I'd like to thank everyone for the comments. I do read them all and sometimes engage but this is the first week of our semester, and I'd rather not reply thoughtlessly to someone because I'm shell-shocked from the bureaucratic artillery barrage of academic administration.
Amen! Preach it, brother. I have fond memories of watching The Right Stuff with my brothers. As a kid in Central America this is what I always associated with the US. The F-14, the SR-71 and the Space Shuttle. My husband and I have tried to help our kids understand the era we grew up in, a less affluent one, one with the threat of nuclear annihilation, terrorism, revolution, famine in parts of the world, but also somehow a more hopeful and joyful one. i don't know that we succeeded. It's a difficult thing to convey to the next generation. One of my favorite photos of my dad is of him giving a talk in precisely a short sleeve shirt and tie.
Interesting article which probably warrants a lot more discussion. Not that many people actually work directly in aerospace so I would broaden the aesthetic from aerospace to more general engineering archetypes. Aerospace may be the flag bearer but the aesthetic of of an engineer who works at Sikorsky or Pratt and Whitney in Connecticut is not different from the aesthetic of similar engineers who work at other leading edge engineering companies in New England.
That is however very different from the Silicon Valley culture/aesthetic. I think this article does a good job of capturing the difference between New England/Route 128 and the more contemporary Silicon Valley tech culture well (though New England is really not that stuffy anymore):
I think Southern California's aerospace engineering culture was/is a less uptight version of New England's tech culture but it was more similar to New England in its family and community orientation than to the current dominant tech cultures.
Of course this is a very conservative culture but it is currently associated with blue states.
First, thank you for your guest column. However I cannot endorse this much:
Re: compounded by the blossoming deficits caused by an out-of-control welfare state
It was not an out of control welfare state (Social Security was taking in more money than it was spending back then) but rather endless rounds tax cuts, each more irresponsible than the last*, combined with a big defense build-up. The latter I will agree was necessary and bore good fruit- the fall of the Soviet Union. But we should have paid for it, not put it on the national credit card.
The percentage of GDP spent on defense in each of the Reagan years was about the same as in the peaceful JFK years. The percentage spent on the welfare state was much higher.
Your reply is not really relevant to my post above. It remains true that the Social Security system was on sound footing and not a source of deficits in the 80s. Moreover the Reagan era reforms should have put it on sound financial footing for a very long time-- if certain decades-long stable realities had remained stable (which they have not). Moreover the MAGA base, in common with the entire middle and working class, is dependent on the entitlement system for their own long-term survival, something which Donald Trump at least understood, at least in the past. Also, it was the Reagan tax reforms which convinced too many in the GOP (formerly the party of fiscal probity) that "deficits do not matter" to use Dick Cheney's words.
Anyway, this is entirely beside the point of this piece. I just wish the author had not veered out his lane to belabor this talking point of the old libertarian Right.
"Mars and the Asteroid Belt are, for now, psychological projections of resentment at the technocrats’ reliance on steel, power, water, food, manpower, and security from the Heartland, manifesting out of a stymied desire to discard the political obligations that emerge out of that dependency."
While this may be true in some cases, it's not true for the majority of them. The desire to go to Mars and the asteroid belt isn't the product of technocratic resentment; it's the product of resource hunger and the twin beliefs that, A. long-term, it will be easier to build spaceships in space than on Earth (barring use of the Orion drive), and B. that Mars and the asteroid belt are stepping stones on the way to mankind's interstellar expansion, akin to the Azores or the Canary Islands in the early days of the Age of Exploration.
I don't think it's even resource hunger. I think a lot of engineering types tend to overestimate the degree to which things like access to minerals are major constraints on economic development. So when there was talk of opening up Greenland, that it has a quadrillion dollars worth of molybdenum or whatever, a lot of economically illiterate technophiles get excited. One of my engineer friends invested in that rare earths SPAC, excited by all the zeroes in the estimated gross value of its mineral reserves.
But I do think your last point is valid and also a major driver. The Faustian desire to conquer new worlds. Though you can't put that in an investment pitch.
That's putting too negative a spin on it--I think the motives of the "ad astra" crowd are a mixed bag, ranging from the desire to conquer and dominate (at worst) to the desire to see more of God's creation and what He's done elsewhere (at best).
Unless we find out Einstein was wrong about the universe's speed limit (the velocity of light) we will not expand into interstellar space. But the rest of the solar system-- yes, or at least maybe.
I'd like to thank everyone for the comments. I do read them all and sometimes engage but this is the first week of our semester, and I'd rather not reply thoughtlessly to someone because I'm shell-shocked from the bureaucratic artillery barrage of academic administration.
Amen! Preach it, brother. I have fond memories of watching The Right Stuff with my brothers. As a kid in Central America this is what I always associated with the US. The F-14, the SR-71 and the Space Shuttle. My husband and I have tried to help our kids understand the era we grew up in, a less affluent one, one with the threat of nuclear annihilation, terrorism, revolution, famine in parts of the world, but also somehow a more hopeful and joyful one. i don't know that we succeeded. It's a difficult thing to convey to the next generation. One of my favorite photos of my dad is of him giving a talk in precisely a short sleeve shirt and tie.
I'm glad you liked it.
Interesting article which probably warrants a lot more discussion. Not that many people actually work directly in aerospace so I would broaden the aesthetic from aerospace to more general engineering archetypes. Aerospace may be the flag bearer but the aesthetic of of an engineer who works at Sikorsky or Pratt and Whitney in Connecticut is not different from the aesthetic of similar engineers who work at other leading edge engineering companies in New England.
That is however very different from the Silicon Valley culture/aesthetic. I think this article does a good job of capturing the difference between New England/Route 128 and the more contemporary Silicon Valley tech culture well (though New England is really not that stuffy anymore):
https://www.briancmanning.com/blog/2019/4/7/how-silicon-valley-became-silicon-valley
I think Southern California's aerospace engineering culture was/is a less uptight version of New England's tech culture but it was more similar to New England in its family and community orientation than to the current dominant tech cultures.
Of course this is a very conservative culture but it is currently associated with blue states.
Thanks
"America rests on the shoulders of a great colossus, and that colossus wears a short-sleeved shirt with a tie."
Watch that colossus fall in "Falling Down" (1993) Yes, he was an aerospace engineer.
First, thank you for your guest column. However I cannot endorse this much:
Re: compounded by the blossoming deficits caused by an out-of-control welfare state
It was not an out of control welfare state (Social Security was taking in more money than it was spending back then) but rather endless rounds tax cuts, each more irresponsible than the last*, combined with a big defense build-up. The latter I will agree was necessary and bore good fruit- the fall of the Soviet Union. But we should have paid for it, not put it on the national credit card.
The percentage of GDP spent on defense in each of the Reagan years was about the same as in the peaceful JFK years. The percentage spent on the welfare state was much higher.
Your reply is not really relevant to my post above. It remains true that the Social Security system was on sound footing and not a source of deficits in the 80s. Moreover the Reagan era reforms should have put it on sound financial footing for a very long time-- if certain decades-long stable realities had remained stable (which they have not). Moreover the MAGA base, in common with the entire middle and working class, is dependent on the entitlement system for their own long-term survival, something which Donald Trump at least understood, at least in the past. Also, it was the Reagan tax reforms which convinced too many in the GOP (formerly the party of fiscal probity) that "deficits do not matter" to use Dick Cheney's words.
Anyway, this is entirely beside the point of this piece. I just wish the author had not veered out his lane to belabor this talking point of the old libertarian Right.
"Social Security" and "the welfare state" are not synonyms. That seems to be the source of the miscommunication here.
"Mars and the Asteroid Belt are, for now, psychological projections of resentment at the technocrats’ reliance on steel, power, water, food, manpower, and security from the Heartland, manifesting out of a stymied desire to discard the political obligations that emerge out of that dependency."
While this may be true in some cases, it's not true for the majority of them. The desire to go to Mars and the asteroid belt isn't the product of technocratic resentment; it's the product of resource hunger and the twin beliefs that, A. long-term, it will be easier to build spaceships in space than on Earth (barring use of the Orion drive), and B. that Mars and the asteroid belt are stepping stones on the way to mankind's interstellar expansion, akin to the Azores or the Canary Islands in the early days of the Age of Exploration.
I don't think it's even resource hunger. I think a lot of engineering types tend to overestimate the degree to which things like access to minerals are major constraints on economic development. So when there was talk of opening up Greenland, that it has a quadrillion dollars worth of molybdenum or whatever, a lot of economically illiterate technophiles get excited. One of my engineer friends invested in that rare earths SPAC, excited by all the zeroes in the estimated gross value of its mineral reserves.
But I do think your last point is valid and also a major driver. The Faustian desire to conquer new worlds. Though you can't put that in an investment pitch.
"The Faustian desire to conquer new worlds."
That's putting too negative a spin on it--I think the motives of the "ad astra" crowd are a mixed bag, ranging from the desire to conquer and dominate (at worst) to the desire to see more of God's creation and what He's done elsewhere (at best).
I don't disagree. I didn't intend to put a negative spin on it.
Unless we find out Einstein was wrong about the universe's speed limit (the velocity of light) we will not expand into interstellar space. But the rest of the solar system-- yes, or at least maybe.