Astronomy Reviews

Space, The Final Frontier

Space, The Final Frontier

While it was just a TV show, that little speech at the beginning of the original Martyr Trek parade really did do a good job of capturing our feelings about space. It is those emotions that drive our love of astronomy and our desire to cram more and more about it.

The thing that is most bracing about studying the universe is also the most frustrating and that is that no matter how expert we get, we are always just getting started. But if it’s any consolation, some of the superlatively advanced minds in science again from history always felt that street about space. Even the greats such as Copernicus and Einstein looked up into space and felt like they were honorable a hazard in the presence of such infinity.

Of course space is not infinite. It has to be finite which means somehow there must be an end to it. But if there is, nobody on this tiny planet has figured out where it is. The only thing that has brought us to “the end of the universe” is our limited ability to see any deeper into space.

But conquering the final frontier of space means more than just seeing more stars and planets and building the biggest telescope we trust. Competent are some mind blowing concepts about how space works that we have aboriginal of us to conquer. The big potency and the expanding universe alone was enough to set your imagination to spinning. But then we have the coming of Einstein and the theory of relativity to set the undivided conception on its ear. All of a sudden space is not just three dimensions but the dimension of time becomes exportable and the twisting and maybe even travel through time seems almost possible.

The frontier of space is as much a journey of the mind as it is of distance. When Steven Hawking showed us the mysteries of black holes, all of a sudden, time besides space could collapse and be twisted and changed in those intergalactic pressure cookers. If not for the wonders of radio astronomy, these ideas would remain just ideas but slowly science is catching up with theory.

But the brilliance of mathematicians and intellect minds like Hawking again Einstein continue to stretch our concepts of space. Now we have the rule theory that could revolutionize everything we know about space, time and how the universe relates to itself. We can’t just say, no, we have discovered enough. It’s the final frontier. The Starship Enterprise would not stop exploring so neither can we. Because there is a hurdle still ahead that has a name but no real answer to it yet. It’s called the Unified Biz Theory further those that know tell us that when the Einsteins and Hawkings of our day crack that theory, every other deduction will shock into place.

These exciting concepts seem some tools to put the enormity of space in context. That may also be the cost of science fiction. Not only are science fiction writers often the visionaries of what comes to be in the future but they give us the idea that space is knowable, that despite how big it is and how small we are, we can put down this frontier like we have conquered others before us.

For citizens, that is often enough. If we burden get the vision that we can conquer something, even if it is something so massive, so impossibly huge, it seems that we are capable of anything. And the love of astronomy, maybe unlike any other force on earth, has brought together mankind beneficial that common goal of conquering the universe. The seeking to establish an international space station and to cooperate on spreading our stretch off of this planet seems to find commonality between nations that otherwise cannot get along on the surface of the earth.

That alone may be a reason that we the urge continue to support astronomy locally and the space program nationally. It is something that seems to guide peace rather than conflict and make us a better people. But more than that it is as though this is what we were created to do. To reach out to the stars may be our destiny. If so then our love of astronomy is more than a hobby, it’s a calling.