The Spirituality of the Infinate Abyss

Here are some words from Gene Cernan, the last man on the moon, from his personal reflection on the way to the moon.

There was more than enough time for me to become contemplative and again ask myself that question I pondered so often in space: Is it possible that this was really happening to me? Obviously it was, but the power of the situation was simply overwhelming. One result of space travel was that I had become much more philosophical, at times unable even to focus on minor problems back on Earth because they just seemed so small in comparison to what I had experienced and the places I had been. My fellow astronauts who went to the moon encountered varying degrees of the same disease; we broke the familiar matrix of life and couldn't repair it.

For instance, looking back at Earth, I saw only a distant blue-and-white star. There were oceans down there, deep and wide, but I could see completely across them now and they seemed so small. However deep, however wide, the sea has a shore and a bottom. Out where I was dashing through space, I was wrapped in infinity. Even the word "infinity" lost meaning, because I couldn't measure it, and without sunsets and sunrises, time meant nothing more than performing some checklist function at a specific point in the mission. Beyond that star over there, Alpheratz, is another and another. And over there, beyond Nunki, the same thing. Behind Formalhaut, even more stars, stretching beyong my imagination. Stars and eternal distant blackness everywhere. There is no end.

I'm not an overly religious person, but I certainly am a believer, and when I looked around, I saw beauty, not emptiness. No one in their right mind can see such a sight and deny the spirituality of the experience, nor the existence of a Supreme Being, whether their God be Buddha or Jesus Christ or Whoever. The name is less important than the acceptance of a Creator. Someone, some being, some power placed our little world, our sun, and our moon where they are in the dark void, and the scheme defies any attempt at logic. It is just too perfect and beautiful to have happened by accident. I can't tell you how or why it exists in this special way, only that it does, and I know that for certain because I have been out there and I have seen the endlessness of space and time with my own eyes.

This is what I want to experience, above all else. The desire to go to space and travel between the planets (or stars) has never been greater in me. I truly wish to dedicate my life to making that happen, whether it be by becoming a NASA astronaut, or developing a way to make space travel a common every day occurance. As Cernan said after stepping off the moon for the last time, "We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." I will return.

If the argument "Fix the problems here before you go out traveling to the stars" were a valid argument, no one would have ever left Europe or moved away from Africa, or crossed the Bering Land Bridge, or gone out of the cave, or left the sea. There will always be problems in this life, and the only thing that saves us is the hope that we can create a better life elsewhere. To stay is to be defeated. It is in our genetic make up to leave our mothers womb and set forth upon the world and, God willing, my generation will continue the journey outwards...

Finally, back in Orbit

Well, I'm glad it's back in service. Even the President took some time out to watch the launch, but check out the TV! It blows my mind that he has something so small and crappy, although I'm sure that if he had a huge plasma screen HDTV, some kooks with nothing better to do would start complaining about government waste. Oh well.

The Space Ambassador

One of the ideas I have been developing is the need for a "space ambassador" or "Emissary to the stars" as I like to call him. The idea is that we need someone that understands the best way to go about exploring space and will enthusiastically incite Congress and the public to support the vision of space exploration. America needs a hero, it is in our culture, and I think we have found a hero in Michael Griffen.

Griffen has proven, in his short time as NASA administrator, that he is technically compitent as well as politically informed. He knows the politics of space exploration as well as the technical side of it. His leadership, I believe, is just what we need to get humans to the moon, Mars, and beyond.

An intersting read is his House Committee on Science hearing where he steadfastly explains his plans, no bullshit. It appears that there is bipartisan support for his as well, which also is a great help to our needs. I look forward to big things from Dr. Griffen.

Solar Sail Craft Shipwrecked!

This may be the first incidence of a cosmic 'shipwreck' in the original sense of the word. The Planetary Society has been sending me what I always considered spam ever since I got my first issue of "Astronomy" magazine many years ago. I would always just throw out their requests for membership (read: money and lots of it) because I thought they didn't really do anything worth while. But apparently they were funding something completely revolutionary that would have been a step in the right direction. Apparently though it is begining to look like maybe we weren't meant to launch a solar sail powered space craft.

In 1999, Russia launched a similar experiment with a sun-reflecting device from its Mir space station, but the deployment mechanism jammed and the device burned up in the atmosphere. Russia tried again in 2001, but the device failed to separate from the booster and burned in the atmosphere.

Perhaps there are other forces at work here than we scientists like to admit? Or maybe a more reasonable explaination is that Russian sucks at putting things in space (although thier human record is pretty impressive). Think about it; all three attepts to put test solar sail technology in space have failed because of Russian hardware failures.
I had previously posted on SpaceAlumni.com a comment about the failure that went something like this:

ICBM Technology Fails to Deliver Payload! Today, a sad day. During the Cold War, a very happy day that would have saved lives. Just an interesting way to look at things...How many ICBMs has Russia launched successfully carrying space bound payloads anyways? It sounds like such a good idea, just wondering how it is going for them.

The comment came from an interest I had in Russia's use of Cold War ICBMs as launch vehicles for commercial and private satellite launches. Though it sucks that Cosmos 1 was lost because of booster failure, it was Russian ballistic missile technology that failed, technology that was at one point meant to destroy us. I just find that interesting.

Getting Space Exploration Right

To all you who don't recognize the title to this post, it is from Robert Zubrin's article of the same name. It was published in spring of 2005 as an answer to Bush's Vision for Space Exploration. The Mars Society links to the article on their website. While alot of the aerospace community, space scientists, enthusists, and general "space geeks" support Bush's plan, there are few who actually understand what it entails and what it means, in its present form, for the future of space exploration. Robert Zubrin is one of those few. He is famous for his Mars Direct proposal, and has certainly proven himself qualified discuss such matters.

This well written, informative article by Zubrin challenges everything about the Plan, questions thouroughly the goals of the space program, and presents a very logical technical approach neccessary for the successful implementation of the Moon-Mars objective. I highly recommend you read it, as I have a feeling I will be refering to it frequently in my entries.

The Article is not meant to dispell the Bush plan as crazy or unattainable. Rather, it is more focused on how to make Bush's ultimate goal (sustained presence in space, on the moon, and on Mars) a reality. What this entails boils down to mainly timetable changes. Where Apollo put a man on the moon in 8 years, Bush proposes 16. This, Zubrin says, is unacceptable technically, politically, and fiscally. This, of course, is not the only thing wrong with the plan, but Bob Zubrin goes into much more detail than I care to get into right now, so I encourage everyone to read the article first. I will post more analysis later.

Coming across this article has made me change my approach to how I wish to present my personal Vision. Progress is being made, and I will post some preliminary ramblings soon. I have noticed however, after reading further details on the Mars Direct proposal, that I am more intregued with the science and technical aspects of getting to and living on Mars than the political aspects. This blog was intended to outline my ideas of what space exploration needs not in terms of technology but in terms of politics, so I will try to maintain this goal through the rest of my posts.

Insight on why the Space Program has Failed after Apollo

Today I read something very interesting in a comment on a post from spacepolitics.com. The comment was made on a post about NASA administrator Michael Griffin cleaning house. I will have to get permission to post the full transcript here, but it was so well thought out that I thought I should mention it so more people will read it. It is about why the space program has failed to do anything of much note in the years since Apollo, and it hit some of my feelings toward space exploration right on the nose. As I have said before, I am developing a vision for space exploration and I think the comment I am refering to here will turn out to be one of the major building blocks used in my project. So again, keep coming back here and I will keep developing my ideas.

The comment I am refering to that I think you all should read is in this article, a comment made by Dfens on June 15 at 1:55 pm , to which I responded on the 16th. Please read it and be enlightened.

The Project begins

I had alot of time to just sit and think today, mainly because my office doesn't give me any work to do. So what I ended up doing for a couple of hours after lunch was writing a draft of my ideas on what space exploration needs, and how to accomplish them. It's slow work as I am not the best with the English language, and I don't know much about politics, but I am trying my best and I think it will be a pretty good article when it is complete. Just stay tuned...

In other news, I think I have a cold. I've been sneezing all day and my nose is constantly running. It's either A) just a cold, or B) Alergies. If it is A, I'll be over it shortly, but if it is B then I might be alergic to the cat which would kind of suck. I'll let you know in the next week how it goes, or if it kills me I guess I won't be letting you know. Great, now my dad is giving me a hard time about it. Don't most parents want to help you when you are sick? My dad just blames the sickness on ME. Just like how he makes fun of me for getting worse grades than my girlfriend. Gotta love him...goodnight folks.