Yesterday, I awoke to the same images beamed into lounge rooms all over the world.
Columbia, and all aboard was lost.
I have been following this mission with some interest as friend’s of mine are on the team of Australian university students who were part of a scientific study of spider behaviour in outer space. The results of that study now look silly and trite in comparison to the tragedy of the lives lost in the pursuit of exploration, knowledge and progress.
I will dream tonight of the future, as epitomised in Star Trek and I will think of these brave men and women who died living their dream and the dream in all of us. That the future is bright and brimming with promise, that one day we will all share in their dream of exploration and we will all know the sights they saw.
I am reminded also of the Voyager program begun 25 years ago – our first calling card to other civilisations.
Part of President Carter's text says, "We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 million stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some - perhaps many - may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:
"This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe."
Posted on Feb 2, 2003, 10:03 PM from IP address 152.91.9.49