Navajo Nation president asks NASA to delay Moon launch over possible desecration
knau.org
knau.org
> “It is crucial to emphasize that the moon holds a sacred position in many Indigenous cultures, including ours. We view it as a part of our spiritual heritage, an object of reverence and respect. The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the Moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space.”
It also sounds like the more straightforward and avoidable issue is that NASA and the federal government both pledged, decades ago and again recently, to at least consult with the tribe on similar missions and then broke that promise. (cf. https://web.archive.org/web/20090108193621/http://amarillo.c...)
The moon is a whole planetoid. To speak of 'the moon' as one place is meaningless.
Imagine a people that asked "don't bury your dead in the earth's soil! Soil is sacred to us! Everybody please burn them instead!"
We'd all laugh. Whose business is it to dictate the activities on an entire world?
It's like treaties that forbid certain things 'in space'. Wha? You mean, the entire Universe? Meaningless.
For instance: We could dump waste on the moon for centuries, and never see it from the earth. It is as big across as Australia. Dump something in the outback of Australia, and challenge anyone to find it. Silly.
A polite answer is required, but by no means should anyone consider such a request as a serious matter.
Now, peacefully disagreeing, we can get on with our lives and our Moon missions.
People speak of 'the moon' as one place all the time. No one, except maybe astronomers in very specific contexts, ever speak of the moon in any other terms.
You're stretching a bit too hard trying to ridicule this.
Of course the Navajo think the moon is sacred. Tons of people consider the moon sacred. Instead of focusing on ridiculing their beliefs we should be considering why they're upset and whether dumping shit on the moon is a good idea at all.
If I told you somebody had been dumping for 100 years already, you would not be able to refute it by observation.
The Universe is large. Stop thinking of it as we would our back yard.
Then imagine another people that asked "don't burn your dead! The atmosphere is sacred to us; we breathe it! Everybody please bury them instead!"
What nonsense.
> Then-Navajo Nation President Albert Hale said the action was a gross insensitivity to the beliefs of many Native Americans. NASA later apologized and promised to consult with tribes before authorizing any similar missions in the future.
This time, NASA should stand up to this idiocy.
Don't forget that Christians claim sacred dominion over the entire planet and that all of creation, every nation on Earth, every people, every resource, the moon and the rest of the universe, were made for their pleasure. If Christians saw the moon as sacred the way that many other cultures do, Americans might never have landed on it, preferring rather to condemn Russia for defiling sacred land when they inevitably did themselves.
I'm not saying NASA should listen to the Navajo - it would be weird if this were the one instance where the American government gave a damn about anything natives had to say - but I also don't like the idea of startups hiring NASA to dump rich peoples' cremains on the moon so I'm nominally on the Navajos' side here, if only to stand in the way of "progress" like that.
The only person to date whose ashes have been sent to the moon as a tribute was in 1999, and was the ashes of renowned planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker.
That triggered their first uproar.
> They're doing what any sovereign nation would do, which is expect treaties made with them to be taken seriously.
There is no treaty stipulating that people’s ashes wont be sent to the moon.
Celestis has a measured take on the legal and ethical considerations for this sort of thing: https://www.celestis.com/blog/the-ethics-and-regulations-of-...
>That triggered their first uproar.
And now at least two companies are making it a business venture. If we let this go, in ten years every nation will be dumping its garbage there. In twenty years, nuclear waste. In fifty years, the moon is going to look like a burning New Jersey landfill. Capitalism is going to destroy the Earth, we don't have to let it destroy the moon as well.
>There is no treaty stipulating that people’s ashes wont be sent to the moon.
Fair, apparently it's a "memo signed by the Biden administration that pledged to consult the tribe on matters that impact them. " Still gives the Navajo leeway to complain. As they should. More people should.
>Celestis has a page on the legal and ethical considerations for this sort of thing.
Yes, they're aware that ethical considerations exist, and yet they're doing the thing anyway, because they're a business and couldn't care less. Like every business they expect (or intend to purchase) laws and regulations that favor them.
Don't forget that Christians claim sacred dominion over the entire planet and that all of creation
All of the Abrahamic religions seem to take this approach, and it's why I think monotheism is trash. When I respond to claims of this sort it's with a simple 'I don't share your belief' and a refusal to engage any further with tier axioms.
dump rich peoples' cremains on the moon
I think NASA should split the difference by offering to dump the cremains, but not any identifiable markers about who they used to belong to. Just mix them in with the lunar dust and call it a day.
If you give each of these objections credence, the result is total paralysis and totalitarian repression of everyone. Vetocracy isn’t democracy. It’s the dictatorship of every minority.
There are people (e.g. Christian fundamentalists) who are personally offended by the mere existence of the Navajo religion too, or its ceremonies. Should we listen to them?
The test is whether anyone is being harmed. Nobody lives on the moon.
very much. there is no natives, we are people of earth and nations.