A lot of people believe a spaceship crossing the vastness of space as impossible, at least for man at the present time.
The distance being far too great for space travel, eg. (the Voyager spacecraft travelling as fast as it does crossed the heliopause on Sept. 12/13 and reached out to interstellar space). That's a staggering 11 billion miles from the Sun, the beginning of interstellar space. To reach the nearest star it will take another 70,000 years. That's not very encouraging for any of us waiting back here on Earth.
Let me put that into perspective:
Space the Final Frontier
There was a time when man could not cross the oceans of the world. Man didn't even know there was another side. If he threw a bottle in the water on one shore, it would take years to reach the other side, if it ever made it. He would have no way of knowing as it floated with the currents and didn't get eaten or broken along the way.
Someone eventually made a craft, that could withstand the raging seas, protecting him. It's debatable who that person was, it was such a long time ago but they may have been paddling a big canoe like craft, with oars and it may have taken months but they paddled on, eventually making it to the other side.
A few centuries later someone invented the sailboat, making it even easier, taking less time, with less effort.
Then, someone invented a boat, a big boat. They called it an ocean liner. The time got less and less to cross the oceans. That long arduous journey that once took months now took a week, and was now called a vacation.
Then, plane was invented. Then, the jet. Then, the Concorde. Now the space station crosses the Atlantic Ocean in only 12 minutes. Imagine that! Over and over again, day in and day out. Our ancestor's would roll over in their graves, if they only knew how small the earth really was.
Space travel may seem impossible today, just like it did when the first persons crossed the oceans so many years ago, in that oversized canoe rowing with their paddles. The feat must have felt like science fiction in those days until it was eventually crossed, successfully.
In my opinion; of course space travel will be possible in the future and hopefully, it doesn't take centuries to make that first crossing in the the great vastness of the unknown called; space, to a solitary planet billion and billions of miles away.
Unfortunately, when that happens we won't be around, which means we'll never know if we had made it or not, eh?
Like they say, start with baby steps, one thing at a time and we'll eventually make it. At least we can say we tried.
No comments:
Post a Comment