…it’s not as if it were put up to a vote. I didn’t even know the Artemis Accords existed, let alone my country was a signatory.
If they can get an audience with the government, good on them. One would think the idea of “leaving human remains on the moon” is something that should be a matter of public debate, and not left until the rocket is literally on the launchpad.
Which is also the appropriate response to the Navajo Nation’s current position. You don’t get to tell other people that their funeral practices are wrong, and they of all people should know that, after having fought against people saying that for decades.
It should? Why on Earth (or off it) should it?
Things that affect the public interest should be a matter of public debate, and this is so immaterial that it has no impact on the public’s wellbeing.
Astronaut David Scott left a bible when he was on the moon. Astronaut Alan Shepherd left golf balls. Should those decisions have been brought to the public, too?
What about all the shit and piss packets the astronauts left up there?
Some day, people might live on the moon. At that time, those people would have the right to object to ashes being left on their doorstep. Until then, it’s pretty silly.
I like this Navajo god that can pwn NASA.
Exactly. This is what I’ve been saying.
Maybe you should ask the Navajo Nation whether this causes harm. As I already illustrated with examples, the concept of “harm” can be subjective and complicated and that’s why the nature of our laws is the subject of endless debate. If this lunar burial thing offended, say, mainstream Christianity, you can damn well bet the outcome would have been different.
This logic is fine when applied, say, to the infamous case of a cake maker refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding. In that case they’re discriminating against one customer while routinely providing the same everyday service to others, and moreover, are discriminating against a protected class. Celestis, OTOH, exists for the express purpose of sending cremains into space, I believe mostly into low earth orbit, but also to the moon as a novel and completely pointless exercise for the emotional gratification of a few rich folks. The question at hand – which I don’t pretend to have the wisdom to answer – is whether or not that particular aspect of their service should be legally restricted. But I think we all know that it would be if the objections came from a more politically influential faction than Navajo Nation.
I’m reminded of the Arthur C. Clarke novel Prelude To Space. Among other plot elements, a crackpot fanatic tries to sabotage the first moon rocket because he believes in the literal truth of the Ptolemaic system, and is certain that corporeally going to the Moon will amount to an invasion of the Heavens, sparking a Babel-like backlash against humanity. For his trouble, he ends up receiving a lethal dose of radiation from the ship’s atomic engine; demonstrating that he understood as little about nuclear physics as he did about astronomy.
And that would be wrong.
The answer to Christianity’s historic chokehold on Western society is not to let all the other religions take turns choking us out.
I have no idea why either of you think that we are saying that putting corpse remains on the moon is rationally justifiable. Of course it isn’t. It’s a tremendous waste of money. It’s utterly stupid.
People should be allowed to do stupid irrational things if it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
Mmmmh, you definitely don’t get to tell other people that their funeral practices are wrong on sites that they have exclusive authority over, especially ones that are recognized as significant in their cultural heritage.
I think the Navajos’ underlying question here may be more along the lines of why US actions regarding the moon should default to acceptance of mainstream white American beliefs on acceptable funerary practices. Isn’t the United States of America the representative of, and responsible to, its Native citizens as well as its white ones? Why do the default assumptions of white culture get to call all the (moon) shots?
This is reminding me quite a bit of some controversies in other parts of the world about whether it’s okay, for example, for hikers and mountaineers to climb summits that are considered sacred spaces in indigenous peoples’ ancestral tribal lands.
It is definitely a preconceived assumption of modern mainstream (I don’t know that it’s valid to call it specifically “western” or “white” anymore) mindsets that “natural” sites are by default open for anybody who can legally access them to do whatever they want in them, subject to minimal regulation deemed necessary to prevent personal or environmental harm, by some definition of “harm”.
But that assumption isn’t necessarily, intrinsically more valid than the assumption in some other forms of worldview that particular natural sites that have certain kinds of emotional significance to indigenous cultures—even if representatives of those cultures don’t legally own the physical terrain in question—should just be left alone. Or at least, should be protected from certain specific acts that those cultures traditionally consider offensive desecration.
…It’s literally what they got here. But I’d argue that wasn’t appropriate.
People do get to say that their funeral practices are wrong, actually. You can’t bury your aunty in the backyard. You can’t spread her ashes at the beach. You can’t cremate her on your BBQ. There are all sorts of restrictions on burial practices.
I’m not aware of any attempt by Celestis to have the government force a religious observance on the Navajo Nation, so no, I don’t think that’s right.
I’m generally opposed to allowing public votes on acceptable religious observances.
The difference is right there in your own sentence. Do you see it?
These mountains belong, in some sense, to these native peoples. Because they are within their traditional tribal territory.
Last time I checked, the moon was not ancestral Navaho land.
My position is not a sweeping generalization so much as the way things actually work in western civilization the vast majority of the time. Again, basic principles like that laws are prohibitions rather than allowances, or the idea of legal standing. In the US, some things are so bedrock that we have laws that say you can’t make other laws that restrict certain things.
I honestly wonder how you perceive the world if this isn’t your starting point. Does every action that you don’t specifically know to be legal give you anxiety? Are you constantly concerned that parties that you cannot affect in any measurable way might nevertheless have a legitimate claim against your actions?
As I acknowledged above, yes, there is some complexity when it comes to defining harm, and we have laws against things that don’t directly cause harm but are correlated with it, as well as laws that address harm that might be small on an individual level but great when added up.
Nevertheless, one thing we can safely say is that general offense, or violation of spiritual beliefs, is not included in these things. Blasphemy is protected speech (yes, some states still have laws on the books, but they’re all unconstitutional). Can you think of any case where someone successfully argued that a legal remedy is justified because their beliefs were somehow violated? I don’t mean a case where they were prevented/forced to do something they didn’t want to. I mean a case like this one, where a distant third party did something that had no measurable effect on them except that it somehow violated their spiritual beliefs.
Yes, and the only thing they should have to show is that they meet all safety, communications, etc. requirements. If the license is rejected for reasons aside from those, they should be sued for discrimination.
We certainly never had to justify the existence of our cubesat. If we meet the FCC, etc. requirements, then we get to fly.
…thats kinda unavoidable. Especially in the United States. Everything, from abortion to marriage, is effectively a “public votes on acceptable religious observances.”
Again, that’s a pretty culturally specific default assumption: “if you physically own it, it belongs to you and you get to say what can be done on it, but if you don’t, its traditional significance in your culture can be legitimately ignored.”
I’m not claiming that it’s automatically wrong to have such an assumption in one’s cultural worldview. I’m just saying that it’s not obviously, objectively more right than other possible cultural assumptions about who is entitled to do what where.
I just want to note that it was you who associated the Navajo Nation with anti-abortionists and homophobes, not me.
…I just wanted to note that I didn’t do this at all, and that this is disingenuous framing.
He said “belong in some sense,” not “physically own it,” specifically to make allowances for cases where native tribes don’t physically own the geography in question, but should still have input to what happens with it.
So that paraphrase seems really off base to me.
That was meant to illustrate the fact that the Navajo concerns are being ignored because they’re coming from an entity that’s not politically influential. Separately from that, I think there’s merit in extending and properly ratifying the Moon Treaty so that it has force in international law, and prevents this kind of frivolous profiteering nonsense.
You misunderstand me (again). I’m saying that the US government has already, automatically, defaulted to permitting use of the moon for funerary practices that white American culture traditionally considers acceptable.
The government has effectively declared that Celestis’s proposed use of the moon to deposit corpse remains is okay, because the government is working from the basic assumptions within white American culture that putting (appropriately sanitized) corpse remains in any physical location that isn’t officially owned by somebody else is okay.
But, as I’ve remarked more than once, that’s not the only possible or reasonable way to look at the situation.