"and therefore it's reactionary" or some shit is a piss-poor take, but I do think there's a sense in which space exploration narratives are sometimes like.. trying to do "discovery of the New World" right this time. Imagine how cool it would have been if these peoples each with their own rich cultures and traditions and knowledge about surviving in their respective environments had approached each other peacefully and respectfully and fucking talked about it. How cool would that have been? can we imagine it