by Jeff Pollard
“That's right,” Kingsley says.
“So you're so confident in your rockets, that you won't put any parents in them?”
“That's not true at all,” K replies.
“Then what does it mean that you wouldn't hire married astronauts?”
“Well, for one thing, I have hired married astronauts. For another thing, I've ridden two Eagle 9s into orbit, so I don't know where you get the idea that I lack confidence in my rocket.”
“You've also shown to be a thrill-seeker, maybe you like the danger,” Wallace replies.
“When you plan on having a high flight rate, launching dozens of missions per year, that number adds up quickly. When I hire an astronaut, I'm not hiring someone for a mission or two, I'm hiring them with the intent to strap them into a rocket and blast them into space dozens of times. So yeah, I'd prefer that they not have little kids at home. There are plenty of qualified people that I can seek out the ones without families. That's just me trying to minimize risks. That's caution, not recklessness.”
“Is it true that you have fathered children with twelve different mothers?” Senator Wallace asks.
“I don't know,” Kingsley replies, knocked back in his chair by the question.
“You don't know how many children you have fathered?”
“I have been a sperm donor, I don't know how many children have resulted. I can tell you that I'm personally responsible for fathering no children at all.”
“No children, but you live with two women. Some kind of family man,” Wallace mutters.
“I didn't realize when you subpenaed me to talk about my rockets that you meant the one in my pants,” Kingsley replies. “And how do you know how many kids have resulted? Is that all confidential information?”
“With that, we will take a short recess,” Senator Walken says.
Kingsley paces in the Capitol rotunda while Hannah sits nearby. K sees Senator Lorne Walken and rushes over to him.
“I thought you were a good one, I thought you'd have my back,” K says. Walken talks Kingsley aside, into a hallway off the rotunda.
“I do have your back.”
“It doesn't feel like you have my back in there,” K replies.
“I can't appear to be on any side in there. I can't go after them for sound-bytes. I love it that you gave that cunt-wagon a pop quiz on basic rocket science. I wish I could do that daily. I wish I could give pop-quizes to every politician. But instead we play sound-byte wars. So you keep up what you're doing.”
“And while I'm taking a beating for everything I've ever done in character attacks, what are you doing?” Kingsley asks.
“Giving them rope my friend,” Senator Walken says with a sly smile.
“What did that mean, giving them rope?” Hannah asks as the hearings are about to resume.
“He's giving them enough rope to hang themselves.”
“I don't get it.”
“It's a saying. Give them a long enough rope and they'll hang themselves, something like that.”
“This isn't one of your sex things is it?” Hannah asks.
“You realize we're on camera right now right?” K asks.
“Senator Winger, the witness is all yours,” Chairman Walken announces dully.
“Mr. Pretorius, on numerous occasions you have called the Department of Defense's budget as, and I'm quoting, bloated, insane, absurd, and a cluster-something. The military is a necessary and useful enterprise. Without it, where would we be? You said just last week that if you cut the DoD budget in half and gave that money to NASA instead, the Moon would be the 51st state before long.”
“Is this a question?” Kingsley asks.
“My question is this: why do you think it's more important for a few lucky astronauts to float around in space, going on adventures, than it is to defend the United States and the world from terrorists, dictators, and extremists that would love to nuke Manhattan if they could? How do you justify cutting spending to stop that in order to live out some boyhood fantasy?”
“Well first of all, I don't think you need eleven nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to fight terrorism. I don't think the stealth F-35 that you want to spend a trillion dollars on is going to be a lot of use against terrorists. Last I checked they didn't use much radar. Our military spending accounts for 42% of worldwide military spending. What are we, planning on taking over the entire planet? That's an insane figure. Secondly, if you think you're going to go around the planet killing all the bad guys with bombs and missiles, I'm afraid your mistaken. They don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us because we bomb them all the damn time. If you try to turn the middle east into your own personal game of whack-a-mole, I'm afraid your just going to have to keep playing forever. We could cut our military spending by 75% and still have the most well-funded military on the planet. Every gun made, every warship launched, every stealth bomber is a theft from those who hunger for food or knowledge. It is a waste of the sweat of laborers, the genius of scientists, the hopes of children. Every time we launch a tomahawk missile, we're wasting money that could have paid the salary of fifty teachers. Do you really look around at this planet and think that we need more missiles and fewer teachers? I saw a poll last week, from your home state of Virginia, Senator, that said 34% of Virginia Republicans blame President Obama for the bungling of Hurricane Katrina. Only 26% blamed President Bush. And you think we don't need more teachers?”
“What have you been smoking? The world isn't a hippie commune. We can't just throw away our guns and expect the bad guys of the world to leave us alone. Maybe you should go to France and run the French space program,” Senator Winger replies.
“You do realize I was kind of quoting Ike in the middle there right?” K asks.
“Ike who?”
“Eisenhower,” K replies. “Look, I'm not here to bash the military. I'm not a pacifist that wants to abolish guns. I'm just saying you can defend your country without spending five times more than any other country on the planet. How about just a 5% cut in military spending and send that money to NASA. That would triple NASA's budget.”
“So let's keep fewer eyes on bad guys, give our troops worse guns, launch fewer drones, and instead spend that money on a couple of rockets or some space trekking nerds, is that it?”
“If you tripled NASA's budget, that would buy more than a couple of rockets. Do you know how little NASA's budget is?”
“I'm aware of the budget.”
“A poll last year asked respondents what they thought NASA's budget was. The average was 24%. The average voter thinks NASA gets 24% of the federal budget. In reality, NASA gets half of one percent. Since I don't hear an overwhelming cry for cutting NASA's budget, seems like the public would be happy to give NASA fifty times the budget, since that's what they think it gets anyway.”
“This isn't some sideshow, Mr. Pretorius. We don't make budgets based on poll numbers.”
“Did you know,” K says with a sly smile, knowing he's only going to further irritate the Senator, “that the NFL makes more money from TV revenue than NASA gets to run its human spaceflight program? And that's just TV money, that doesn't include ticket sales, jerseys, hot dogs. So we as a nation support space exploration less than we support the NFL. Do you think those priorities are right?”
“Well, that's not tax dollars. Apples and Oranges. That's the free market showing that people want that product and will pay for it. If you want to make a reality show in space and convince enough people to pay to watch it, then you can do that,” Senator Winger says.
“Maybe I should start the MFL. Moon Football League,” K says.
“If the public doesn't want it, why should we fund it? What's it for besides being a pipe-dream about being explorers. What does a Moon landing get us? I'm not so sure we shouldn't just eliminate NASA completely. We would be a lot better off in this country if we got the government off our backs. I mean, imagine if we didn't ask every middle class family
, every person working minimum wage, every single-mother to pay some extra taxes so we can have a space station. I want those single-moms to keep that money and then go spend it on what they want. If the people want to watch guys hopping around on the Moon, then the free market will pay for that. Go start your reality show, but don't ask the middle class to pay for it. I think if we got rid of a lot of government we would find the free market would do a lot of things better.”
“That's a pretty silly way to look at the math,” K replies.
“Silly?” Winger asks. “You calling me silly?”
“You make it sound like having a space program is a burden on single-mothers. If you divide the NASA budget across the whole population, it costs each of us about 50 bucks a year. And even that's not telling the whole story, because people like me pay a lot more in taxes than single-mothers, and rightly so. So if you want to say that all of us chipping in fifty bucks a year is too expensive for a space station, let's ask the American people how they feel about the more than 2,000 dollars they each pay on average for the military.”
“A military is necessary,” Winger says sternly.
“A poll taken last month,” Kingsley replies quickly.
“Here he goes again, another poll,” Senator Winger interjects.
“Yes, a poll. I prepared for this hearing because I kinda figured representatives should care what their constituents think. But then again, I'm not from around here. Thirty percent of American scientists claimed they were considering leaving the country due to a lack of science funding. My electric car company is running into anti-electric-car laws. But in Norway electric cars can park for free, get free recharging, and can drive in bus lanes...we're losing. We're losing smart people. They're leaving. Other countries value science and knowledge and exploration more than we do, and scientists will go to those countries. We used to be the country that innovated, that would try anything, and the scientists flocked here. We led the world in innovation. Now we're the country spends most of our money on a military big enough to pick on anyone on the planet. We give the NSA more money every year to spy on our Facebooks, about 11 billion dollars, than we give NASA for spaceflight operations, about 8 billion. You telling me that the 700 billion we spend on defense isn't enough, we need more for spying?”
“Again, I think spying on our enemies is more important than footprints on Mars. I must be a crazy war-monger. I want to know why we don't just close up NASA, let the free market, like your company, handle space.”
“You would put hundreds of thousands of people out of work if you closed NASA. Hundreds of thousands of scientists, engineers, these are good jobs that would evaporate overnight. Is that how you grow an economy?” K asks.
“Isn't it true that if we ended NASA, your company would go bankrupt?” Senator Winger asks.
“If it suddenly stopped existing tomorrow, we would be in trouble,” K replies.
“So your company wouldn't survive in the free market, it needs a big government to keep it afloat, is that what you're saying?” Winger asks.
“Just a few hours ago, my company launched six people to our space hotel. I think we're doing okay.”
“Then do that. What do you need NASA for?”
“That's like saying, what do you need knowledge for? What do we need science for? What do we need exploration for?”
“I don't think we need space exploration. So what there's water on Mars? There's life on Uranus. What does it matter?” Senator Winger asks.
“Well, I guess it's not a surprise that you don't care about discovering truths,” Kingsley says. “Seeing as you also said that, and I quote, evolution is lies from the pit of hell.”
“It is,” Winger replies angrily.
“Of course it is,” Kingsley says sarcastically. “I'm just saying that someone who thinks Satan is using scientists to deceive us is probably not a person who should be telling scientists what to research. Honestly, I think anyone who thinks evolution is a lie isn't fit to hold any public office, but that's just because I think people who make decisions for a living should probably be good at evaluating information. You not only can't evaluate information, you're seemingly proud of it. You're like the jock telling the nerds that nobody cares about nerd stuff, then getting yourself elected class president. That's fine for high school, but out here in the real world, maybe we should let the smart people make the decisions.”
“You will treat me with respect. Contempt of congress is a crime!” Senator Winger shouts.
“That's a different kind of contempt, xenator.”
“Chairman, hold this man in contempt!”
“He's right senator,” Chairman Walken says, “that's a different kind of contempt. If he failed to follow the subpoena or refused to answer questions, that could be contempt. But calling you dumb is not a crime. Mr. Pretorius, let me ask you the question that I think Senator Winger is trying to ask,” Chairman Walken cuts off Senator Winger. “Why is space travel important? Forget about military spending or comparing the budget to other budgets. Make the case for space travel. What good is it? What does it give us as a nation?”
“Discovery,” Kingsley says. “Right now it's raining metal on Venus. Dry ice blocks are skating down Martian dunes. A volcano of methane is erupting on Titan, and somewhere out there is an asteroid or a comet with our name on it. We're explorers because we have to be. It's in our DNA. Without discovery we stagnate. Without a horizon to reach for there's no dreaming to be had. We reach for the stars because we have to. Why cross the oceans? Why map the continent? Why figure out the weather? We'll just sacrifice a few goats a year and surely the gods will smile on us. Why study quantum physics, it can't possibly ever be useful. Why put anything in Earth orbit, how can it possibly help us feed the hungry or pad our retirement accounts? Discovery is not something you can plan. You can't know what you'll find, so I can't come up here and tell you all the benefits we'll reap, the new technologies we'll invent, or the deeper truths we'll understand. All I can say is that the truth is out there whether we look for it or not. So let's look for it. What's the worst that can happen? We employ a lot of people and we discover nothing interesting?
Earth is nothing. It's just one planet. To hear you speak, you'd think the Earth was the center of the universe. Why go into space? Why does it matter? Let's just put all our focus on the Earth, after all Mars and Venus and Alpha Centauri are so far away, they don't matter. But the Earth is just one of about one septillion planets in the universe. It's a number that boggles the mind. Septillion. The Earth is a tiny, inconsequential, fraction of the universe. To ignore the rest of the universe is like worshiping a single drop of water and disregarding the oceans. The universe is out there. And there's way more of it than any of us can possibly imagine.
The search for exo-planets, meaning planets outside of our solar system, has so far found over 3,000 planets orbiting other stars, and that search is just a tiny sliver of the nearby parts of our own galaxy. We think about 40 of those exo-planets are potentially inhabited by life, they're the right size, composition, distance from their star. Imagine in a hundred years, probes sending back reports from exo-planets a few light-years away, telling us about a second Earth waiting for life or finding signs of life rising out of the oceans. If we live long enough, if we keep our eyes on the prize, if we don't blow each other up or descend into chaos, we might be launching interstellar colony ships. We might find life out there.
But if you look at population growth, greenhouse gases, the rising and growingly-acidic oceans that we're overfishing to the point of near collapse, the rise of third world industrialization and all the pollution and consumption that goes along with it, when you propagate all these trends it's clear that business as usual is no longer an option. We're either in some kind of final, fatal meltdown or we're going to transform ourselves unrecognizably, there is really no middle ground. The least likely future of all is a future in which we just continue stumbling forward as we have since the
industrial revolution. That's not an option anymore.
Is this some kind of final act in a great cosmic tragedy in which intelligence rises out of the slime, is shown to be inadequate and sinks back into the slime? Or is this a tale of difficulty overcome, heroism, and being able to transcend our ape past, shed our egos, and rise to some kind of ideal? There has to be more to it than just turning people loose to loot the planet so everyone can pile up more stuff, more material possessions, stuff that doesn't satisfy anyway.
Communism collapsed, but capitalism is a system with a fatal flaw. Capitalism assumes an endlessly exploitable frontier of resources. Something we don't have, at least not here on Earth. Capitalism is literally chewing up the ground we're standing on, and you call me crazy for saying we should look for more ground to stand on?”
“Here we go again with all this global warming clap-trap,” Senator Winger bellows. “The flood in the bible wasn't man-made. So why do you think man has control of the climate?”
Kingsley stares, dumbfounded. “Did you just say that the biblical flood is proof that global warming isn't anthropogenic? Next you're going to tell me the Earth is flat.”
“You call me stupid again and you'll find out what the free market is like without any NASA funding,” Senator Winger replies belligerently.
“You claim you aren't stupid, yet you think the biblical flood is a literal story,” Kingsley says, just trying to grasp the sheer idiocy of the situation.
“I as well as about a billion Christians. You better watch what you say about us.”
“How very Christian of you,” Kingsley replies. “So you believe that Noah's Ark actually held two of every species?”
“That's right, is there something wrong with that?” Senator Winger asks.
“Yes, lots of things. Did Noah then go take the two Kangaroos to Australia, then head over to Mauritius and drop off the two Dodos, then over to the Galapagos to drop off the two Giant Tortoises?”
“This is ridiculous,” Senator Winger says angrily.