patrick.net

#forallmankindtvshow I'm enjoying two episodes of the Apple TV series "For All Mankind." It is produced by the same team that produced the revival of "Battlestar Galactica" and "Outlander." Here is an IMDB link for those who are curious:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7772588/?ref=nv_sr_srsg_1

It is an alternate history story. The Soviets land a cosmonaut on the moon before Apollo 11 does it. Then a whole new history unfolds. We are now 25 years since the 1969 moon landings (1994). Humans have landed on Mars-Soviets (In this alternate history the Soviet Union does not collapse.) and the US astronauts are in one spacecraft and a private space company in another spacecraft. Now there is a struggle to get a viable colony going. The big challenges include finding water to survive (ice below the planet's surface) and people from different cultures learning to coexist in a challenging new environment. There is a garden in the Mars habitat. It reminds me of our garden in the backyard which has potatoes, peppers, lettuce, pumpkins, and lemons (hopefully). The show is well done! It is worth the investment of $4.95 a month US to subscribe to Apple television.
Many people raise the argument that we have too many problems here on earth. We should not spend money to explore space. I have an answer that is simply that major countries spend less than 1% of their budgets on space exploration. Sadly, a big part of many countries' budgets is military spending.