[extropy-chat] FWD (UFO UpDate) Deconstructing 'Spirit'

[Terry W. Colvin]

From: Mac Tonnies <macbot at yahoo.com>
To: ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:01:09 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Deconstructing 'Spirit'



>From my weblog:

OK, I know I recently promised to lay off the subject of Mars. 
But that was before I realized what a mainstream subject it had 
become. Evidently there's quite a bit of public enthusiasm for 
the Spirit rover mission. Today the Kansas City Star and USA 
Today both have big front-page stories on "Mars Mania". And 
there's increasingly serious speculation that Bush's Moon-Mars 
initiative is more than just wishful thinking on behalf of space 
advocates. (Of course, when I say "Bush's Moon-Mars initiative" 
I'm not really attributing anything to Bush, who I doubt could 
locate the Red Planet on a map of the Solar System to save his 
life, but that's neither here nor there.....)

Have you noticed how JPL and the mainstream press have turned 
the Spirit rover into something of a personality? Space 
journalism is suddenly filled with rather desperate attempts to 
transmogrify a six-wheeled, solar-powered, remote-controlled 
dune-buggy into an interplanetary showman (or show-woman - I 
don't think they've given it a gender yet, although this issue 
was raised in the Posthuman Blues forum). When Spirit stand up 
on its wheels, it's not performing a basic requirement; it's 
giving a stand-up performance. It sleeps, it wakes up, it sends 
"postcards"! It's alive!

Can we expect Spirit to "do Letterman" anytime soon? Perhaps the 
JPL geeks (I use that term respectfully) can make it "wave its 
hand" to television viewers worldwide during the next big 
halftime show? Will Spirit run for president?

As much as I'm savoring the Spirit mission, I find attempts to 
humanize the rover weirdly disturbing - like guys who name 
their cars (or, worse, their computers) sexy female names. 
There's definitely a Freudian understratum to the public's 
infatuation with Spirit and its cybernetic derring-do. NASA has 
done more than transplant a bug-like machine to the Red Planet; 
it's sent a spark of our collective desire to get off this 
poisoned, treacherous globe we call "home." Spirit is nothing 
less than an avatar of silicon and wire, spared the neuroses and 
anxieties that plague Earth. Physically distant yet impressively 
intimate in its media-savvy, it (she?) joins the ranks of Max 
Headroom and Lara Croft - postmodern superstars that straddle 
the dissolving barrier between the real and the unreal.

It's no mistake there's a CD with hundreds of thousands of names 
on board Spirit - and yes, mine's there too, basking in Mars' 
ultraviolet flux, waiting for some future collector to pop it in 
his antique CD-ROM drive. It's like some sort of cosmic lottery, 
or a bid for ersatz immortality.

Ultimately, Spirit might have less to do with Mars than it does 
with the way we identify with our machinery. Perhaps instead of 
including a plaque commemorating the crew of Columbia, JPL 
should have attached a few choice quotes from J.G. Ballard's 
"Crash."


posted by Mac at 1/10/2004 10:04:33 PM

from: http://posthumanblues.blogspot.com


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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