Freakin’ Vesuvius. There is text being read that was destroyed 2000 years ago.

There has always been the need to explore. What makes us “intelligent”, in human terms, is our ability to question. “Why are we here?” and “Are we alone?” are big ones. If you don’t believe me, look at how well churches are doing.

We need to explore, to learn, to challenge ourselves, and rise to those challenges. It’s in our nature. We would never survive as a species if we didn’t push our limits. Nor would we deserve to.

Geek Gals

This will be my first non-tech post on this blog. I usually post mental ramblings on my What's in Ben's Head blog, but this suits geekdom and nerdiness so much more.

THIS

A friend of mine, Kristin Mason of “The Comfy Chair Popcast”, posed an interesting geek question.

I'm female and I am a self-proclaimed geek. I enjoy geek culture. I talk to other geeks and go to cons when I can afford to. I am annoyed at the online portrayal of female geeks by geeky websites. I should specify the photos. I enjoy sexy geek pictures, both male and female, but why do 99%+ of photos of female geeks have to be sexual in nature. Ugh! Am I just subscribed to the wrong blogs/pages?!

NOT THIS. 

She adds:

Of course I want geeky women (and men) to flaunt their sexy if they feel so inclined. I think that's normal and fun. I just wish there were was slightly less use of women as sexual objects in our geek culture. There are many strong female cosplayers that we might find sexy, but aren't presenting themselves as sexual objects.

It got me thinking. I’ll wait while you crack jokes at my expense and giggle to yourselves.

Okiedokie, then, I had a pretty well-reasoned answer to the question, then my brain wouldn’t shut up. The short answer is: Guys, as a whole, are perverts, and geeks are no exception. There’s a little more to understand, though.

For the record, I’m a geek, but those costumed girls(cosplay) do nothing for me. I will admit that a photo of a woman with a book or glasses just plain looks more attractive.

Yeah, geek gals do this to me. I have a brain in my head, but  I'm a  guy.

Growing up, it was exceptionally hard to talk to a female that I thought was attractive. I was a geek. Not the kind today that’s just a different kind of cool, but a real geek. I read books, I didn’t watch sports and my interests were always my own. I loved “discovering” things. Be it books, movies, shows, that relatively few were even aware of. The more obscure, the better. I was hardly popular.

Girls were, and remain, a mystery to me. When I see a photo of a beautiful woman, even a pretty one, I automatically think that it’s no one who ever would have given awkward teenage Ben the time of day. That’s okay, because, as much as he would love to, he would have nothing to say.

When Teenage Ben got familiar with a girl he liked, he turned into a dweeb. He would automatically agree with anything she said, try, at least, to like anything she liked, and wouldn’t say “no” to save his life, all for the chance to be closer to someone he had on a pedestal. This was tortuous, but he felt being himself would just be a big turn-off.

It’s a sad, lonely-feeling existence for a boy. Not a lot makes one hate themselves more than knowing all this obscure stuff, while at the same time thinking you’re not interesting enough.

The geek, however, learns to appreciate being more cerebral. Some turn to comic books, which are literary and visual flights of fancy, which also serve to categorize types of people s/he may not interact with regularly. Some prefer movies, TV shows, Sci-fi/Fantasy. There’s an escape there, but one which requires imagination and understanding to a certain degree. As such, we don’t rely on societal standards for what we should enjoy, or who we should find beautiful

Enter the “Geek Girl”. This is a woman who, we are to believe at least, is a beauty as well as a geek. We see pictures in costumes. Pictures in glasses. Pictures with books. (The last two, for me, has me acting  like a wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon...in my mind.). The woman tends to fit the generally accepted definition of attractive as well. It’s perplexing. The thought of some odd interest or hobby taking on a sexual twist. Plenty of geeks can’t ignore it.

Sometimes, it’s simply that the geekiness in an image of a woman hints at what may be on the inside. It gets the mind going. It’s purely fantasy, just a photo. Geeks aren’t used to being sold this, however.

For years, girlie pictures have been pretty standard. Women with a certain body type, dressed in as little as possible. Mindless fluff. (Not that some of the girls are mindless, but we’re not being sold on that)

Geeks are suddenly having girlie pictures aimed at THEM. As a whole, our social filters aren’t the best, and many of us haven’t quite worked out how to handle objectification of the opposite sex, and too many get carried away. Just look at “Sexy Pikachu”. Look it up online, I'll have none of it here, as I find that disturbing.

The overtly sexual geek girl pictures aim for guys who may not realize that they are basically looking at porn. It's a geek picture that happens to feature a pretty girl. At least, it’s not how he justifies it in his head. It’s the geek equivalent of “I read Playboy for the articles.”.

There is something special about a woman who is comfortable with being a geek, and has a positive physical self-image, too. There is a huge difference between being comfortable with yourself and begging for validation. Not everyone sees it, though. Those people tend to be the ones seeking validation.

On to the real geek girl, not the fake ones in pictures.

The real thing is much better. A real geek girl doesn’t just have hobbies, she is fascinated by something. Most anything. There’s a true love of learning, mainstream society be damned. She knows what she likes, so isn’t needlessly threatened by things she doesn’t like or understand. The mere ability to carry on a passionate conversation about something obscure makes her attractive. 

You know what? The real thing wins out over a picture any time. In this case, the picture isn’t worth nearly enough words.

Fortunately, I know one or two geek girls. One was mentioned at the top of my page, another has a book blog: Honesty in Book Reviews. What a great blog title.