The "Space Race," as it has been called, started with the Soviets long before Yuri Gagarin's first orbit around earth. On October of 1957, the Soviet Union launched the unmanned "Sputnik" using an ICBM rocket booster fueled with Stolichnaya. Only one month later, the Russians earned the honor of being the first country to kill a pet in space by shooting a dog named Laika into orbit with no plan for atmospheric re-entry. While Russia's space program was thriving, America's program was still feeling the sting after the Vanguard rocket exploded on the launch pad because the fuel tanks were mistakenly filled with Wild Turkey instead of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It wasn't until January of '58 that America finally realized its space-orbit dreams with Explorer 1 powered by the Oscar winning Juno rocket booster. Wizard. England tried to get into the space race act as well, but didn't launch anything successful until Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Love Missile F1-11 hit number three on the UK Singles Chart in '86.
The space race has continued over the years, even through the demise of the cold war, to varying effects. The major players largely remain the same although you will find occasional rookies trying to blast off and become their country's next hero or traitor, as the case may be with Lance Bass who moved to Russia to catch a ride on the Soyuz space capsule. In fact, Bass immersed himself so much in Russian culture during his training that he only ate borshch, memorized every line of Das Kapital, and started writing all of his consonants backwards. The hero side of things is exemplified by Oscar winner Tom Hanks who deals with more space-related issues in one day than you do in your whole space-less (and therefore un-American) life. Hanks has starred in space flight movies (Apollo 13), produced space flight movies (From the Earth to the Moon), has an asteroid named after him (Asteroid 12818 Tomhanks), and is the current president of NASA.
While the concepts "hero" and "traitor" help define the space race or space travel or whatever, the full picture would be lacking without other genre-defining concepts such as "Critters" and "Leprechauns." Take the appropriately named Leprechaun 4: In Space, not to be confused with Critters 4 (they're also in space) which is totally different from Critters 3: You are What They Eat (Critters in a tenement building) and Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College (they're pre-med) as an example. From what I understand, the American government was still reeling from its humiliating defeat by not being the first country to kill a pet in space so it tried to kill a leprechaun instead. Unfortunately, everyone forgets that these things have special powers like killing space marines with a miniature shamrock-colored lightsaber, shape-shifting, and regenerating to full size (though still small) inside a human man then exploding Alien-style out of his penis. The Critters do essentially the same stuff minus the lightsaber, shape-shifting, and exploding penis, but they do get to eat people and roll after Angela Bassett the entire voyage.
The likes of critters and leprechauns demonstrate that anything can and will happen in space -- especially if it's low budget. With that in mind, we mustn't forget about serial killers finding their way into the vast reaches of the universe. Take a particularly petulant and cantankerous fellow named Jason Voorhees. Mr. Voorhees has killed more people than God and might be as immortal, but still cannot be called anything other than an accidental astronaut with a machete. Once Jason found his way onto the Grendel after surviving over 400 years in cryostasis, his natural adaptability allowed him to thrive in space just like cosmonaut Gagarin except with more murder. If we learned one thing from Jason it's that psych-evals are a necessary evil and should be mandatory for anyone new to the rigors of space flight. Perhaps, with the proper evaluation, the crew on that ill-fated journey might have learned that Jason merely needs a hip father figure and intellectual stimulation from someone who is a physicist, neurosurgeon, and rock musician like Buckaroo Banzai, not more violence. Even if Jason didn't take to Banzai's in-jokes and existential catchphrases he would certainly be distracted by Jeff Goldblum's chaps long enough for the rest of the Hong Kong Cavaliers to blast him into a black hole.
So it looks like space can be a scary place or a slightly witty one if you have shoulder pads in your suit jacket and it's 1984. It also looks like those long space flights and trying to figure out why your spaceship isn't making the jump to light speed again can be boring and confusing, like the time my mom bought me white knit gloves covered in glitter for Christmas (not okay at any age, but particularly disturbing when you're 29). While all of those things can work against a young boy's dream of becoming an astronaut, that dream returns once the young boy realizes that modern-day astronauts have been in Playboy and Maxim. It was exciting enough watching Battlestar Galactica circa 1978 with Maren Jensen, Laurette Spang, and that stupid orange robot dog, but had the re-boot with Grace Park and Tricia Helfer been around back then, reservations at space camp would have been very hard to come by.
It's good to know that hot lady astronauts (astro-hots, as I like to call them) besides Sigourney Weaver exist in space because no one can hear your frustrated screams there. Along with boobs, space also has a certain sense of wackiness as embodied by the likes of Chewbacca, Tribbles, and Jake Garn. But just as easy as you can find growls, fluff, and foreheads in space, you may also find mystery, the sublime, and William Shatner. Or you may find a large, black rectangular object that sends a powerful radio transmission to Jupiter and is responsible for man's evolution. You may also find earth's space army dressed like Nazis fighting what looks to be large malevolent grasshoppers. Some members of Hollywood have been to space like Jodie Foster and Richard Dreyfuss, while some members of Hollywood are spaced out like Mickey Rourke and James Franco. If you look through space long enough you may even find Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd playing basketball with Michael Jordan and BYU's own Shawn Bradley (Bradley's space basketball career lasted longer than his earth one).
Sometimes you don't even have to leave this planet to find stuff from space like Mork, ALF, and French Stewart. The Prawn are here; The Thing is here; The Blob is here; and David Bowie fell here. Aliens and Predators are here but I can't tell which are Republicans and which are Democrats. George W. is here and so's his father. Ronald Reagan's not here but some of the Redwoods still are. I'm fairly certain that every member of the Utah Legislature is from space, and I've got a pair of those special sunglasses to prove it. Cool. I guess space is closer than I thought ...
 |
| Not only do these sunglasses let you see space aliens, they help you kick ass and chew bubble gum as well. |
No comments:
Post a Comment