Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The Misunderstood Jade Rabbit Farewell

"Before departure, I studied the history of mankind's lunar probes. About half of the past 130 explorations ended in success; the rest ended in failure. This is space exploration; the danger comes with its beauty. I am but a tiny dot in the vast picture of mankind's adventure in space."

"The sun has fallen, and the temperature is dropping so quickly... to tell you all a secret, I don't feel that sad. I was just in my own adventure story - and like every hero, I encountered a small problem."

"Goodnight, Earth. Goodnight, humanity."

The brave message, written as though from the stoic, malfunctioning rover, has been widely reported as coming from China's official news agency. In fact it seems to be from the unofficial twitter equivalent and blog of a Chinese space enthusiast, which says something about how China is changing.

They are heading in the right direction, but we are still far ahead. We've had official twitter feeds cheating on Turing Tests since 2008




3 comments:

Ant said...

Hey Will, I have always loved your work and wanted to reach out to you in hopes of commissioning you for a few pieces if that's still something you do. I'm working on a project that hearkens back to the Wizardry/1E AD&D era and your artwork would be perfect for the instruction manual. I don't see a way to email you directly through your blog so I'm hoping there's a way we can connect without having to share email addresses publicly? Either way, you've got a very interesting blog, and I'm a great admirer of your work; few artists produce the same level of nostalgia and wonder as you!

Will McLean said...

Ant, give me an email to contact you and I will.

Ant said...

Thanks for the response, Will. Let's use my classic email address: ieatglue528 at gmail dot com.