24 February, 2013

Musings: Space


This will prove inordinately difficult to believe, but I like to consider myself an optimist - at least when it comes to certain things. One of those things being humanity's needs and eventual prospects in space. Ultimately, I believe that we'll end up assuming a more settled place in the cosmos; spreading our seedy tendrils from rock to rock and star to star. If we don't annihilate ourselves or exhaust our planet before our technology reaches a suitable point and we aren't too shortsighted to see the need for it, it is utterly inevitable.

However, something that people don't consider is how completely terrifying space actually is. I mean, it can't be just me who thinks this, right? Consider: known space is nearly completely and totally empty. The distance between Earth (or, more precisely, the outermost edge of Earth's space junk debris cloud) and our sole moon - infinitesimal in astronomic terms - is so devoid of matter and content that it completely surpasses any void you have probably ever encountered in your life in terms of its utter desolation. That's just a cosmic stones throw. Consider the distance, now, from us to our nearest star: a distance greater than the sum of all distance ever traveled in human history. The distance from our galaxy to Andromeda, the distance to the next galactic cluster, and so forth are all exponentially more vast. It's all so empty.

Now consider what dwells in the other percent of a percent of a percent of space. The rocks. Most of those are, as well, desolate and devoid of life. Many of those aren't just desolate, but they are in fact hostile to life as we know it. They're bathed in radiation and clouded in toxins. It's just a completely and utterly awful place for us as a species.

At last, consider what *isn't* empty or deserted or desolate. Consider the rocks that have life. Consider the one-in-a-septrillion rock that has thinking, breathing life upon it. Life that can form and exist in ways that we can hardly conceive of with our brains that have spent billions of years condensing out of Sol's stardust. Think of how we treat each other and think of what these strange and inconceivable creatures might do when faced with this.

Just my two cents.

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