Title text: Just think of all the countless petty squabbles and misunderstandings, of all the fervent hatreds, over so insignificant a thing as the direction and duration of a rocket engine firing.
Technically there are some humans not on the dot. At least two, that we can tell from the comic.
somitomi wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:19 pm
The text says "us", so unless the unseen narrator refers to themselves in the plural, that's at least three.
The text also says "We know, Carl." If there was just the narrator and Carl onboard wouldn't it be more correct for the narrator to say "I know, Carl."
I interpreted that as someone who was on the ground giving a PowerPoint presentation to other people on Earth. Which means that we don't know that anyone's not on the dot, because they could have successfully landed on Earth but not survived.
(Also, they still lived out most of their lives on that mote of dust.)