I stumbled across the Apollo 8 Christmas broadcast on, you guessed correctly, Christmas Eve. I just got back from a trip that included the Air & Space Museum in D.C. I haven't been excited like that in a long time. Which is funny, because the first time I ever went there (8th grade, school trip) I was bored out of my mind.
Here's something I put on Facebook. I'm resisting the temptation to rewrite in more "bloggy" language:
An astronomer friend once asked me why I love space crap so much. Some of it is how small the scale of the galaxies makes me feel, in the good way where I know it's up to me to make meaning in my life, because the universe is expanding / everything is pulling slowly apart and nothing will last long enough for the time I wasted picking my nose to matter.
& a lot of it is how much the history of space exploration represents some of the highest levels of hope and optimism in humanity. The Voyager I & 2 missions were some of the craziest things we've ever done. Hey, hypothetical intelligent life, here is a GOLDEN record containing some classical music, a baby crying, and scientific diagrams that can be decoded based on the time it takes for hydrogen to transition between its two lowest-energy states. We'll toss it out of the solar system and maybe some day someone will see it. Come find us if we're still around / maybe don't kill us!
That's beautiful to me. And so friends, happy holidays, happy solstice, merry Christmas, & may your life be full of far more joy than sadness.
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| Voyager record replica at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum |
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