2003-02-07 - 1:06 a.m.

I don’t know why I care about the space program.

Malraux wrote me and told me some of the arguments he’s heard against space: the waste of money that could be better spent at home, the fact that it’s just naked imperialism dressed up as kind and fuzzy science. And it’s not even that any more, just ivory tower research and glorified electrical maintenance of satellite tech whose main goal is to allow stupid teenage girls to gossip cross-continent about Justin and Brittany and broadcast bad Italian porn. And hell, if we privatized NASA, we could probably get a lot more efficient work out of the corporate sector.

From a historical perspective, the space program is a big disappointment. We got into space for all the wrong reasons, to do nothing more than to play “our rockets are bigger than yours” with the Reds, pissed off that our pet Nazis were beat by their pet Nazis and home grown gulag Rocket Reds, ego bruised that they launched a damn basketball with a beeper and shitting ourselves that nuke loaded orbital six guns were next. And once we landed on the moon, got some rocks, gave the Russians a world class “Fuck you” we never went back. The glorious dream of the space age, the vacations on Mars, the space stations hanging in low earth orbit like titanium alloy cathedrals, fucking Judy Jetson in the back seat of a flying car that can turn into a brief case…all of the dreams the poptopia propagandists promised traded in for LSD and the promise of Farrah’s nips on a sheet of soon-to-be-sticky glossy poster.

I don’t know why I care about the space program. Except that I do.

Maybe it’s the fact that I live in Florida or maybe it’s the fact that I’m a geek or maybe I just watched one too many Star Trek miniskirt sashay my way during my formative years.

Maybe it’s because there’s something inherently American about the space program. Brash, arrogant, like the crew cut fighter jocks who rode the first rockets into space for the sole purpose of saying “Fuck you” top the Reds and gravity and the cold bitch void of Space and placing a fiery liquid hydrogen exclamation point on it.

Maybe because when I think of space I think of myself driving Flash Gordon ray gun gothic streamlined rocket ships with a maniacal grin and wielding baroque quasi-Victorian ray guns as I incinerate giant monsters who’s brains are housed in clear glass cases and of declaring myself warlord of impossible civilizations that seem to be knockoffs of idealized versions of Earth societies that never were and fighting villainous despots that seem vaguely reminiscent of anti-Chinese stereotypes that nevertheless show you that epicanthic folds are the sign of brilliance and evil and of seducing red skilled princesses wearing seventies porn star formal and Jackie O hair-do glorified airline stewardesses with art deco breasts prominently served in a spray on bodysuit.

Or maybe I just really related to Spaceman Spiff.

Actionhero mixes up a glass of Tang and takes a sip

This one’s for me….

Pours the rest on the ground

this one’s for Columbia.

Zounds.

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