a little good news

[mellowtigger]

India becomes the first country to place a lander on the moon's south pole. That achievement is scientifically important because there may be deposits of water there. That water could be used for human biological needs, both drinking as water and breathing as oxygen (after processing it).

I'm not a fan of Prime Minister Modi (who encourages nationalism), but I do very much like this quote:

"India's successful moon mission is not India's alone... the success belongs to all of humanity."
- Times Of India

That's the wonder of science rather than capitalism. The whole world can participate in the excitement of new discoveries, potentially improving life for us all someday. This nice achievement comes from the oldest multicultural civilization still on the planet, one that has survived and thrived without monotheism. I rather like India, as such things go, in spite of their old caste system.

I can't currently find my old post about it, but I visited the Hindu temple in Maple Grove many years ago, back around 2006. They had an open house immediately after the main building construction finished. They invited the whole Twin Cities community after it was vandalized earlier during construction.

I admire that kind of response to violence. It's part of why it makes me a little bit happy that India landed their spacecraft at the moon's southern pole.

Comments

[scrottie]

Talk of water on Mars and the moon gets used to minimize concern about how we're using water on Earth. The same person who made absurd promises about developments in motorized travel in California and then later admitted it was an intentional ploy to kill a highspeed rail project has also often talked about water on other planets. Same playbook. And yeah, fascists adapting populist quotes imo isn't worth giving them airtime.

Since this wasn't an astronauted mission, there probably won't be too much conspiracy theory about it having been done on a sound stage (yet another fash thing), but the pic in https://www.dawn.com/news/1771897 sure makes it look like a Bollywood production.

[mellowtigger]

Yes, the YouTube feed finally shows why that fake simulation photo was used so much. It was part of a visualization for the actual numbers about velocity and altitude and rocket usage. I understand why they used it (for an audience that would more easily grasp the data's significance), but I think it would've been better overall to minimize its visual space on the screens. And, absolutely, we should keep fighting to keep Earth livable.