Stuff

Something i always hear from the older generation is that: 'Things aren't built to last these days' and as they came from a period when they would patch things up to make them last a bit longer until they literally fell apart, they are more right then even they probably know.
There is a famous quote made by economist Victor Lebow who in 1955 said to fuel economic growth: 'We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate' which pretty much admits that  indeed things aren't built to last these days on purpose, so basically we are forced to buy that thing again, something called  planned obsolescence.
For occasions where stuff cannot break fast enough, there is also something called psychological obsolescence  in which products are designed to become obsolete in the mind of the consumer, even sooner than the components used to make them will fail so that would be things like most electrical items such as TV's radios, computers and phones which are constantly tweaked and improved, since 2007 there have 26 iPhone generations, each one worked or looked slightly better than the last with at least one new model released each year and we have all been guilty of buying a new phone despite having a perfectly good working phone in our possession.
Obviously the ever-accelerating rate of buying things and then disposing of them sooner creates immense pressure on natural resources and the trashing of the planet to extract them and at the other end of the line we have excessive waste hence the overflowing landfills and plastic polluted oceans and at some point we are going to run out of natural resources and/or run out of space to store all our discarded items.
Something called Overshoot days spells out that Humanity is using nature 1.7 times faster than our planet’s bio-capacity can regenerate and on 24th July 2025 was the date that humanity's resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth's capacity to regenerate it, meaning that by the end of this year we would have used 1.7 Earths worth of resources and this is expected to rise to 2 Earths by 2030.
We are running out of resources, basically using too much stuff and undermining the planet’s very ability for people to live on it and that is before we even consider the implications of how much we are polluting the air, land, water and drastically changing the climate.
I read something that said that the average British person is exposed to over 3,000 advertisements a day which seems a lot but Google states it is between 4,000 and 10,000 so the 3,000 could be an underestimate but regardless, the raison d'être of adverts is to try and persuade you that you need something you haven't got or need a new thing and it must work because in 2024, the total UK advertising spend was approximately £42.6 billion and that would be a lot of wasted money if it wasn't working.
Something will have to give at some point as we can't continue down this path as it is just not sustainable but it probably won't be in our lifetime, or even our children's.
The harsh truth, and i am just as guilty of this, is that we all want stuff and are easily manipulated by advertisers messages for stuff but as the planet's resources grow more depleted and our atmosphere gets more polluted and areas on the Planet become unlivable and the climate grows ever more angry and throws worse extreme weather at us, we will have to start cutting back and stop consuming, burning up, replacing and discarding our stuff because we won't have a choice, we will have to.

Woohoo...Space Race Back On

You would assume that as NASA have already landed people on the Moon, it would be relatively straightforward for them to do it again but it would appear not as NASA are saying that the 2027 date penciled in for their Artemis III Mission is now looking unlikely which leaves the field open to China's own Moon mission which is on the Calendar for 2030.
Former NASA Head, Jim Bridenstine, told a US Senate hearing: 'Unless something changes, it is highly unlikely the United States will beat China’s projected timeline' and the problem seems to be that the contract for the lander was given to Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, and they are having a problem with the upper stage which is the part intended to carry astronauts to the lunar surface and are behind schedule for the 2027 launch.
With China seemingly full steam ahead for 2030, and SpaceX falling further and further behind before they even get to the long but critical safety stage, NASA have opened up the contract to other companies to see if anyone can solves the problem of actually getting the astronauts onto the Moon surface and are currently talking to the Jeff Bezo's company, Blue Origin, to see if  their uncrewed Mark 1 lander which is due to begin transporting cargo to the Moon Surface in 2026 , could be redesigned so that it can carry passengers.
Even then the required safety tests would take it sailing past the original 2027 date and would be cutting it fine to beat China in 2030 but it still gives NASA a chance where if they wait for SpaceX to get their act together, China will be there and it would be the flag of the People's Republic of China not waving in the non-breeze up there.
The problem NASA have always had is that after the initial Moon Landings, their funding was cut from 4.5% of all US spending annually to 0.4% today whereas China's is counted as part of their Military budget and good luck trying to find exact details of that figure but it is quite a few hundred billion Yuan.
Also China leadership does not change hands quite so often so a leaders singular vision is easier to follow rather than in America where NASA funding and its priorities change with the leader with the NASA budget being cut under every President from 1971 apart from slight increases under Ronald Reagan and George Bush in the 80's.
I suppose it is out of the question that they just get together and do it for mankind rather than national pride but whether it's China or America, i am just happy that we have a Space Race again which will drive us forward to infinity and beyond, to quote probably the most famous astronaut, Buzz Lightyear.