In five billion years, all humans will have become extinct or evolved into other beings, none of our artifacts will have survived on Earth, the continents will have become unrecognizably altered or destroyed, and the evolution of the Sun will have burned the Earth to a crisp or reduced it to a whirl of atoms.
Far from home, untouched by these remote events, Voyager I and II, bearing the memories of a world that is no more, will fly on.
See this is why I get excited about Space. Because Space is Mythic. Because the universe is vast and full of wonders abd we are barely opening the damn door, let alone sitting on our doorstep, wondering what’s over the next interstellar hill.
It might kill us. It might change us beyond all recognition. Journeys do that. That’s what they are for.
That’s the thing though. We as a species have yet to explore our whole house. We haven’t gone through the rainforest-attics or rummaged through the vasty deep places of oceanic-cellars.
We can barely stand to examine ourselves in the mirror, let alone look under the bed to see what nocturnal things lie inside our minds and dreams.
No, we’re too busy fighting who gets over the comfy chair with the best view of the TV, or the warmest spot in the kitchen.
We don’t even have, as a species, the childlike sense of wonder that makes us want to explore everywhere we can.
We’re weary hipster teens more concerned with being ironic and cynical and cool, a collection of sharpsuited-fedora-bros-andgirls who claim it’s a waste of cash, and we should get the best new piece of consumer tech.
We can’t afford space-travel, we say. It’s not economical. It doesn’t enable us to drink coffee and mock others dreams as juvenile. It doesn’t allow us to throw our weight around, or feel superior.
“Cool story bro.” says homo sapiens hipsterus, and the world rolls on, herd mentality running like a species-wide highschool dynamic.
And yet, all across the world, there are the ones who feel uncomfortable with that. Who want to learn, to understand, to dream, and work out what it will take to prepare, to explore every avenue, every realm and way of being there might be.
Those of us with existentially, ontologically itchy feet.
You’re not alone – just sayin’.
Because it is a Cool Story. It’s the Coolest & Oldest Story there ever was. It’s the story of Humanity. (via coldalbion)
The Committee to Nuke Elysium 