Let’s stop going into space. There’s
nothing to see and no one to talk to
Guardian [U.K.],
by
Zoe Williams
Original Article
Posted By: Dreadnought,
4/7/2026 6:31:47 PM
It is absolutely self-evident to me that space exploration is pointless, and the more urgent the crises besetting this planet we live on, the more pointless it becomes. I can see why people got excited about it in the 1960s, back when the world was young and we still thought there might be little green people out there – who wouldn’t want to meet them? Most serious opinion, however, has now settled on the “Where is everybody?” paradox first framed by the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950. If there is intelligent life anywhere, why has it not sought to make contact? It’s because there isn’t. There’s nothing out there
Post Reply
Reminder: “WE ARE A SALON AND NOT A SALOON”
Your thoughts, comments, and ideas are always welcome here. But we ask you to please be mindful and respectful. Threatening or crude language doesn't persuade anybody and makes the conversation less enjoyable for fellow L.Dotters.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
pinger 4/7/2026 6:41:42 PM (No. 2090102)
Thank you for your (worthless) opinion, Zoe.
44 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
mc squared 4/7/2026 6:47:42 PM (No. 2090103)
I think ZOE is pointless. Let the Chinese establish a sweatshop there to build Interplanetary Ballistic Missiles.
25 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Schnapps 4/7/2026 6:51:07 PM (No. 2090108)
Hey, Zoe!
ET just phoned in. Seems offended by your article.
19 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Jesuslover54 4/7/2026 6:55:36 PM (No. 2090111)
We're making strides so the Guardian has to tell us our efforts are worthless.
26 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Lala 4/7/2026 6:56:22 PM (No. 2090113)
Duh, typical ignorant, closed-minded lib thinking. The point is the more urgent things are on earth, the way more urgent it is that we explore space.
18 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 4/7/2026 7:00:40 PM (No. 2090116)
A bunch of people like Zoe said Columbus was on a fool's errand. That he would fall off the flat earth, why go there?This is mankind and it will always reach for the stars. One of these centuries, a giant asteroid will target the Earth and technology will be the only thing to save our planet. You might ask the dinosaurs about that but they are gone. Hopefully by then, we could send a contingent to Mars to save the human race.
17 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
pixelero 4/7/2026 7:01:09 PM (No. 2090117)
Lost me at, “…self-evident to me…” Editing is evidently a disappearing craft.
25 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
ms1234 4/7/2026 7:16:15 PM (No. 2090126)
Tell me again how many Billions of dollars were spent sending 4 tourists on a nice sight seeing trip around the moon? Didn't even go into lunar orbit or perform any usable experiments. Complete and total waste of money. Jeff Bezos doesn't even charge that much for a trip to space and back. Meanwhile my taxes and gas prices just keep going up. The world will neither better or worse off after the trip is all over. Just further in debt.
8 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
MickTurn 4/7/2026 7:24:27 PM (No. 2090130)
I have the alternate opinion, only with a major twist. Load up all the earth's Hateful people, Leftists, Communists (Democraps), Muslims, put them on a Rocket to go live on the SUN. When things get HOT they will realize they are screwed, when they start going POOF OUR world will be safe!
16 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
crashnburn 4/7/2026 7:30:04 PM (No. 2090133)
I think it's fair to say that the US is the most technologically advanced country on earth, especially aerospace and there are numerous videos of unexplained aerial phenomena that current science cannot explain. I think that is at least good enough proof that there is intelligent extra-terrestrial life, at least as good as Zoe's "proof".
We aren't exploring space to find little green men. We are exploring space because it's there and we are curious about the solar system, our galaxy, and the universe.
Zoe seems to be of the ilk who pooh-poohed the telescope "What good is looking at the moons of Saturn going to do us? As well as the microscope, "What good is looking at the creatures swimming in the water?"
In fact, Zoe seems to me to be the modern equivalent of the Luddites, who wanted to ban industrialization.
19 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Grateful 4/7/2026 7:41:59 PM (No. 2090143)
I must have missed the news reports about the UK sending a manned vehicle into space for any reason. But Zoe seems to think that too much is being spent on space aexploration. Let's see now, the UK has spent zero Euros/pounds.
17 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
jdano 4/7/2026 7:49:57 PM (No. 2090144)
Here's a scenario: we station a craft in space that can hitch A free ride on a comet or large asteroid, and steer it. Proxima Centauri, here we come.
3 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
PChristopher 4/7/2026 7:57:46 PM (No. 2090146)
Have another drink and shut up, Zoe.
6 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Sardonic 4/7/2026 8:00:27 PM (No. 2090147)
Zoe wants to be a Luddite so be it.
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
PlayItAgain 4/7/2026 8:05:12 PM (No. 2090148)
When a liberal rag uses the word “crises”, as in multiple crisis, in the first sentence, I’m done reading.
3 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
PostAway 4/7/2026 8:06:16 PM (No. 2090149)
I’m old enough to remember the Alan Shepard space flight followed by John Glenn’s triple orbit, the addition of Hawaii and Alaska, the horror of the Apollo 1 fire, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Armstrong’s first step on the moon and the following moonshots, space labs, etc., etc. I remember when JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King were shot, when Reagan was shot, when the Berlin Wall fell and so on throughout the decades. What I don’t remember is ever wondering what some twit called Zoe Williams and the Guardian thought about anything. Stuff it, Zoe.
27 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
BarryNo 4/7/2026 8:25:46 PM (No. 2090157)
Eff you!! If you don't have the guts, crawl in your filthy hole and cower. Brit!!
5 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
LanceLink1 4/7/2026 8:51:10 PM (No. 2090160)
Why don't you just grace us with your observations of your navel? Seems it would be a nano-gram more interesting than this drivel.....
5 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
Sully 4/7/2026 9:28:48 PM (No. 2090172)
I am infatuated with Apollo. My Dad worked on the project and was recognized for his extraordinary contribution. The whole program is dear to my heart.
The article is spot on right. There is nothing more to learn from near space travel and deep space travel is not possible. The Moon will never be a stage for a Mars trip.
It is pure ignorance not to admit this. If there are other reasons to justify the program no one has said them.
5 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
FormerDem 4/7/2026 9:57:57 PM (No. 2090181)
if we find that Earth has a dusty ring, we will suddenly be able to forecast weather way much better, and if we do, it will be because of space exploration - the missions to the Moon, the understanding of dusty rings at other planets. I think this will happen, and it will be slow, but it would not happen at all without NASA. it is, I think, going to explain the teleconnections, and help us forecast drought. The carbon dioxide stuff is trash science, but NASA is making the observations that will save us. i know i am not proving anything, but one floaty affirmation only deserves another one back. ... I do think i am right.
6 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 4/7/2026 10:08:57 PM (No. 2090186)
Same as No. 16. That dates us I guess. One other was Frank Borman reading from Genesis on Christmas Eve as far from home and Earth as possible. Some things will stay with you all the rest of your life.
11 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 4/7/2026 10:23:18 PM (No. 2090190)
Me, too, #16 and #21. I was born on the night Dwight Eisenhower was elected President on November 4, 1952. My dear mother barely made it to the hospital after polling place workers in a Chicago suburb (Irving Park neighborhood) moved her ahead of several hundred voters and fast-tracked her voting while in labor just before I announced myself at 11:55pm. Yes, she voted for Ike.
11 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 4/7/2026 10:28:04 PM (No. 2090193)
And, yes, we stayed up late on July 20, 1969, to witness the first moon landing and first space walk on the moon. I remember the moment like it happened yesterday. Vacuum tube technology at its finest.
Zoe, come on, and smell American Exceptionalisms' coffee, please.
9 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
whyyeseyec 4/7/2026 10:33:19 PM (No. 2090196)
Attn: Zoe Williams - How about minding your own business, and stop telling people what to do.
6 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
Sunhan65 4/7/2026 10:34:53 PM (No. 2090198)
Slightly later vintage #16', #21, #22,: but there is an old Kodachrome slide of a very little boy staring at something on a bright black and white television screen, transfixed, because his parents wanted him to grow up knowing he had seen men walk on the moon. I'm so grateful that I was born into the age of space exploration.
Me too, #19. I mentioned on another thread that the book "Apollo" (2019 edition) by Charles Murray and his wife is the best history of the program I've read so far. If nothing else, the computer that used magnetic rope memory woven by professional seamstresses repays the read.
5 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
crashnburn 4/7/2026 10:48:31 PM (No. 2090201)
A small correction, #23. The entire space program used transistors, not vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes were too fragile, bulky, and power hungry to be used in spacecraft.
2 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 4/7/2026 10:58:18 PM (No. 2090202)
Oops. Thanks #26. Memory is the second thing that goes. Can't remember what the first one was!
6 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
davew 4/7/2026 11:28:58 PM (No. 2090207)
Billions of years ago, a lone sea-dwelling creature managed to survive on a patch of the new dry land long enough to reproduce. It didn't have to worry about getting eaten by one of the other sea-dwelling creatures who stayed behind. It evolved complex eyes to see great distances in the air, allowing it to roam in search of food and safer places to live and reproduce. Then one day, it became a reporter for the Guardian and proclaimed this evolution stuff was done, and this was the best place in the universe to live. But others knew that this place would change and someday might not be the best place in the universe. It could even kill us. So they made a plan to ensure that the remarkable beings with intelligence and self-awareness that had taken billions of years to come into being didn't disappear from the universe without anyone noticing. They learned to travel across the universe and survive, leaving the reporters behind. And when the end came, they looked back at Earth from their telescopes, said a prayer, and moved on, preserving their kind for all eternity.
7 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
NYbob 4/8/2026 1:38:30 AM (No. 2090219)
Well we are doing it anyway, so don't worry about it. Focus on knife crime and praying 5 times a day. Ironic that the British population turns away from Christian churches only to find they will be fighting to the death to avoid being forced to mumble muslin blasphemy 5 times a day.
I expect to live to see a USA moon base. This would be a nice late chapter in my space dreams that started with the US Navy Vanguard launch on a black and white TV, live broadcast. Very disappointing, and even as a young boy I wondered, why is the Navy trying to do the Air Forces job?
3 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
danu 4/8/2026 3:57:35 AM (No. 2090226)
there's plenty to see, and everybody to talk to--if you love the sun moon and stars
1 person likes this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
Strike3 4/8/2026 4:26:48 AM (No. 2090234)
Brits should restrict themselves to writing about Brit stuff - while they are still permitted to write at all.
2 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
skacmar 4/8/2026 7:59:45 AM (No. 2090299)
If you have no imagination or aspirations to be better, you can stay in Britain and stagnate on old traditions while being overrun by Muslim migrants and repressive policies. Or, you can imagine a better future and create new things and explore. Lots of things in everyday use today are the result of the space program. Scientific advances don't come about by staying home, sipping tea, and being comfortable. They take the imagination, curiosity, and determination to see what might be out there in space.
3 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
Sunhan65 4/8/2026 9:07:01 AM (No. 2090324)
Correction to my post #25 above. I agree 100% with the first 50% of what #19 said and should have read the rest more carefully. I completely disagree with the rest. The space program is about, among many other important things, the survival of our species.
Self-aware intelligent life exists in only one place that we know about. If it remains in that one place, when--not if!--that place is destroyed, there will be nothing because there will be no one left to know about it.
On the other hand, everything we don't know is out there waiting for us to discover, including where and how we can preserve our precious people.
In other words, what #28 said.... So much better than I ever could.
1 person likes this.
Reply 34 - Posted by:
paral04 4/8/2026 12:24:25 PM (No. 2090437)
Its a great spot to have a military base.
2 people like this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "Dreadnought"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)