The Breaking Time

Life in the so-called space age

by Damien Williams

A shot from Felix Baumgartner's epic jump.

The government sees space as a possible warzone.

At about 39 minutes into the Oct. 22 debate, the president says that we need to be looking toward cyber-security and space as the military concerns of the future. Now, the budget of NASA has been partially under the remit of the Air Force since its inception and the borders between the two groups (three if you count the Jet Propulsion Laboratories) are very, very porous. NASA shuttle capabilities have been used for defense satellite placement, and defense scientists lent a hand to civilian projects and research (e.g. NEAT).

Now, ever since the Reagan administration — when some clever idiot decided to reference a series of then-popular movies — the public has known that military interests have had a very clear presence in space and satellite creation. This all started even further back than then, actually, as the entire reason humans went to space in the first place was the Cold War Era pissing contest which found its pinnacle in Mutually Assured Destruction.

It was this MADness that spread out and infected everyone born or raised under its auspices, and so we get a space race and Star Wars. So it isn't really news that "Future US Military Concerns Will Have To Look At Space," or whatever it was the President said. What's surprising is that we have the first President in nearly 24 years who's gone about saying as much, whose specifically stated military agenda have included space.

But is it really that surprising, when we think about it?

Zombies, Mutants, Cyborgs and Aliens: Fight for the Future

Welcome back Damien Williams for a riveting rant on, well, the aforementioned bogeymen, and what kind of future our culture is choosing.

Please pick another apocalypse. Image by Quidditch.

I don't like zombies. I don't mean I'm afraid of them, or that they skeeve me out. I mean that I don't like the current use of them as trope, or a modern cultural cipher. I told you this the last time we spoke, and I told you that I'd tell you why.

You see, back in the day, when Romero was using zombies to talk about consumer culture and the death of individual preference in the face of mass markets, a zombie horde was a potent symbol. It was crushing, endless, homogenizing death. Why do you think Dawn of the Dead takes place in a mall? It was a terrifying indictment of what Romero believed was happening to our society.

Later, when the zombie symbol came to be applied out to Western society as a whole, and not just its consumerist leanings, the fast zombie became the stand-in for the hyper-connectivity and infectious nature of concept, idea, and emotion. Unthinking Rage just spreads and spreads.

That was all well and good. The problem is, zombies don't represent that anymore. Honestly, so far as I see it? Zombies don't represent anything anymore. The modern zombie is an empty symbol, representing only itself. The fight against zombies is now only the pure expression of futility, of never giving up in the face of odds which will defeat us. Zombies are just about Fear. They are collapse and terror and, yes, also the changes that survival of terror wreaks on people. But, in the final offing, I think that's boring.

I'm what some might call a pop culture junkie. I'm interested in all aspects of the popular media (even if, as I say, I don't exactly enjoy every single one of them), because I believe that our pop culture is reflexively connected to the wider culture. It tells us what we're thinking, it tells us how we're feeling, and in turn it influences those thoughts and emotions.

Pop culture amplifies and exaggerates our existing beliefs, distilling them down and reflecting them back to us in a glittering panoply of spectacle and story. What this means for you and me is that, as long as I'm here at The Breaking Time, I'll very often talk to you about the nature of our society — and our perception of its imminent and immanent collapse — through the lens of our pop culture and what it is doing for and to us. If the ascension of “Reality” television is Jean Baudrillard's nightmare scenario, then the rise of zombie apocalypse narrative is mine.

Curiosity and Millennial optimism

Thousands watch the Curiosity rover land on Mars. Photo via Reuters slideshow.

Longtime readers will know that I'm kind of big on the potential of space travel, and regard its ongoing abandonment as a societal failure of the first order.

So I've been as ecstatic as one might imagine at the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars (yes. Mars), especially because good space travel news is hard to find these days.

But while lowering a robot onto Mars by skycrane is an f'ing amazing feat in its own right, what's even more interesting is the fact that this is the first time in awhile I can remember a space travel achievement hitting a cultural chord like this. Thousands gathered in Times Square, the NASA websites overloaded, and Mohawk Guy was born.

What struck me most about the crowd in Times Square is that it's young. This is largely my generation, the oft-yelled-at, put-upon, and scolded Millenials, who are coming out to cheer the achievement of a program their forebears have been gutting for years.

In addition to tugging at my heartstrings, I think it's interesting that this kind of optimism endures. Despite the threat of nuclear annihilation, the Baby Boomers came of age during a massive economic boom after their parents had won the largest conflict in human history. It's easier to be optimistic then than when you're facing starkly uncertain times and accumulated crap the people before you put off far too long.

But there they are, cheering on the space program in the thousands.

It's that kind of spirit — an optimism borne out of facing steep odds rather than the expectation of miracles — that gives me hope. We might just pull this off yet.

A tale of two trailers: 2001 in 1968 and 2012

Busy few days at the day job, so this is a quick post, but here's an interesting glimpse at just how much cultural tastes have changed.

Here's a trailer for Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, made in 2012 blockbuster style:

My, aren't we a hyper bunch? Now here's one of the original trailers from 1968:

"In the first year of the 21st century there is strange and wondrous beauty..."

A part of my controlling, Virgo soul misses the moment authoritative narrators were replaced by techno. Enjoy, y'all. I'll try to be back with something more profound tomorrow.

Who's left in the space race?

An abandoned cosmodrome. Location and photographer unknown. More photos here.

So, Russia's decided to ditch human space travel:

Moscow no longer sees manned spaceflight as its top priority but remains committed to its International Space Station obligations, the head of Russian space agency Roskosmos said on Wednesday.

Russia holds a monopoly on flights to and from the 16-nation station. Soyuz launches from its Baikonur cosmodrome are now the only way to space since the United States retired its 30-year shuttle programme in July.

NASA pays it more than $50 million per flight to send its astronauts to the space outpost.

Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin said Russia was spending almost half of its space budget on manned flights and needed to shift focus to more technology-oriented projects. He added however it would stand by its station commitments.

"Unfortunately manned spaceflight accounts for an unjustifiably large part of the budget: It makes up 48 percent," he told reporters at Russia's flagship MAKS airshow near Moscow.

No, it doesn't mean the end of manned spaceflight entirely, but combined with the end of NASA's shuttle program, it's yet another move in the wrong direction.

So, NASA's bowed out of major human space travel for the foreseeable future, Russia's followed suit. Who does that leave? China? Europe? Weyland-Yutani?

For all the talk that private industry might take over the space race, it doesn't look feasible in the near future. The whole enterprise lacks, so far, the huge returns shareholders generally crave. Long-term planning is not corporate culture's strong suit.

What I'd like to see is an alliance. Instead of looking at expenses and dwindling budgets and going "cut!" space agencies should take a cue the cooperation that's increased since the end of the Cold War. Throw together the reduced space agencies, a few more forward-looking private businesses and some coordinating non-profits with the overall goal of advancing space travel. Split the costs and the potential gains in research and resources. This might even allow rising powers like India, South Africa and Brazil to join in, as they could gain access to existing infrastructure and expertise for an investment, without the huge up-front cost of having to build their own programs. Cash-strapped but infrastructure-rich agencies like NASA and Roskosmos get much-needed funds. Business gets a safer investment, because the odds are better than going solo. The non-profits, especially the scientific ones, get to advance their own goals. Win-win, if it was done right.

Of course, as I observed after the end of the space shuttle program, that solution would require motivation: cultures that viewed space travel as a serious priority. Right now, that's seriously lacking.