The following is an essay I wrote in the class University Writing . I'm posting it here to get more feedback. Another essay I wrote in the same class will follow tomorrow:
On a clear night, look up at the night sky. You will see countless numbers of stars and celestial objects. But, if one waits long enough, they will see a new, bright star suddenly streak across the pre-dawn sky. That object, shining brightly in the sky is the International Space Station (ISS), a cooperative venture between the American, Japanese, European, Canadian, Russian and many other space programs. It has been visited and used by 15 different countries including South Africa and Brazil. Costing over 157 billion dollars, it is the most expensive object constructed, ever. It weights over 750,000 pounds, making it bigger then any other space station ever made. This amazing structure was built through the use of combined resources; if the participating counties decided to continue their pre-ISS plans for their own space stations, the results would have been less impressive. We would have had several, very un-notable stations in orbit if the ISS was never developed. Unfortunately, the global financial crisis has threatened the existence of the ISS. Prompting plans of deorbiting the station in 2016, well short of its intended lifespan. The United States has extended funding, but its a highly political move. Still the ISS must be deorbited at some point because of safety, but the plans for space stations after it are troubling, most will be run independently.
This temporary nature of the ISS and the cooperation around the ISS is reminiscent of the temporary nature of compassion towards other countries as described in Bruce Robbins' The Sweatshop Sublime. This so called sublime is defined as "comparison with which everything else is small...a feeling of the inadequacy of [the] imagination for presenting the ideas of a whole, wherein the imagination reaches its maximum, and, instriving to surpass it, sinks back into itself" (Robbins 85). The sublime created by each country makes them seem small because they are being compared to an international effort to further human presence in space, one so massive, that no one country seems to be able to afford it. The ISS stands defient of the course of human history, superpowers are suppose to have arms aimed at each other, not helping build telescopes pointed at space for each other. To change the momentum of history is a massive task. However, Robbins points that the feels from the hight of someone sublime moment "fail[s] to express [its self] in any potentially risky, disobedient action" (Robbins 85). We are working with nations who we have designed weapons and plans to attack each other. It would seem that it is very risky to "surrender" like this. It is very disobedient to go against the people who make money off the pointing of weapons at allies and whole cultures who pride themselves on having a standing army with missiles at the ready. But, in reality, the risk is placed solely in the status quo. Even today, Cold War style nuclear armageddon is still a possibility. That is what the ISS defies, the endless cycles of war that humanity has been in since the first time a rock was thrown in anger.
This is further supported by Nessbaum's work , Compassion & Terror. Her "concern is with our difficult keeping our minds fixed on the sufferings of people who live on the other side of the world" (Nussbaum 12). In the literature surrounding manned space flight, the idea of humans in harmony is fundamental. This ideology was realised when weapons in space have been banned. However, it could be that the idea of peace in space is merely philosophy inspired by the newness of this realm. It could be that once reality hits the space-faring nations, we will "take [our] repose or [our] diversion, with the same ease and tranquility, as if no such [peaceful time period] had happened" (Nussbaum 12). Assuming war is the primary diversion of nations from the peaceful use of space, the dream that weapons would be left on the ground is lost. The fundamental ideas surrounding the ISS are lost.
It also seems we are also using the belief systems present during tense times like World War Two or The Cold War. Politicians mentioned that funding the ISS placed America as the leader in space. It would seem funding the ISS is a compassionate act, other nations can utilize space who otherwise couldn't, but this language is subordinating the partners involved to a humorous level. The United States only has access to about 25% of crew time and space in the ISS, Russia has 50%. If anyone, Russia is the leader in space, yet we have named ourselves the leader for national ego.
Thus, I must agree with Robbins, "[e]verything is political" (Robbins 89). Even a compassionate act like funding the ISS or forming an antisweatshop movement is tuned into something that benefits the local priorities. Even when trying to end human suffering, we are political. We worry about "American workers...losing their jobs" and our "fear of foreign infection in the AIDS or Ebola style" (Robbins 90). This political language only "confirm[s] the strong hint of American nationalism" that is appear in the anti-sweatshop movements and the funding of the ISS. This is developed when Nessbaum claims "...compassion for our fellow Americans can all too easily slip over into a desire to make America come out on top and to subordinate other nations" (Nussbaum 12). We care about America's objective more then humanities objective. It seems we would rather be number one the be a good partner. In this light, I must conclude that the spirit of the ISS isn't dead, it was never born.
On the other hand, it is possible that we have found the solution to the ISS' biggest problem. It isn't a life support system or the cost of resupplying it, it is "the problem of watery motivation, though we might call it the problem of death within life" (Nussbaum 20). If the ISS was only presented as an international project, if flags and other insignia were banned on the ISS, not a soul would care about the ISS. The motivation for giving the ISS national money would be watery and, especially now, hard to justify. As Nessbaum proclaims, "there are two things above all the make people love and care for something, thought that it is all theirs, and the thought that it is the only one they have" (Nussbaum 20).The fact that our flag is on the ISS peaks our interest, the fact the we own 25% of the station and the crew's time motivates us to fund it. The fact that working with others enhances our parts of the station drives us to deal with the other nations who we might not have otherwise cared about. Thus, the political environment around the ISS, no matter how focused it is on the local, keeps the station alive.
However, Robbins would disagree with me and Nussbaum. He claims that "[m]any have suggested before...that global commitments can emerge more or less organically and continuously [only] from local, personal, familial commitments. [However,] agreeing [that the] continuity switches over into opposition...is much more challenging" (Robbins 91). However, disease and the ISS show that local commitments can come from global commitments. The ISS forces us to risk astronauts lives since every rocket launch could end badly. We increase the risk since our understanding of cosmic radiation is weak. This paper's claim could be false on missions where astronauts are bring their own nation's parts to the ISS, but it is often seen the one nation's astronauts will fly a craft carrying the cargo of a foreign nation. It is here that "compassion for our fellow Americans ...slip[s] over into a desire to" make other nations better (Nussbaum 12). Our astronauts could die helping others, but, despite having a strong attachment to and local investment in our men and women, we still risk them for a nation we nuked and a nation we called evil. Furthermore, a global commitment to health is causing us to allocate local resources to protein crystal (crystals of the disease that would be too weak to grow on earth, but in space, its easy) research on the ISS, research that won't benefit one nation, but the whole world. If the US wanted to come out on top, it would build and use its own space station so the patents and profit remain fulling in our control.
The moon landings were done in humanities name. They serve as a inspiration to humans every were even today. I remember watching a interview with a kid in Africa who was going to a newly built school. He said he was stunned that we (indicating that it was a accomplishment of humanity, not the US) went to the moon. A plaque on the side of the Apollo lander reads "We Came in Peace for All Mankind". Yet, there is an American flag firmly planted in the lunar soil, not the United Nations flag as planned. We went for humanity and ourselves. We went in peace but still had a warlike motion of planting a flag; this is not a paradox because to serve humanity, we had to serve ourselves. It will be the same for the ISS, its "motive must always remain complex and dialectical, a difficult conversation within ourselves as we ask how much of humanity requires of us, and how much we are entitled to give to our own" (Robbins 91).
Works Cited
Nussbaum, Martha C. “Compassion and Terror.” Daedalus. 132 (Winter 2003): 10-26.
Robbins, Bruce. “The Sweatshop Sublime.” PMLA. 117 (2002): 84-97.
