Space Telescopes and Spy Satellites
There are two types of man-made telescopes in space; space observatories and spy satellites. The only difference is which way the camera is pointed.
Telescopes on Earth have some serious drawbacks. You need to worry about a miles-thick pile of air bending (or completely blocking) light. On Earth, an astronomer has to contend with our spinning orb, which has a tendency to make any given location point in the complete opposite direction every 12 hours. When your subject is visible, you have to keep the telescope moving on a huge lazy Susan to get a clear image.
Many of the fundamental limitations on Earth-bound observatories all but disappear in Space. You can point at a position in the cosmos for days, picking up the faintest light from the most distant galaxies with only small adjustments. Sitting above the atmosphere, a space telescope doesn’t have to counteract distortion caused by our atmosphere. They are well worth the time and effort it takes to get them into orbit.
The first spy satellites were a real pain in the ass. They used cameras with actual film, and when the roll was used up, a jettisoned canister containing the images would re-enter the atmosphere. An airplane equipped with a big hook would then catch the descending capsule out of the air before it hit the ground (lest the enemy find the photos first!).
This absurd system allowed the U.S. to determine just what those red devils were getting up to without any embarrassing loose-ends.
It would be another ten years before a satellite with a camera turned towards almost everything that exists would be made. The people that were willing to spend 850 million dollars (~6.5 billion in 2016) putting a mirror-on-the-shoe trick into orbit finally found some spare cash to begin answering the deepest questions about the universe.
In comedy, we are allowed to make observations that would normally cause people’s minds to shut down. Comedians can slip through the defenses that keep societies irrational. Resistance against being shown the fundamental injustices that people perpetrate melts when we realize we can laugh about it. Laughs are Joshua’s horns, crumbling our mental walls.
The problems with direct observations of uncomfortable subjects all but disappear with a joke:
Karen Pratschky, please report to the lobby, your family is looking for you.
Also, a full head of hair, please report to the lobby, Bob is looking for you...
You’re going to die someday, and every hair you lose that doesn’t grow back is a stark and unmistakable reminder of your inescapable mortality.
To anyone that feels the need to actually test this out in real life: change “Bob” to the name of the balding party. If you’re trying out the direct approach, make sure Bob isn’t armed.
Anyone that can get laughs, do a Harold, create an ensemble… has a great tool for making critical observations. We can use the lens as a spy satellite and turn it inwards to make cracks about comedy. It takes skill and familiarity with an art in order to be able to analyze and critically observe the foibles and pitfalls within it.
What a crass waste.
Comedy is unique in allowing the observer to share truths about the human condition without the grandstanding and entrenching that plague direct discourse. We really can see things much more clearly when the tone is lofty. We can keep a tighter focus on uncomfortable subjects for longer, resolving finer details.
We say things we would never get away with otherwise. Would a roast, when a single person’s flaws and failings are sifted through at length, be possible without comedy? No. Roasts without jokes end poorly.
A few years ago, the Department of Defense realized they had two extra spy satellites lying around. They took these space telescopes (with capabilities rivaling the Hubble) and gave them to NASA. The observatories are the centerpieces of missions that will be able to answer (and generate!) profound questions about the universe… questions that are fiendishly difficult and labor intensive to answer with Earth-based telescopes. The lenses of a space telescope are uniquely powerful tools for framing our place in the cosmos.
We have the same tools once we learn how to make people laugh. Whether we turn the lens towards ourselves or turn it outwards depends on what we really care about. The questions we pose are up to us; we choose the issues that we bring into focus with our work.
We can get on stage and talk about comedy.
We can point telescopes at the ground.
But why?
