FUTURE TALK
It has been quite a while since I have done FT. My predictions are so disturbingly accurate that some readers are left shaken. Others, the dim ones, left questioning their entire nihlistic belief systems.
It would be kinder, to blindly ignore the inevitable, keep our heads down, and trod on in blissful ignorance.
However, the future is evolving quite rapidly, as I previously predicted see (FT Ep 12). It is for this reason that we must as a species raise our gaze to the heavens and prepare. No matter the earthly consequences,
TO BOLDLY GO
I was just a child when we launched our first satellite. I remember my father taking me outside on a clear night when we could watch it streak by. A small speck of light tracing its way rapidly across the night sky.
As an older child, I watched cross legged the television as first the Mercury Astronauts, then Gemini, and finally the Apollo programs shot up into a fire and smoke like sky and soon enough came crashing back down to earth.
Each launch and orbit covered 24/7 in all media. Breathless as a nation. Even as a world.
Man was about to leave earth, we could all feel it.
Then it happened,
The launch, the grueling nail biting three day flight, and finally Neil Armstrong and his famous words.
Everyone knew a corner had been reached. What lay ahead were the stories and images that Star Trek had fed us the few years prior. We had but to reach out. To Boldly Go.
What stuck with me the most was watching the return moon landers looking at us through the window of their isolation tent. “Space Germs” the media called it. Had to quarantine them in case of “Space Germs”. Maybe even….gulp….Moon Mites or Lunar Worms! Im not making this up, it was a thing.
And boldly going we have been doing. Even if it seems to be moving at a snails pace. First we needed the tech, the computers, the engineering, a litany of this and that. Perhaps mostly…..the will.
There are walls in front of us of course. The time to travel problem being foremost. Probably not in our lifetime, but by our grand kids time, the problem will be solved in some form or another. We are pretty smart……when we put our minds to it.
I have no doubt that Elon Musk will get us to Mars, perhaps outposts in the asteroid belt. Some exploring in the solar system. He will also be writing the book on off world habitats and many technical issues concerning the spacecraft itself. A true visionary and worthy of the statues that will be erected to him in far away places many years from now. We are stuck at this part in our stellar journey. For now.
BACTERIA
The greatest stumbling block to sending a couple of guys out there to explore some exciting new earth like planet. A place where human life would not be instantly crushed by radiation or or some methane rain storm is so small only a very powerful microscope would even be able to detect it.
As you are sitting there reading this, you are completely covered with bacteria. The couch you are sitting on stuffed with bacteria. The coffee cup you reach for, covered with a very thin film of assorted little creatures. As you inhale you inject them into your lungs, as you exhale you fill the room with others, Trillions and trillions of them walk around with you as you shlep through the day. More than there are cells in your body. Some kind, some inert just waiting, some nasty.
Bacteria is the very soil you walk on, and in everything you taste. We have evolved to live with our bacteria in this planet. The bacteria has evolved over hundreds of millions of years to live with us, the engine of birth and decay that is us. With the animals we share the planet with, with the water we drink, with the food we eat. In the end, the bacteria consumes us to dust.
It is everywhere. From the top of sun zero mountains, to the murky depths of the ocean. Living in extreme conditions. Disturbingly, quite happy.
We can not live without our bacteria. Earth would die rapidly without it. Perhaps, if we put our minds to it, we could spend a few hundred million years weaning ourselves off of it and the symbiotic living arrangement, but that isn’t going to happen.
No, we are stuck with each other. For good or for bad. The bacteria is us, and we are the bacteria.
We come as a package.
The universe is indeed vast and exotic. As Carl Sagan lamented. “The universe isn’t queerer than we suppose….it is queerer than we can suppose.” I suspect he is correct.
The universe isn’t queerer than we suppose….it is queerer than we can suppose.”
Carl Sagen
There will be worlds of every imaginable construction. Most lifeless. In the trillions of possibilities there will be billions of worlds that most likely could sustain us. Our filth bacteria ridden frail bodies. Those will be the ones we are interested in.
FIRST CONTACT
Imagine you are part of a five man crew. You have arrived via a fancy wormhole we figured out how to construct and are circling above a nice little planet with clouds, water, land and green stuff all over the place. Strange little animals too. They tend to evolve with the plant availability. Forget other intelligent humanoid or carbon based life forms for a moment. Lets just stick with the small stuff.
Everyone is excited to jump in the landing pod and go explore this strange new world. Get some good Insta pics for posting later.
You hop on down, take off the helmet and take a long sweet breath of air.
At that point, you probably just killed yourself, and the entire planet as well.
It might take an hour, it might take a month. But it is inevitable.
No planet we could live on would not have a similar bacteria production. It would be an absolute miracle if our two bacteria didn’t interact with each other quite violently.
It would only be a matter of time until some Earth Spaceman got something stuck in a shoelace and brought it back home as well.
It isn’t technology that will stop the dream of wishing away to far off worlds to establish colonies, it is the hardware of our human bodies that are bound to Earth. For good.
OUR FUTURE
Us Earthlings are curious creatures. We have to know what is out there. We have to explore the strange worlds. We just have to. And we will
It just won’t be us that are doing it. Perhaps in a few hundred years if we are able to download ourselves into androids or something similar mechanical.
I have no doubt that something like a Tesla Bot fitted with the right cameras and such could be controlled by a human and would be a totally acceptable substitute to an actual human for other world exploration. If we don’t just go full AI that is. Sending them off and waiting for them to return and tell us stories.
Thats about the best we can do.
Anywhere there is life, or was life, is extremely dangerous to us. Even a seemingly lifeless planet could carry dormant spores in the soil. We should get used to the idea that it is the robots that are going to be having all the fun.
Its not all bad. We are probably looking at a good couple of hundred years before we make a wormhole machine. Let alone, learn how to use it.
In the mean time we have plenty to do here in our own solar system. We can practice colony building on asteroids, overcome radiation problems. Its a good thing. Being “those crazy earthlings”. Out there destroying worlds with their diseases…….filthy earth people…..might get the attention of some celestial HOA. We don’t want that. We really don’t.
There is good news. Any intelligent organic species would be facing the same problems. With all the alien talk recently, I would be keeping an eye out for the robot variety.
As a species, we are doing good. My Grandfather saw the first airplane fly. His Grandson, space craft. My Grandchildren will see the solar system inhabited.. The big leap will come soon enough…….. Im not sure moving slowly isn’t a good thing.
