Mission Accomplished

By Gordon Hopkins I was too young to remember the first Apollo missions, when man first set foot on the moon. I do, however, remember sitting in front of the television, enraptured, every time the space shuttle launched. I remember as a young lad thinking, “We made it! We're living in the future!”Even then I knew the ultimate goal was to take space flight private and make it available to more than just a handful of highly skilled, highly educated pilots and scientists with guts and know-how. I dreamed of the day when any knucklehead could board a spaceship and become a “space tourist.”As with so many dreams finally realized, the reality has proven to be not just a let down but, even worse: really, really dumb. I won't get into the debate about the value of spending millions of dollar to send a rich singer and five other rich women to the edge of space for 11 minutes. I won't get into the debate about whether or not Katy Perry and the other five rich women were actually in space. I won't get into the debate about whether or not Katy Perry and five other rich women buying a ticket for a ride somehow qualifies as a “great advance for women” because it happened to be an all-women flight. For the record, it was not the first all-women space flight. Technically speaking, that honor goes to Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, whose space flight in 1963 was the real first all-women space flight, since she was alone. I'm not even going to get into the fact that space tourism has become just one more obscenely expensive trophy for the super rich, like Katy Perry and five other rich women, who probably feel like Michael Jackson's brothers, since Katy Perry is the only one of them anyone seems to give a darn about. Nope. Instead, I'm gonna gripe about how stupid all the publicity since the flight has become.Let's be clear. This was a publicity stunt. That's not a criticism. After all, the Apollo program was basically one huge publicity stunt. The scientific value is virtually incalculable but, let's not kid ourselves. We did it to beat the Soviets to the moon.If publicity was the goal, well, mission accomplished. The Apollo program was a huge success, both scientifically and publicity-wise. The Katy Perry and Co. space flight, on the other hand, has been a PR disaster.Obviously, people are bellyaching about the things I've already brought up. The push back by those on Team Perry has only made things worse. Wendy's, the hamburger chain, posted on X (the artist formerly known as Twitter), “Can we send her back?” Outraged, the humorless, self-important Katy Perry sycophants are demanding an apology. Their defensiveness suggests they realize that a bunch of rich ladies indulging in something beyond the grasp of mere mortals and publicly rubbing it in everyone's face isn't a great look. Wow. I just reread that last sentenced and realized how bitter I sound.I don't object to the privatization of space travel. I really don't.Even if I did, its gonna happen and there ain't nothing anyone can do to stop it, so we might as well accept it. That doesn't mean I can't still be really annoyed about what they've done to my dream.

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