Spock and Awe

These days, you’re so overwhelmed by the constant flow of bad and stressful news that even your browser tabs are begging to be closed. So it’s a good time to be reminded that there’s good news out there, you just have to look for it. OK, in fairness, the good news is, like, way out there. It requires a voyage beyond the terrestrial headlines and out into the final frontier, to seek out new stories and new civilizations (not under the threat of being wiped out), to boldly go where no news curator has gone before. So let’s beam back up to Artemis II, where a four person crew is reminding us of the joy we can take in (real) strength, courage, and expertise. And yes, science. Sally Jenkins has a stud finder that she aimed all the way to the heavens. The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Artemis Astronauts Are Studs. “These are the kinds of tough-minded pressure performers whom NASA turns out in the space program, and you could be pardoned for thinking, Now, this is what making America great again should look like: people of accomplishment bringing expertise—not bravado—to difficult problems. The agency seems well worth preserving in the current cultural spiral—rife with so much blowhard false valor that grappling with cage fighters is regarded as training.” And a little more good news. These four humans are on their way back to Earth, and their return couldn’t be scheduled to come soon enough. I was just a few open tabs away from trying to join them up there.