Comment by Gareth321
2 hours ago
It's incredible to witness what humanity is capable of when pushed to our limits and appropriately motivated. The space race was in many ways a civilizational and existential fight for the U.S. The innovations this spurred in a relatively short span of time (and the risks the astronauts took) are numerous and impressive. I sometimes wonder that if in the absence of adversity, humans tend towards comfort and security and stability. Maybe that's obvious. Maybe most people with full bellies, warm homes, and physical security just aren't motivated to work 16 hour days for years on end and risk lives.
I suppose we should be grateful that SpaceX has found and collected enough of these crazy people in one place on this mission.
One thing that made me realize the scale of the Apollo project was the "rubber room". This is a bunker connected by a slide to the launch pad. It was designed as an emergency escape in case of an imminent explosion.
At a normal scale, that would be a major construction project.
At Apollo scale, it is an anecdote. Its purpose is to maybe save a few people in the unlikely scenario where an explosion gives enough advance warning to be able to use the slide, but not enough to be able to just drive away. It also goes to show that the program was anything but reckless.
On a smaller scale, driving through the mountains and seeing the tunnels where we said "screw it, we're going through" is also pretty amazing.
Maybe that’s the Great Filter?
An interesting theory. Intelligence tends towards entropy in the absence of exciting stimuli. Maybe life on Earth has just been so besieged over the eons that it has forced us to progress to where we are. Once we reach [Wall-E levels of comfort and abundance,](https://corporalculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/walle...) we're doomed. Maybe we're already seeing this with the fertility crisis.