How's the Weather up There?

I wrote my first thesis in high school, in a history class. There were only two of us that elected to do this work. I don't remember if it was for extra credit or if it got us out of the final or what. We'd met as kids when we were both ferried out of our different grade schools once a week to attend "gifted and talented" school in grades 4-6. These history papers had an air of competition between us that probably stemmed from back then.

In those weekly gifted classes, Andy was one of the people who knew things to do with the Macintosh computer that sat alone in the corner in case one of us wanted to program something. I desperately wanted to use this machine, and I was aware of its possibilities. However, I was embarrassed to ask where to turn it on and didn't know what the hell to do next. It was like this monolith alone on a desk in the back of the room that taunted me. This was probably around 1980. That may have been one of the only computers in the five grade schools in my town.

So there we were in high school in the same classes again. It was the late eighties and Andy was a nice honors student who was madly into the band YES and programming computer-driven music, and I believe he had his own computer. I was the alterna-punk AP student who was consistently called to the principal's office for "making waves." I knew how to use my dad's Radio Shack computer to buy obscure Stranglers records off of CompuServe and store documents on our cassette drive.

I remember finishing my thesis surrounded by index cards on the floor of my brother's old bedroom, wildly typing away on an IBM electric typewriter while my parents had a dinner party downstairs that my history teacher was attending.

My paper brought to light what I considered lesser-discussed aspects of the war in Nicaragua. I obtained CIA documents that arrived with black magic marker obscuring various parts of them. I remember the coloring book-like pictures detailing how to wreak havoc on a Central American farm that were made for distribution to the illiterate. I remember knowing a lot about the Sandinistas. But I honestly don't remember much of what I knew or exactly what I was writing about at the time.

On the other hand, I remember the gist of what Andy's paper was about. (Of course it's possible he remembers attending the prom with me better than I do, too.)

I couldn't help thinking of it again today while reading about how NASA is cutting funds and delaying projects involving studying our current climate crisis because the Bush administration wants to put man on the moon again.

In high school, I believe Andy detailed just how putting man on the moon years before had delayed technological progress in our country. Take a look at this current issue, because other space technology progress is required for tracking our climate changes, and this includes being able to say whether you're about to be killed by a hurricane. It sounded like progress to go to the moon the first time even when it might have stunted other progress. To me it simply sounds like deadly bad prioritizing today.

It could be that NASA is the wrong place for funding one of these projects. If they are both needed, and one seemingly more urgently than the other, there must be a way to make it both happen. Some scientists are arguing for space research to be funded by private entrepreneurs instead of the government, which is interesting. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon seems to come up a lot.

Currently putting people on the moon seems cool, sure, possibly done by robots, sure, maybe a step toward colonizing other planets we can trash like this planet. I am not a scientist, but I like to know the options. I mean, before we're blinded by the theater lights on this one, shouldn't we see what we could be doing instead or how to prioritize and meet all of our needs well?