Musings on Space
Tonight I watched Stephen Colbert interview the astronauts from the space shuttle Atlantis aboard the International Space Station, and I was struck again by the wonder of the fact that this was a live feed from men who left the face of the Earth and were living in a manmade vehicle orbiting the planet. And what really is a bit sad or scary is how mundane that's become. Shuttles are launching, carrying people INTO SPACE, and it barely makes the news. People no longer tune in in fascination. It's old news, even though it's a feat so staggering in the ingenuity, courage, and imagination that it took to pull this off for the last few decades, that I still can barely take in that we really do that.
For all that I watch sci-fi, for all that I've seen the documentaries and movies, just looking up at the night sky still humbles me and mesmerizes me in a way that all the glitzy Hollywood SFX of nebulae and wormholes can't. Years ago, in Virginia, my father took us out into the driveway on lawn chairs to watch a shuttle launch. All we could see of it was a light like a shooting star, but far more consistant, moving across the sky, but to take in the fact that that was humans in a high-tech ship launching out of Earth's atmosphere was very stirring. Last fall my class camped in Big Bend National Park where there were no artificial lights at night, and we watched a meteor shower, and in that darkness, you could make out the Milky Way and see satellites moving across the heavens. SATELLITES are so common to us now we bounce frickkin' text messages off them to tell people we're going out for coffee! But laying there in the mountains, it silenced an entire class of 18-to-30-year-olds. One professor had brought his telescope and we looked at the moon (turning it from a crescent to a cratered orb with a shadow across it), Jupiter with it's three moons spread out in a line around it, and a gray shadow, almost visible only out of the corner of your eye, that was a nearby galaxy. A galaxy. Somehow that phantom mist that contained immeasurable amounts of worlds, possibly even the chance of other lifeforms, was so much more mind-blowing than the colorful manipulated Hubble photographs.
I will probably never go into space. I know this. I hope I'm wrong. I have an image in my head of, when I'm 70 or 80, buying tickets and boarding some touristy space cruiseship of some sort with my children and grandchildren, or even just making a daytrip to an orbital restaurant/gift shop, but it also wouldn't surprise me if we don't get that far within my lifetime. I'm writing a novel set in space, and I suspect that creating that world, trying to put myself in my characters' places, will be as close as I get to cruising among the stars. If you think about all the restrictions physics and the vast size of the universe puts on us, perhaps that's for the best. Real space travel will not be as exciting as in the movies and shows, but the simple image of astronauts working in the cramped quarters of our existing spaceships is enough to capture my imagination and interest.
I'd be content with a space scenic overlook point. It just saddens me that as a nation, we've lost the wonder of exploring the universe. It's no longer mysterious and magical, waiting to be discovered. We know most of it is vacuum with dead rocks between them, and not enough people are interested in science to see what value those rocks and empty spaces really hold. (It's hard enough getting the kids I teach interested in the mind-blowing wonders on our own planet.)
So, I know the funding for manned missions is coming to an end for now, but I hope in generations to come the spirit of endeavor (pun not entirely unintended) will be born anew and we'll start pushing ourselves as a species again to seek out what we thought couldn't be done and keep stretching to expand our comprehension of the universe we call home. I weep for those who care only about the world they see immediately in front of them and look no deeper than at what concerns them personally.
I'm going to go stargaze.
For all that I watch sci-fi, for all that I've seen the documentaries and movies, just looking up at the night sky still humbles me and mesmerizes me in a way that all the glitzy Hollywood SFX of nebulae and wormholes can't. Years ago, in Virginia, my father took us out into the driveway on lawn chairs to watch a shuttle launch. All we could see of it was a light like a shooting star, but far more consistant, moving across the sky, but to take in the fact that that was humans in a high-tech ship launching out of Earth's atmosphere was very stirring. Last fall my class camped in Big Bend National Park where there were no artificial lights at night, and we watched a meteor shower, and in that darkness, you could make out the Milky Way and see satellites moving across the heavens. SATELLITES are so common to us now we bounce frickkin' text messages off them to tell people we're going out for coffee! But laying there in the mountains, it silenced an entire class of 18-to-30-year-olds. One professor had brought his telescope and we looked at the moon (turning it from a crescent to a cratered orb with a shadow across it), Jupiter with it's three moons spread out in a line around it, and a gray shadow, almost visible only out of the corner of your eye, that was a nearby galaxy. A galaxy. Somehow that phantom mist that contained immeasurable amounts of worlds, possibly even the chance of other lifeforms, was so much more mind-blowing than the colorful manipulated Hubble photographs.
I will probably never go into space. I know this. I hope I'm wrong. I have an image in my head of, when I'm 70 or 80, buying tickets and boarding some touristy space cruiseship of some sort with my children and grandchildren, or even just making a daytrip to an orbital restaurant/gift shop, but it also wouldn't surprise me if we don't get that far within my lifetime. I'm writing a novel set in space, and I suspect that creating that world, trying to put myself in my characters' places, will be as close as I get to cruising among the stars. If you think about all the restrictions physics and the vast size of the universe puts on us, perhaps that's for the best. Real space travel will not be as exciting as in the movies and shows, but the simple image of astronauts working in the cramped quarters of our existing spaceships is enough to capture my imagination and interest.
I'd be content with a space scenic overlook point. It just saddens me that as a nation, we've lost the wonder of exploring the universe. It's no longer mysterious and magical, waiting to be discovered. We know most of it is vacuum with dead rocks between them, and not enough people are interested in science to see what value those rocks and empty spaces really hold. (It's hard enough getting the kids I teach interested in the mind-blowing wonders on our own planet.)
So, I know the funding for manned missions is coming to an end for now, but I hope in generations to come the spirit of endeavor (pun not entirely unintended) will be born anew and we'll start pushing ourselves as a species again to seek out what we thought couldn't be done and keep stretching to expand our comprehension of the universe we call home. I weep for those who care only about the world they see immediately in front of them and look no deeper than at what concerns them personally.
I'm going to go stargaze.