Moon age daydream

[cosmolinguist]

This afternoon, while I was hiding from work and feeling sorry for myself because of a worsening headache, angelofthenorth asked me "So how was The Moonwalkers?"

I then talked for like fifteen minutes without stopping.

Oops.

I figured she'd have read D's entry about this from last night -- she's good like that -- so Just getting through the building to the "Lightroom" itself could've been handled better: there was someone at the top of the stairs booping everyone's QR code tickets, but we inadvertently bypassed that by getting the lift and had to be directed back that way by sullen security guards who were there to check people's bags. We had to kind of push against the tide to get back that way, and that meant a fair few people were ahead of us in this weird line that snaked around an unfinished-looking part of the giant building. This was relevant because when we were let in to the room, D asked me where I wanted to sit. There was no staff around helping out -- I hadn't interacted with any staff at all -- and it was very dim in there and, with still images projected on all the walls and the floor, I was struggling to get my bearings. People had already taken a lot of the seats I could see, and with more people rushing around us in every direction, I was just so disoriented. It ended up feeling like a game of musical chairs: there were just enough chairs, and people did to their credit leave the "priority seats" free, but the priority was clearly determined with mobility-impaired people in mind: it meant less walking between the entrance and the seat, but it also meant that the projector for the wall behind you shines right in your eyes! So that was rough for me, especially because the back wall, the one for that projector, wasn't always lit up so the light sometimes went away and then when it came back it was like when you're in a car and it turns and suddenly the sun is right there in your eyeballs. Even D didn't love it so it wasn't just my eyes being the special snowflakes that they are. I appreciate that with this, like, immersive video surrounding you, people have to face projectors sometimes, but it did irk me that disabled people were directed to the "shiny light in your eyes" section.

But this wasn't a huge problem, I was busy being excited about space.

"For 45 minutes I forgot about the world's problems," D said. I love that!

I...did not.

One of the Artemis II astronauts who was interviewed for this movie said something about Apollo being "ahead of its time" and immediately I was grumpily thinking no it's not! we're behind ours! JFK referencing the Wright Brothers made me ponder that it was about sixty years from them to the moonwalks, and it's been another sixty years since! What do we have to show for ourselves? (Lots of other things, I know, but no one's even left Earth orbit! Yes the ISS is cool but it's reaching the end of its lifetime, and it's still Soyuz ferrying people to and from! The splashdowns look beautiful and poetic at the end of a movie like this but where are our goddam spaceplanes?!)

Basically, everything I have to say about that I said in 2011 when the only thing more modern than Soyuz ceased operation and in 2012 when Neil Armstrong died.

But since I couldn't just link angelofthenorth to things in a real-life conversation, I had to attempt to re-create those thoughts and everything that links into them: my waning interest in "space" as the 2010s went on and SpaceX got increasingly dull (to me, I am not a rocket man) and -- even before it became so tainted by its association with Elon Musk -- depressing as a symbol of yet another thing being left to private whims which I believe is a public good. The only thing about these old entries that I wince to read tonight is my optimism and naïveté, but while I'm sad for my younger self I'm not ashamed of having those things.

Anyway. Like I said I probably talked for fifteen entire minutes without a break. I wasn't even self-conscious about it, until the end.

Luckily (?) angelofthenorth said it was cute, and endearing.

Comments

[otter]

Why can't cool things be accessible? rhetorical question.

[angelofthenorth]

Well it was. It's lovely when you light up like that. Even when it's to rant

[zhelana]

Have you read orbital by Samantha Harvey? It claims to be scifi but it's set on the ISS so I'd say more contemporary, with a space twist. Anyway, it really made me appreciate the ISS more than I have before

[cosmolinguist]

I haven't even heard of it, which now that I look it up sounds like a flaw on my part! I've reserved it at the library, thanks for the recommendation!

[zhelana]

hope you like it half as much as I did! It was one of the highlights of last year for me!