Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘space’

If Gore, Dion et al. are right and we really are about 10 seconds away from totally fucking up our planet beyond repair… well, maybe we’ll all have someplace to go:

A new world has been discovered nestled in the largest planetary system ever seen outside our solar system, fuelling speculation there are many other habitable Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy.

Astronomers doubt the new-found planet – one of five circling a nearby star, which is visible with binoculars – can support life.

But they told a teleconference Tuesday the discovery fuels their conviction that many Earth-like planets are just waiting to be discovered.

Traveling at the speed of light, it would only take about 41 years to get there. In other words, a short, pleasant journey. (Advance tickets on sale on ebay shortly… stay tuned!)

So is it a planet or isn’t it? Pluto’s dubious status continues to cause debate among scientists, stargazers, and a lot of people with nothing better to do.

In the meantime, it seems they’re filming a movie in my neighbourhood. This struck me as more than a little odd when I passed by the orange signs, since I can’t even begin to fathom why anyone would choose my area – good for cheap rent, not much good for atmosphere – for a film location. So I checked out the information on the signs. The film, it seems, has a working title of “Neptune” – which, as far as I know, is definitely still a planet. No information about it appears yet on IMDb, as far as I can tell.

Oh, and a European space probe crashed into the moon yesterday. Seems this was designed to satisfy people who’d become bored with “World’s Scariest Police Chases” and spectacular NASCAR crashes.

There are some things in the world that you just take for granted. The sunrise. Gravity. There being nine planets in the solar system.

Well, not anymore. Pluto has been demoted and is no longer a planet, reducing our solar system from nine planets to eight.

And in tomorrow’s headlines, Quebec will demand more funding from Ottawa to rewrite all the elementary school science textbooks.

Forgive me for saying this, but in a strange way today feels like 9/11.

Of course, there is no comparison between the horrid loss of over 3000 lives due to a cowardly terrorist attack, and the tragic loss of 7 astronauts due to a scientific error, accident, or malfunction. I wouldn’t even begin to equate the two in terms of scope, implication, or anything else.

That being said, both days have that “twilight-zone” sort of feeling to them like they’re not quite real. Both are disasters that will go down in the history of the United States and that draw sympathy from the world. Both events are those kinds of days that, decades later, I know I will always remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first heard – and so will just about everyone else.

In both cases, I heard about what happened on the radio, while only semi-listening. Both on 9/11 and today, a news brief broke into the middle of a music sweep on an FM station – an unusual occurrence. And in both cases, I initially reacted with denial, thinking it was some sort of sick practical joke, and not fully processing what I was hearing. The denial then gave way to shock, and amazingly enough, in both cases I went ahead with my regular daily activities for a few hours (on 9/11 I went to class, and today I went skiing). Both on 9/11 and today, I returned home and glued myself to CNN, and only then did it begin to sink in. In both cases, the aftermath will be much more involved than the actual event.

Like I said, forgive me for feeling this way. But events like today’s tend to leave me shaken.

I’ll always remember when I heard that Yitzchak Rabin was shot.

I’ll always remember when I heard that a bomb went off at Hebrew University . . . at the Sbarro Pizzeria . . . at a Passover seder in Netanya . . . at the Dolphanarium Disco . . . in downtown Tel Aviv . . .

I will always remember when I heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

And I will probably always remember when I heard that the Columbia Space Shuttle was lost.

In memory of the astronauts of the Columbia Space Shuttle, February 1, 2003

The Space Shuttle Columbia has been lost, and all seven astronauts aboard were killed – including Col. Ilan Ramon of the IDF, Israel’s first astronaut to fly into space.

Columbia crew: Rick Husband, Kalpana Chawla, William McCool, Ilan Ramon, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson, and David Brown

This is a horrible tragedy that is simply beyond words. Everyone is in shock, glued to CNN or a host of sources for updates and information. Every so often, there is a news item that is so shocking that it disrupts the world and pulls us away from our daily lives. This is one of them. My heart goes out to the families of the seven astronauts aboard.

I was out skiing all day and wasn’t able to blog this earlier, but I will be following this for the next while as the news develops.

I have to admit, though, that when I first heard the news, my reaction was denial. I thought it was a practical joke. My next thought was that terrorism was involved – admit it, it flashed through your mind too. Especially considering the presence of Col. Ramon. And when I heard that reports of debris were coming from a town called Palestine, Texas, well, I had to shake my head with amazement at that particular coincidence. Officials, however, have found no evidence of terrorism at work here so far. And frankly, once I started thinking straight, I don’t see how there possibly could be.

World leaders have offered their condolences to the families of the astronauts, to the United States, and to Israel. These include the Pope, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, EU Commission President Romano Prodi, French President Jacques Chirac, and even the Palestinian Authority issued a statement. Although this is truly disgusting: In a statement about the Columbia disaster, Iraq called it “God’s punishment of America”.

President Bush addressed the American people and pledged that the space program would continue despite the tragedy.

Today will go down in history.