Last week we were talking about the private launch of the Astrobotic moon lander carrying the remains of Gene Roddenberry, Arthur C. Clarke and others to be left on the moon’s surface. Well, as one headline put it “Gene Roddenberry’s remains [are] now drifting uncontrollably through space — a lonely end.” See, a rocket valve didn’t close, and the lander lost fuel. So it couldn’t land.
That means the Navajo Nation no longer has to concern itself with the desecration of the sacred Moon.
Roddenberry’s ashes are now boldly going where no one’s ashes have gone before. It’s not at all bad when you think of it that way.
In other space news, Elon Musk’s Starlink system has passed a test to see whether satellites equipped with direct- to-cell technology can work. There’s no guarantee that this will be implemented in the future; there are legal hurdles. But if it can be, that could mean there would be no place on Earth that would not have cellular connection.
This could put an end to an annoying perennial Quora question: “If you are stranded on a remote desert island, would you rather have a Bible with you or a cellphone?” Until now the answer was I guess I’ll take the Bible. How am I going to get a cellphone connection? But now I could send an emergency text message out, complete with GPS data.
But I didn’t want to talk exclusively about space news this week. I wanted to talk about an odd social event that I experienced briefly when I was 8 years old.
I had left the U.S. with my mother on a Merchant Marine ship bound for Taiwan, to meet up with my father, who was already stationed there. It was 1957. I was very excited to be living in Taipei, exposed to all the new cultural experiences it would entail.
There were plenty. I’ll never forget learning about trench toilets, for instance.
But what I didn’t expect was how I would encounter cultural surprises among other children of Americans. We, at first, lived in a neighborhood that was made up of about half homes for the Republic of China officers, and the other half were rented by American officers with families. At one point, to keep me out of trouble, I was deposited at one of these other homes that had seven or eight children. I was in that home for many hours and was pummeled by those kids with their interests, which they wouldn’t shut up about.
They were all nuts about go-karts.
I’d never heard about go-karts until I was stuck with those kids. I had no idea they were a thing. Those kids rode and raced on souped up, steerable lawn-mowers-without-the-mower-part. It was surreal. And the idea that all these siblings were crazy about them made me feel like I’d landed in a cult.
Now, there were no go-karts in evidence at this house. I gathered the family had at least one go-kart to play with back in the states at their home address, but they couldn’t arrange to ship it to Taipei. Or maybe they decided against it, not knowing if Taipei would have any place suitable for racing them.
But it turned out these kids had multiple fan comic books about go-karting. They were sort of in the style of Archie comics, but all the characters had cool, meticulously drawn go-karts, so I could see what they were talking about. Each comic book featured a race, complete with dramatic drawings of go-karts so overpowered that the front ends supposedly kept rearing up, and I was told repeatedly how cool it all was. I couldn’t wait for my parents to come rescue me from these nuts.
Here’s the irony I thought of at the time: I’d come all the way across the Pacific Ocean, from right to left, expecting to find new cultural experiences, and the newest comes to me by way of kids who made the same trip and brought it to me.
I’ve made it sound worse than it was. I was only stuck there for one afternoon and they didn’t sacrifice me even once to their gods.
And later on I got to meet locals who taught me the use of such things as chopsticks and abaci, and how everybody there in the military was spying on everybody else.
Dr. Wes is the Real Change Circulation Specialist, but, in addition to his skills with a spreadsheet, he writes this weekly column about whatever recent going-ons caught his attention. Dr. Wes has contributed to the paper since 1994. Curious about his process or have a response to one of his columns? Connect with him at [email protected].
Read more of the Jan. 17–24, 2024 issue.