Professor: Adventures
Professor on apB
After leaving apA, I shot to apB. I pressed my Mutability Button, and I became a sex. It didn’t matter because in the refueling station, which is the only benefit of apB due to the economical prices, everyone was the same sex. A Morsel (what they call themselves) was bent over in the aisle, backside out. I almost could not resist the urge to slap Morsel’s bottom. The bottom seemed like an offering. Even though everyone is of the same sex here, there are different gender energies. Back on Earth, we might call them variants of masculinity and of femininity. Here there is not even a name for them. Here, the emphasis is on compatibility. Maybe this is Charlotte Gilmore’s imagined Herland without the pronoun. At any rate, I did not slap the bottom. I am mutable, but I find that I am unable to change my essence.
The image changes, but who you are still comes through, alfI says. I turn and see alfI fueling beside me.
That’s what I thought, I say.
Correct.
I should have slapped the bottom, I think and then stop. I don’t want alfI overhearing.
Star Trek: The Local Versus the Universal
In the course “Star Trek: Inspiring Culture and Technology”, Dr. Margaret Weitekamp, author and currently a curator in the Space History department at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, states that “space exploration was controversial in the 1970s and 1980s. People wondered why the government was spending time and money exploring the solar system when critical problems existed here on Earth….Should the government resolve Earthly issues before exploring space? Or is a scientific investigation of distant worlds a fundamentally human endeavor of exploration?”
Governments should continue to work on resolving Earthly issues as a scientific investigation of distant worlds continues to take place. The strife that informs societal issues is born out of varying ideologies. To resolve issues based on concepts such as race and class, the minds of people must be changed in accordance with one overall ideology. Otherwise, only actions can be governed. A wait until Earthly issues, some of which have existed for millennia, are resolved could be interminable. The wait also might be detrimental. Perhaps space exploration beneficially could affect societal issue in ways unforeseen. In fact, it already has. In the op-ed “Space technologies can help solve Earth’s challenges”, Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space Holdings and founder of Space for Humanity, opines, “Many people may not recognize that the development of space exploration technologies has already helped benefit Earth in many ways, especially when it comes to communications, Earth observation and even fostering economic growth. Space technologies are surprisingly critical in impacting government, industry and personal daily decision-making”. He also states, “….with more planetary-wide troubles such as climate change, humanitarian crises, mass migration and others on the horizon, how effectively can we rely on space technologies to sustain our own Earth and life on it?”. To engage in essentialist thinking regarding the local versus the universal is to avoid seeing areas of possibility that could result—and that already has resulted—in contributions to the resolution of Earthly issues while advancing human exploration of space.
Rank: Lieutenant Commander
Indigo Fall 