In fairness, most of the coverage I've seen (at least in reputable publications) has been very clear that he's the first British citizen on board the ISS, rather than the first British astronaut. I'm sure that won't stop half the country reading the headlines and getting the wrong idea, but hey ho.
Michael Foale (dual American and British Citizen) was on the Internation Space Station in 2003. He still holds the cumulative-time-in-space record for a UK citizen. He was a NASA astronaut whilst on the ISS.
Isn't he the first to do it as an ESA astronaut instead of through NASA with dual citizenship (but as a US trained astronaut) or through a Russian space tourism junket? It's a pretty big deal to get to send your own astronaut up vs just having a citizen up there but working for a different agency IMO.
She was the first Briton in space. She didn't go through astronaut training so she wasn't actually an official astronaut which is what the article is claiming. Not sure what it being pre-twitter has to do with anything, though.
"
Despite what you may have heard, Peake is actually the sixth Brit in space. The first was chemist Helen Sharman, who flew to the Russian Mir space station in 1991 as part of Project Juno, a jointly funded mission between a private consortium and Russia. She was followed by the British-born astronauts Michael Foale, Piers Sellers and Nicholas Patrick, who all took US citizenship and flew on NASA missions, and Richard Garriott, a video game developer who went to the ISS as a space tourist.
"
I was pretty young at the time, but Helen Sharman was a really big deal back then, Twitter or no Twitter. I imagine most British people in their early thirties or older would remember the name with only a bit of prompting (though I concede it would be a moderately challenging "pub quiz" trivia question).
As long as we are at it, for sarcasm purposes, I'll generalize it further:
If anything can teach us anything, any kind of identity is a ridiculous contrivance.
But. We're humans. Our different identities make us feel the 'special snowflakes' that we really aren't, to allow us our sanity to get day-to-day job done. Regional identities are PARTICULARLY useful, as they help unite groups of people who share a common history, traditional, and cultural memory. Not to mention, them having a common identity creates peace and harmony within a geographical region and lets them work as a team [with people who perhaps don't share ANYTHING with them except the geography].
Any of the identities you have (religion? 'technie'? some sort of sci-fi fan?) can be just as equally attacked, with equal pointless gains. Of all your identities, I would argue your geographical one would STILL be the strongest/be benefitting you the most, regardless of how much an irrelevant contrivance you consider it to be.
Communication/technology has not erased geographical boundaries: it has just made more people desire the same boundaries (ie, shown how some places are more desirable). Discounting 'the specific patch of ground you were born in' is an incredibly privileged and individualistic way of seeing things.
Your words reek of the techno-liberto-utopianism that completely disregards history and social context, and discounts the fact that we are, after all, humans, not ideal machines who ought to not get carried away by those dang namby-pamby emotions.
There is a distinct difference between an identity that I have chosen based on my personal preferences and one that is forced upon me by circumstance. One I can change and has deep significance to me. One is assigned and immutable and has very little direct influence in my day to day life.
You have the strange notion that without nationalism to enforce an identity on myself that naturally there is no way my neighbor and me can live in "peace and harmony". I suggest that I can work with other people just fine, even if I don't share an identity with them. In fact, if you can only work peacefully with people similar to yourself I believe that is discrimination of some form or another. I realize no human is an ideal machine, but any person with empathy really ought to be able to work with women/men/muslims/jews/french/british/german/ginger/blond/tall/short/disabled people without issue - especially if they want to remain employed in the modern world.
Finally, please avoid insulting people who express a different opinion to your own.
Jeez, defending nationalism on privilege grounds is pretty tough.
I live in the US (NYC), which means that various government agencies think that the life of someone like me is worth around $5M -- that's the price they're willing to spend to save one statistical life when evaluating policies.
Three thousand miles away in California, the same is true.
Go a similar distance the other direction, to Senegal, and the Against Malaria Foundation thinks it can save lives for $3000 per life, with plenty of room for more funding and lives to save.
And of course, those people aren't allowed to move to the US. The patch of land they were born in isn't merely "irrelevant"; it's much worse than that.
How is any of this morally defensible, and how is it wrong to call it out as arbitrary and unfair? It's not even like I know these people in California or share geography with them in any meaningful sense.
I think the privilege that they were referring to is how most of us here are likely from a developed country with a strong economy and high quality of life, and therefore have little fear of loosing our cultural heritage. We are quick to dismiss cultural diversity as trivial and meaningless because countries like the US are such a broad cultural mix, but often most of the population never has to experience either their culture being taken away from them, them being forced to move, or them being colonized.
Because of that, people don't understand what it is like to experience colonization or cultural integration. As benten10 said, regional identities are usually convenient wrappers for same culture. People will embrace their place of origin because it is home in the deepest most human sense of the word.
However, because we desire to remove the labels of regional similarity (you used nationalism, presumably with the intention of it being a loaded word), doesn't mean that others feel the same way. It is the privilege that we have that we feel comfortable from our place of relative cultural safety that we don't have to be afraid of loosing the things that we feel are valuable to us.
Strong words. I'm not sure why you came down so hard on what is a reasonable opinion.
I don't speak for lamby, but it might be that what he was regretting is that nationality is essentially the only identity that is popularly used to characterise astronauts. When was the last time an astronaut was described (to take your examples) primarily in terms of their religion, attitude to tech, or preferred literary genre? It doesn't happen.
But from space, national boundaries are invisible. This is part of what causes the so-called "overview effect" [1] that some space travellers report. I don't know, but I suspect that lamby may have been alluding to this.
Three human beings went into space today on expedition 47. What do you know about them, apart from that they are Russian, American, and British? Do you have any other ways to characterise them?
>Regional identities are PARTICULARLY useful, as they help unite groups of people who share a common history, traditional, and cultural memory.
It hasn't been very useful to me, though you may have different experiences. I don't care about common history or traditional and cultural memory; the most important factor is that someone can learn it, instead of being forever left out because they drew a different straw in the birth lottery.
>Not to mention, them having a common identity creates peace and harmony within a geographical region and lets them work as a team
This is a way to work in a team, there are others which work regardless of your identity. The peace and harmony immediately comes crashing down when you have someone with a different identity. In fact, thinking that there is some magical peace and harmony that's created in your own group is exactly what makes the illusion crumble; if you convince people that there's peace and harmony within their own group and only when that group is based upon some shared identity, they won't act in harmony when someone else comes along.
It fosters an exclusionary atmosphere.
>Of all your identities, I would argue your geographical one would STILL be the strongest/be benefitting you the most, regardless of how much an irrelevant contrivance you consider it to be.
I don't think you can reliably make this statement to someone who finds that the identity given to them (by birth or through childhood) is in fact a hindrance. Xenophobia is a problem. Your strongest identity is the one that you're most comfortable with - it benefits you the most. It might be geographical identity, but everyone has a geographical identity anyway - it's not as special as other identities - and you can't choose it, either.
>it has just made more people desire the same boundaries (ie, shown how some places are more desirable)
Has it really? I know many people who are happy with the way online gaming, IRC, mailing lists among other things erase national boundaries. It's perhaps the thing I love most about the Internet. You can be together with people - to foster the "human connection".
>Discounting 'the specific patch of ground you were born in' is an incredibly privileged and individualistic way of seeing things.
Howso? And if it is privileged, let whomever experiences it have that privilege, and hope that others can have that same privilege.
>and discounts the fact that we are, after all, humans
We are humans; this is the most important thing. It's not discounting humanity - it's reinforcing it. Before I get called a speciesist, I would be happy to extend it to "we are, after all, life forms". Though that doesn't make us feel as special.
We get attached to the labels and indenties that make us feel the most special - I don't think there is any place for this, especially in a much more communicative world. You can feel as special as you want, but I think it is problematic when you start saying "my special thing is better than yours". And I can't imagine a situation where that doesn't crop up.
It seems as though you are providing an "excuse" for our nature; you seem to have identified that our identities are based upon a wrong view of the world - that is, the wrong view that we are special snowflakes.
I don't think it's an innate human thing to do this - and if it is, why can't we overcome it? Why not abandon this wrong view, and encourage others to do it? You don't have to go to space to do it, my human friend.
I'm as partisan a sports fan as any and I'm still struggling to quite understand the fascination amongst the general public that hasn't paid that much attention to the ISS beforehand. This isn't really showing off the competitive prowess or cultural influence of fellow Brits; this is just a routine addition to a decades old international project who happens to be British.
Especially when Britain already has pretty interesting space projects conceived and based in Britain, supported by our taxes and employing mostly Britons...
yeah it's pretty arbitrary i absolutely agree! i think people like a reason to pat themselves on the back. not dissimilar to all the "britain remaining on the world stage" tripe we had recently with the syria vote - people want to feel relevant; sometimes it's by showing military force, others its through an appointed hero we can deify.
> This isn't really showing off the competitive prowess or cultural influence of fellow Brits; this is just a routine addition to a decades old international project who happens to be British.
There was a time when we weren't participating in the ESA at all. The fact that we're now an active enough part to send someone up on an ESA mission is pretty big. (Equally I'd celebrate if we were e.g. adding a British-built module to the ISS). Much as I long for a revival of the Black Arrow, space is probably an international endeavor these days.
My son is delighted; he attends the same school as did Tim Peake and today there are a number of special, in-house activities surrounding the launch. An hour or so ago, he sent me a text message to say he'd been on live radio!
I saw the Cosmonauts expo [1] at the Science Museum a few weeks back; strongly recommended if you're interested in the Soviet space programme and are in London. The expo includes a real Soyuz capsule and onboard computer. I'll be tuning in at 7pm tonight to see the Soyuz dock with the ISS.
40 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 90.3 ms ] threadEven wore a Union Flag arm-patch...
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=35932
Tim is the UK's first official astronaut - i.e. he's being paid to go to space, rather than paying to do so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foale
> https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28666-first-official-...
" Despite what you may have heard, Peake is actually the sixth Brit in space. The first was chemist Helen Sharman, who flew to the Russian Mir space station in 1991 as part of Project Juno, a jointly funded mission between a private consortium and Russia. She was followed by the British-born astronauts Michael Foale, Piers Sellers and Nicholas Patrick, who all took US citizenship and flew on NASA missions, and Richard Garriott, a video game developer who went to the ISS as a space tourist. "
I should point out he has claimed this himself.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/gingern...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dan-Dare-Spacefleet-Operations-Works...
Congratulations.
If anything can teach us anything, any kind of identity is a ridiculous contrivance.
But. We're humans. Our different identities make us feel the 'special snowflakes' that we really aren't, to allow us our sanity to get day-to-day job done. Regional identities are PARTICULARLY useful, as they help unite groups of people who share a common history, traditional, and cultural memory. Not to mention, them having a common identity creates peace and harmony within a geographical region and lets them work as a team [with people who perhaps don't share ANYTHING with them except the geography].
Any of the identities you have (religion? 'technie'? some sort of sci-fi fan?) can be just as equally attacked, with equal pointless gains. Of all your identities, I would argue your geographical one would STILL be the strongest/be benefitting you the most, regardless of how much an irrelevant contrivance you consider it to be.
Communication/technology has not erased geographical boundaries: it has just made more people desire the same boundaries (ie, shown how some places are more desirable). Discounting 'the specific patch of ground you were born in' is an incredibly privileged and individualistic way of seeing things.
Your words reek of the techno-liberto-utopianism that completely disregards history and social context, and discounts the fact that we are, after all, humans, not ideal machines who ought to not get carried away by those dang namby-pamby emotions.
You have the strange notion that without nationalism to enforce an identity on myself that naturally there is no way my neighbor and me can live in "peace and harmony". I suggest that I can work with other people just fine, even if I don't share an identity with them. In fact, if you can only work peacefully with people similar to yourself I believe that is discrimination of some form or another. I realize no human is an ideal machine, but any person with empathy really ought to be able to work with women/men/muslims/jews/french/british/german/ginger/blond/tall/short/disabled people without issue - especially if they want to remain employed in the modern world.
Finally, please avoid insulting people who express a different opinion to your own.
I live in the US (NYC), which means that various government agencies think that the life of someone like me is worth around $5M -- that's the price they're willing to spend to save one statistical life when evaluating policies.
Three thousand miles away in California, the same is true.
Go a similar distance the other direction, to Senegal, and the Against Malaria Foundation thinks it can save lives for $3000 per life, with plenty of room for more funding and lives to save.
And of course, those people aren't allowed to move to the US. The patch of land they were born in isn't merely "irrelevant"; it's much worse than that.
How is any of this morally defensible, and how is it wrong to call it out as arbitrary and unfair? It's not even like I know these people in California or share geography with them in any meaningful sense.
Because of that, people don't understand what it is like to experience colonization or cultural integration. As benten10 said, regional identities are usually convenient wrappers for same culture. People will embrace their place of origin because it is home in the deepest most human sense of the word.
However, because we desire to remove the labels of regional similarity (you used nationalism, presumably with the intention of it being a loaded word), doesn't mean that others feel the same way. It is the privilege that we have that we feel comfortable from our place of relative cultural safety that we don't have to be afraid of loosing the things that we feel are valuable to us.
I don't speak for lamby, but it might be that what he was regretting is that nationality is essentially the only identity that is popularly used to characterise astronauts. When was the last time an astronaut was described (to take your examples) primarily in terms of their religion, attitude to tech, or preferred literary genre? It doesn't happen.
But from space, national boundaries are invisible. This is part of what causes the so-called "overview effect" [1] that some space travellers report. I don't know, but I suspect that lamby may have been alluding to this.
Three human beings went into space today on expedition 47. What do you know about them, apart from that they are Russian, American, and British? Do you have any other ways to characterise them?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect
It hasn't been very useful to me, though you may have different experiences. I don't care about common history or traditional and cultural memory; the most important factor is that someone can learn it, instead of being forever left out because they drew a different straw in the birth lottery.
>Not to mention, them having a common identity creates peace and harmony within a geographical region and lets them work as a team
This is a way to work in a team, there are others which work regardless of your identity. The peace and harmony immediately comes crashing down when you have someone with a different identity. In fact, thinking that there is some magical peace and harmony that's created in your own group is exactly what makes the illusion crumble; if you convince people that there's peace and harmony within their own group and only when that group is based upon some shared identity, they won't act in harmony when someone else comes along.
It fosters an exclusionary atmosphere.
>Of all your identities, I would argue your geographical one would STILL be the strongest/be benefitting you the most, regardless of how much an irrelevant contrivance you consider it to be.
I don't think you can reliably make this statement to someone who finds that the identity given to them (by birth or through childhood) is in fact a hindrance. Xenophobia is a problem. Your strongest identity is the one that you're most comfortable with - it benefits you the most. It might be geographical identity, but everyone has a geographical identity anyway - it's not as special as other identities - and you can't choose it, either.
>it has just made more people desire the same boundaries (ie, shown how some places are more desirable)
Has it really? I know many people who are happy with the way online gaming, IRC, mailing lists among other things erase national boundaries. It's perhaps the thing I love most about the Internet. You can be together with people - to foster the "human connection".
>Discounting 'the specific patch of ground you were born in' is an incredibly privileged and individualistic way of seeing things.
Howso? And if it is privileged, let whomever experiences it have that privilege, and hope that others can have that same privilege.
>and discounts the fact that we are, after all, humans
We are humans; this is the most important thing. It's not discounting humanity - it's reinforcing it. Before I get called a speciesist, I would be happy to extend it to "we are, after all, life forms". Though that doesn't make us feel as special.
We get attached to the labels and indenties that make us feel the most special - I don't think there is any place for this, especially in a much more communicative world. You can feel as special as you want, but I think it is problematic when you start saying "my special thing is better than yours". And I can't imagine a situation where that doesn't crop up.
It seems as though you are providing an "excuse" for our nature; you seem to have identified that our identities are based upon a wrong view of the world - that is, the wrong view that we are special snowflakes.
I don't think it's an innate human thing to do this - and if it is, why can't we overcome it? Why not abandon this wrong view, and encourage others to do it? You don't have to go to space to do it, my human friend.
Especially when Britain already has pretty interesting space projects conceived and based in Britain, supported by our taxes and employing mostly Britons...
There was a time when we weren't participating in the ESA at all. The fact that we're now an active enough part to send someone up on an ESA mission is pretty big. (Equally I'd celebrate if we were e.g. adding a British-built module to the ISS). Much as I long for a revival of the Black Arrow, space is probably an international endeavor these days.
[1] http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/...