There’s this sort of anthropomorphizing that inherently happens in language that really gets me sometimes. I’m still not over the terminology of “gravity assist,” the technique where we launch satellites into the orbit of other planets so that we can build momentum via the astounding and literally astronomical strength of their gravitational forces, to “slingshot” them into the direction we need with a speed that we could never, ever, ever create ourselves. I mean, some of these slingshots easily get probes hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Wikipedia has a handy diagram of the Voyager 1 satellite doing such a thing.
“Gravity assist.”“Slingshot.” Of course, on a very basic and objective level, yes, we are taking advantage of forces generated by outside objects to specifically help in our goals. We’re getting help from objects in the same way a river can power a mill. And of course we call it a “slingshot,” because the motion is very similar (mentally at least; I can’t be sure about the exact physics).
Plus, especially compared to the other sciences, the terminology for astrophysics is like, really straightforward. “Black hole?” Damn yeah it sure is. “Big bang?” It sure was. “Galactic cluster?” Buddy you’re never gonna guess what this is. I think it’s an effect of the fact that language is generally developed for life on earth and all the strange variances that happen on its surface, that applying it to something as alien and vast as space, general terms tend to suffice very well in a lot more places than, like… idk, botany.
But, like. “Gravity assist.” I still can’t get the notion out of my head that such language implies us receiving active help from our celestial neighbors. They come to our aid. We are working together. We are assisted. Jupiter and the other planets saw our little messengers coming from its pale blue molecular cousin, and we set up the physics just right, so that they could help us send them out to far stranger places than this, to tell us all about what they find out there.
We are assisted.
And there is no better way to illustrate my feelings on the matter than to just show you guys one of my favorite paintings, this 1973 NASA art by Rick Guidice to show the Pioneer probe doing this exact thing:
“… You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. …”
Gravity assist.
For the painting especially there’s a beauty in depicting some of our most advanced technology as synonymous with the most ancient. Very few people throughout history have had the privilege of seeing the face of Jupiter but many would recognize the sling thrower immediately.
a lot of my autism masking is just making myself more palatable for other people and my therapist said “does spock make himself ‘more palatable’ for others?” and had me promise to keep unmasking like:
btw if youre young and scared of doing adult things without your parents ive learned that like 90% of the time you can just tell the doctors office or the dmv “haha sorry ive never done this without help before… can you show me how to do this?” the employee will not care. if that means anything to you
literally walked up to a desk in the courthouse, said “is this where I register a car or is it the next one?” and she said it was the next one. and the lady at the next desk helped me. it feels embarrassing but I promise you can just ask
One of the most important lessons I learned in customer service is that no matter how much help you need, as long as you’re nice about it, you won’t even crack the top five of worst customers they’ve had to deal with that day. I will walk an old lady through every step on that pin pad with a smile as long as she’s polite, because two calls ago I had to deal with someone screaming about politics for 45 fucking minutes because I wasn’t allowed to hang up on him.
Everyone has their first time doing something, everyone makes mistakes, everyone has dumb moments, and as long as you’re choosing kindness I’ll just laugh it off and help out. Because no matter how dumb you think you are, there was already someone who was just as dumb but was determined to ruin my day over it.
