It’s been a few days since my last post here, and even with that the last few posts were all Apollo 11 related. The 50th anniversary was quite an event to be a part of, even passively as I was. More so than the actual shared experience, intensity and emotion was found in my own thoughts and reflections on the fact that it had been half a century since the first of six crewed lunar landings. The fact that Chris Kraft died the day he did during this anniversary was quite the oddly timed event and for how much I care about this part of human history combined, well, it all really hit me hard.
In fact, the past few years, regarding manned space flight and my love of it, have been difficult in their own way…
I’ve made it very well known my love of this subject — in numerous articles here I’ve poured over details of some of my favorite events and, originally, had planned to cover each mission of the Apollo program in detail during its anniversary period — this, along with covering other current events and details. I had done so over the past few years which, sadly, coincided with a change in the space community.
I’ve discussed this in detail before, but it would be worth mentioning again the gist of the situation: In the past few years there has been an incredible rise in “trendy” space interest — in caring about it only in so far as it’s “neat” rather than what would otherwise seem to be genuine broad interest. This just happened to be about the same time as a rise in the interest and “popularity” of SpaceX, and based on comments see around the internet and the focus people pay, this isn’t simple coincidence.
One could argue that any interest is good interest, but I simply disagree. While I could go into it in depth (and plan to) to say that trendiness and pleasing the masses inherently destroys what makes some things special is the simplest way to describe the situation in most any kind of specialty interest – space and rocketry not excluded.
To keep things brief, there’s a kind of obsession in the community now with that company that ranges in behavior (and hostility) from a sports team like passion to that of a cult. It’s no longer about the end result of a successful payload orbit, it’s now about self landing rockets, unfulfilled promises of “cheaper” flight, an obsession with re-usability, damning all other concerns to how this affects payloads (and all history regarding the subject) and complaints about a few million dollars difference in launch costs on payloads costing upwards of one billion dollars. It’s absolutely absurd and I’ve never seen any evidence of anything quite this similar in the past — especially the “average” person caring so much, especially given how little they even begin to understand about the subject — that fact alone previously (and thankfully) alienating the average person from deeper discussion on a subject they know little about.
Not anymore…
To say past few years have been very trying for my ability to enjoy both past and present activities in this field would be an understatement, then, and as things progress I quite honestly worry about the future. I won’t go into depth with that here, either, suffice it to say I fear what the growing precedent of private enterprise directly controlling access to space will create as the “new normal” going forward. It’s a future I look to with incredible fear and sorrow for, given the history set here on Earth. If it’s what people care about and take interest in, it will continue to get focus and become dominant, and as that happens people may well create a situation that, decades later, may be their own undoing. Again, history may repeat itself.
That’s just one side of the coin. The other is the sheer volume of things to cover that now seem to happen by the week. Even picking and choosing by the end of last year I found myself with an urge to write several articles a week devoted to this otherwise rather niche subject.
Yes, Xadara is my place to express what I think about most anything, and the articles would get traction at times, but for the effort I put into them there was little long term gain – they don’t trend well, honestly, save for a few rare cases and for the detail I tended to go into and the love I put into those entries the payout was minimal; not in actual financial gain (although that is true too) but in the “hey, people are reading this” factor.
To that end, following a few instances in October and November of 2018 (pretty much right after the Apollo 7 entries, honestly) I put an end to my space articles here on Xadara, save for a few cases. I had planned always for the Apollo 11 anniversary to get some attention, and I feel I gave it my most pure and genuine reactions, and experienced it on my own terms in my own way, and I couldn’t be happier with what I was able to do for my own enjoyment.
That being said, that also will likely be the final space related article I write here on Xadara. At least, on the “main” site. I’ve got other ideas, as I’ve mentioned before, but those will come when they come. I never intended to get this deep into space subjects — it just kind of happened naturally. While it didn’t dominate the site, it took up quite a bit of my writing energies, and certainly clashed with the overall rest of the website. Don’t think I don’t find it odd I can write one minute about video game reviews done in an absurd style and then the next describe one of the greatest moments in the history of the human race.
The site needs more focus, and since gaming and tech were how it started, that is where focus will return. I may touch on the occasional space subject where I feel I need to, or share an interesting archival video or the like once in a while, like how it all started, but for now consider this the probable end of heavy space subjects on Xadara.com.
In the meantime, as I mentioned above I have an idea of a subsite to hold newer space thoughts. It won’t get parsed the same way as my other content but nonetheless would be a place to publish thoughts, maybe, still here but separate from the main site. Maybe. Maybe not.
You can tell how conflicted I am on all of this. Hell, what to even do with this site at times, but hey, in the long run I enjoy this place existing and, if you’re reading this, I hope you do as well.
More to come, as always.
