Professor Child’s presentation was not explicitly concerned with space exploration or Mars, which is not surprising since her area of expertise is indigenous education and history. She told us that indigenous people have travelled extensively – specifically, by canoe – and mentioned some indigenous people who travelled to Europe in earlier eras, though not by canoe.
A panel of woke scolds share their thoughts on space travel – which turn out to be rather limited and not of obvious use. They do, however, have thoughts, many thoughts, on how terrible able-bodied white men are.
When not rambling about canoes, seemingly in search of a point, the five panellists – billed as a “diverse group of thought leaders” – inform us of the apparent need for deaf and disabled astronauts, in the name of “social justice,” and ask whether a mission to Mars would benefit Black Lives Matter.
No, really.
Lucianne Walcowicz, who appears in the video, complete with septum piercing and adolescent blue ‘do, has been mentioned here before. Readers may recall her insistence that the words frontier and unmanned are morally corrupting and should therefore be purged, along with any trace of gendered language.
And let’s not forget Marcie Bianco, whose ruminations on the subject of interplanetary travel also entertained us. Not least her claim that sending spacecraft to Mars is an act of “male entitlement” and akin to grabbing ladies’ genitals.
Oh, and do watch to the end. The closing exchange, around 20:40, is somewhat telling.
Update, via the comments:
Readers with even minimal knowledge of the topic may have noted that the contemporary space industry is hardly an exclusive domain of white men, able-bodied or otherwise. The head of SpaceX is female, and the last time I checked around half of NASA’s astronauts are female and of various colours. Female astronomers and planetary scientists are too numerous to list.
The panellists’ implicit conceit – that women and minority “folks” are somehow being excluded from space-related industries and subsequent discussions – is about as convincing as Dr Nord’s hair, or Ms Walkowicz’s unattractively incongruous shoes.
Dr Nord doesn’t seem remotely interested in the kinds of competence required to become an astronaut or astronomer, or engineer or whatever. Instead, he waffles about “power,” and speaks of being brown as if it were a credential in and of itself.
When pressed for particulars, he doesn’t appear to have any thoughts, beyond skin colour, on what attributes might be desirable among candidates for space exploration – a subject that doesn’t enthuse him. Which is a little odd, given that it’s the ostensible premise of the discussion. The reason for his presence.
Perhaps the doctor’s energies were directed to more pressing matters. Hairstyling, one assumes.
Given their alleged expertise, the panellists don’t seem very clear on what it is they want, beyond disdaining white men, the subject foremost on their minds, or how whatever it is that they want would improve space travel – the actual topic at hand – the practicalities of which appear to them entirely alien and boring.
The postscript to the video, with its awkward silence, is quite instructive in this regard and does rather reveal the panellists’ priorities. Despite the topic supposedly being discussed and despite their supposed expertise, the five panellists – this “diverse group of thought leaders” – have no response, nothing at all to contribute, and they seem to regard even the asking of the question with a kind of smug disdain.
As if it were unsophisticated. Terribly déclassé.
We are, however, told that we need more deaf and disabled people in space. Because space exploration just isn’t difficult enough and dangerous enough as it is. And choosing astronauts with hearing problems, poor eyesight and motor-control issues will make things much more exciting.
And frankly. when you’re asking, apparently in all seriousness, how a mission to Mars would benefit Black Lives Matter, as if it somehow should, I think we can say that the foolishness in the room has risen to hazardous levels.
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