February
19, 2018
Greetings from
orbit,
There is no
doubt that the SpaceX launch of its Falcon Heavy rockets was a dramatic and exciting
event. By now the only thing people are
talking about is the Tesla roadster that was sent out as payload.
Which leads us
to the question. No, not why did Elon Musk
send a car into space. That part seems
fairly obvious, it was to focus the world’s attention on a shiny red car and
not a poor quarterly report from SpaceX.
The real question is; what will SpaceX fling next?
Of course this
is a serious multibillion company, and they can do whatever they want with their
rockets. But before they start throwing
random things into the solar system, perhaps the rest of us should be
consulted. After all, if there is intelligent
life on other planets, we will be judged by what we catapult in their
direction.
“Doris, a car
just went by. Not just any car, but a
Tesla roadster. Interesting choice. I think the folks on planet Earth are trying
to send us a message. Maybe we should start
investing in our infrastructure. What do
you think?”
“I have two
questions Bill; How can we spend billions on bridges when our schools are so
badly in need of those resources, which is just as urgent. And second, what’s Earth?”
In 1977 NASA
sent the Voyager space probe out into the void and with it two phonograph
records. The two disc set contained all
the greatest hits of humanity, including a messages from all over the planet, a
sampling of what it is we do on Earth, and a map of the known galaxy. The hope was that one day someone out in
space would get play them and know we were here.
“Doris, we
just got a couple of record albums from Earth.
Do you know if our old turntable still works?”
“Don’t open it
Bill. It’s probably a Columbia House record
of the month scam, and we’ll never get off their list.”
“But it says it
has a recording of Jimmy Carter on it. I
think he might be related to June Carter.”
“First, the
only reason June Carter had a career was because of Johnny Cash, so let’s not
have that argument. And second, what is Earth?”
I have thought
a long time about what object could be a good representative of humanity, and I
came up with a short list. Of course my
perspective is a little skewed:
Books. A refrigerator with magnets holding flyers
describing events that have already passed.
Coffee. A card
from my sister. Some old running
shoes.
The problem
with this exercise is that the decision has to be made by a broad spectrum of
people, not just people with access to billion-dollar rockets. That means trying to get consensus among
diversity. (As easy as it was to write
that sentence, I still laughed out loud.)
I thought
about finding the demographic mathematical average of each country and identifying
that average person, then asking what they would send into space to represent
them. Then boxing up all 195 items and
blasting them off in the first available rocket that Jeff Bezos sends out. (Guessing here that this could take a few
months and by then Amazon will already own outer space.)
But there is
nothing satisfying about finding some average and saying this is who we are as
a human race. But sending our best poetry,
or our Olympic athletes, or Siri, or a piece of Velcro, probably wouldn’t tell
alien space travelers enough about us.
So I came up
with this idea; we send our garbage. What
better way to show who we are than by displaying what we consume and
discard? And you can learn a lot about a
person by what they don’t want anymore. (Plus
we solve that pesky landfill problem.)
“Doris, can
you believe some shmuck threw away this perfectly good carrot peeler?”
“Bill, hand me
that Cap Snaffler under that Dorito bag.”
“And look,
here is glossy picture of a real estate agent who says he is my neighbor.”
“Wipe the
coffee grounds off that Ab Doer and give it to me. The tag says I can get the best six pack abs
on Earth.”
“Doris, I have
two questions; what are six pack abs?
And what is Earth?”
Hope
this finds you going where no trash has gone before,
David
Copyright
© 2018 David Smith
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