An Astronaut Explains How To Deal With Politicians

By Friday August 19, 2011


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18 Comments
  1. Winston says:
    8/19/2011 at 4:22 am

    Someone should seriously get this put on the side of all the buses in DC

  2. Arkyn1 says:
    8/19/2011 at 4:49 am

    And then you want to leave him there, that son-of-a-bitch…

  3. bobbo, why do you think what you think and when do you change your mind says:
    8/19/2011 at 5:32 am

    You “should” get the same feeling(s) just by reading a few history books/ethics/philosophy books and being current on the news?

    Going to space don’t make you special in any way. Just close your eyes…..reach out your arms……that Jungian collective subconscious feeling of oceanic oneness is available to us all.

    Yea, verily.

  4. Rabble Rouser says:
    8/19/2011 at 5:57 am

    This reminds me from one of my favorite Sci-Fi shows, Babylon 5. The episode, “All My Dreams, Torn Asunder.” This is from the fifth season.
    “We are all born as molecules in the hearts of a billion stars. Molecules that do not understand politics or policies or differences. Over a billion years, we foolish molecules forget who we are and where we came from. In desperate acts of ego, we give ourselves names, fight over lines on maps, and pretend that our light is better than everyone else’s.”

  5. Ah_Yea says:
    8/19/2011 at 6:36 am

    Rabble Rouser, Nice quote.

    Thanks!

  6. sargasso_c says:
    8/19/2011 at 7:30 am

    Mitchell and many other Apollo astronauts expressed feelings of having experienced an epithany, an enlightenment either during the final phases of their mission or shortly after.

  7. msbpodcast says:
    8/19/2011 at 7:52 am

    Sadly, it wouldn’t work.

    The politician, by definition of the fund-raising mechanism to run for election, has his head so deep in someone else’ pocket that he can’t see anything at all.

    How do you make scum out of an honest man?

    Introduce him to the political process.

  8. chris says:
    8/19/2011 at 8:05 am

    It’s funny, because international politics were responsible for there being a man on the moon.

    Astronauts made missiles sexy, but unmanned programs were the meat and potatoes. It showed that if you could send a man into orbit uninjured you could certainly do the same with a warhead.

  9. chuck says:
    8/19/2011 at 8:05 am

    Unfortunately, most politicians are already filled with a “compulsion to do something about it”.

    They want to fix things that either can’t be fixed or don’t need fixing.

  10. spsffan says:
    8/19/2011 at 9:19 am

    I DO like the quote.

    Unfortunately, there is a great irony in that Mitchell’s trip to the moon was made possible by politicians, and financed by tax dollars.

  11. Uncle Dave says:
    8/19/2011 at 11:43 am

    #12: We probably would never have gone to the moon if the money grubbing Republicans and Tea Party of today were in power then. I wonder what they would have done with that evil tax money if they’d kept it in their pockets?

  12. bobbo, why do you think what you think and when do you change your mind says:
    8/19/2011 at 12:43 pm

    Been thinking about some of the posts above. Yes, there is a measure of irony in one view but not necessarily. Thats the fluidity of ideas.

    Politics and taxation and big government and regulations got us to the moon. That said, many people who get to the moon do experience a new point of view about Earth/Humanity. Such an opening of perspective/context has long been reported by many who travel. “Travel broadens the mind.”

    How did Mark Twain put it? “It liberates the vandal to travel–you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction.”
    – The American Abroad speech, 1868

    President Bush: never traveled outside the USA before being elected. Just like narrow minded, small horizon teaparty members. “I don’t know nothing, and what I know is good enough for me.”

    But, the same new perspective gaining by traveling can be had by letting the mind travel alone: read. think. consider.

    I don’t have a desire to travel to space. Strapping a chemical bomb to my back and lighting the fuse just doesn’t seem prudent to me. If I had just a little bit more money than I do, I do think this would be very much MORE worth the effort, but then I’ve always been interested in 2 Man Derigibles for some reason: Its about taking a balloon into low space.

    http://wired.com/autopia/2011/08/inbloon/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

  13. bobbo, why do you think what you think and when do you change your mind says:
    8/19/2011 at 1:55 pm

    Hah! That little blue marble has me thinking.

    Our dear astronaut is sadly wrong. Unless you do read a few books before going into space, you might, a politician might, look at that little blue marble and think: “Look how easy that is to dominate. In fact, I should dominate this world because I can. Why should I stop myself from doing as I wish for myself, me, and me alone?”

    Yes, vote Puke. Would be kinda fun to see the political leanings of all the astronauts–before and after if possible. Things like that should be studied. Why not with all the money already spent. What is the effect of space on homo sapiens? Think it is only demineralization of the bones? What was that good movie with George Clooney.

    John Glenn. All I can think of is he was generally “for” science. He was a Democrat. Didn’t really push for anything: not setting the world on fire.

    Just part of the chaff.

  14. bobbo, why do you think what you think and when do you change your mind says:
    8/19/2011 at 2:02 pm

    I’ll stop at three, but this is good stuff.

    What should anyone take away from viewing Earth from space?

    How about global warming? does the view from space inform us at all or is our freedom tied to incandescent light bulbs?

    Here’s another take: and whats interesting is that good solid theories in science gain their support from all other fields in science. It is a cloth–we wrap ourselves in the fabric of science to keep us warm against the elements. A thread may be loose, here and there a hole but the fabric is a whole. Not so with the potshots taken against a theory accepted by the consensus of scientists qualified to have an opinion.

    Ha, ha:

    http://ibtimes.com/articles/200556/20110819/global-warming-causing-plants-animals-to-flee-upwards-and-reshuffle-ecosystems-university-of-york-co.htm?cid=2

  15. Rob Leather says:
    8/19/2011 at 5:06 pm

    “Just the desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you for life from ever being one.”

    – Billy Connolly

  16. wirelessg says:
    8/20/2011 at 12:39 pm

    http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/08/10/70000-feet-up-in-a-u-2/


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