A couple of weeks ago when Cindy & I were returning from Staci Pepitone’s funeral in Baton Rouge, we found ourselves back in our car at the Columbus airport about midnight with the hour-long drive back to Dayton still ahead of us. We hadn’t had dinner, but didn’t really want to stop. We just wanted to get home.
So as I tooled our car onto westbound I-70, still reflecting on Staci’s remarkable memorial, I started enumerating for Cindy Lou what kinds of cool stuff I would mention about her life in the horrible case of my having to assemble a eulogy following her passing. Among other things, I mentioned her love for our grandkids, her passion for doing right by her students during her teaching career, her magical ability -- from my perspective -- of making music on violin, her support and companionship throughout our relationship, and her concerned tending of her mother and father at the end of their lives.
Then I asked her, if she didn’t mind, to tick off a few things about me she might mention at my funeral. My question caught her off guard a bit, but she warmed up to the idea. She mentioned good stuff about my being a dad and grandfather, my love for birds and Hog Island, my poetry, and my willingness to join in volunteer causes. As nice as all she said sounded, none surprised me too much. Then she mentioned my love of space and space travel. That one caught me a little by surprise.
But in a larger sense, her space comment seemed to be the one I was waiting for. It wasn’t the space idea so much, but an observation from my best friend and confidant about me that I wouldn’t have come up with myself. What beautiful priority in my life did she see that perhaps I didn’t quite so clearly? It was a warm a-ha moment.
As a kid of 1950 vintage, I was seven years-old when the nasty old Russians were the first to launch a satellite into space. The United States -- the best country in the world -- was one-upped by the communist bad guys who we all knew had only one thing on their minds: our destruction. So when the US got into the space race in January 1958 with the launch of Explorer I, I was immediately hooked. Then came space cowboy Alan Shepherd’s suborbital flight in 1961 followed by Ohio hero John Glenn’s three orbits in 1962. I can still remember listening to these momentous historical events over the public address system at school. The classroom was absolutely quiet as we did desk work and listened to the reporting of a real live person going into outer space. Dude. Very cool stuff.
I’ve been an avid NASA tv watcher now for about three years. Some of the constantly repeated programming is a bit too much for me at times, but when it comes to launches, NASA tv turns into the ultimate reality show. They broadcast extensive crew interviews, press conferences by ground managers, and hour by hour coverage of the launch and subsequent work days in space. It’s not redundant when I say again, very cool stuff.
So it wasn’t any kind of a stretch for me yesterday to invite grandkids Alex and Ellie, who are on spring break this week, to go with Grammy and me to the Museum of the United States Air Force here in Dayton to see the newest IMAX movie they offer, Hubble. Oh, my.
I know human interaction with space is all big stuff, but what the Hubble Space Telescope has accomplished in it’s twenty year run is absolutely extraordinary. One astronaut thought that 500 years from now when historians reassess the impact of space on humanity, Hubble will be remembered as one of the most important projects ever launched. I mean, this space-based observatory can actually see to the end of the universe. The light it collects on it’s mirror was generated so far away that it started it’s journey this direction millions of years ago. Excuse me, but like God, that idea is just a little too hard for me to comprehend.
But I love wondering about it. And I love exciting kids with it. When I asked seventh grade Alex what he was thinking about as a career choice, he mentioned aeronautical engineering. He’s loved aircraft all his life. Space is never too far from his mind, either. Again, it’s not redundant to say, very cool indeed.
Today’s elder idea: Life, forever dying to be born afresh, for ever young and eager, will presently stand upon this Earth as upon a footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars.
H. G. Wells (1920)
Lovely thoughts here but you've set the scientist in me against the poet. Suppose the Hubble could see to the end of the universe (which is thought to be some ten-thousand times further than your "millions of years ago"); what, then, is beyond? Science is unlikely to tell us (a few abstract thinkers excepted, we rarely understand what we cannot see). Then, poetry, at least, and spirituality, at best, will have to take over.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should be grateful to Hubble for taking us to the edge of what we can know. But I see Hubble as emblematic of the hubris that gets attached to science. Capturing all these amazing images, we can't help but feel that we understand because we have named, and, further, that by understanding we might control. Global climate change? Ah, we'll think our way out of it.
What I want is the Elbbuh telescope, which sits at the edge and looks back at earth. "There! See it! The faintest flicker; evidence of understanding! Damn. I've lost it."
David -- As you know, I'm no scientist. In fact, there are days I gloat over my mind being 'science resistant.' For me, the beauty is in the visual. Hubble surely provides that for folks like me in spades. Just the concept of seeing as far as it does is mind blowing. And as a Star Trek fan -- yes, even Voyager -- I trust we'll get to the edge of things and be able to look back at who we are. I imagine we'll find some neighbor starchildren, too, who will be able to critique us and our science -- maybe even our spirituality and poetry -- for a perspective we can only dream about.
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