Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Realism
It takes a Nobel prize winner to inject realism into fantasies of living on planets outside the solar system. Science fiction has been a form of flackery for too long. As the Nobelist says, exoplanets are a long way away even within our galaxy. It will take light-years of travel and considering that man has no way of approaching the speed of light, the chances of reaching an exoplanet, even if that planet might hold life, are vanishingly small. So, why do people persist in spinning tales about the cosmos? They are imaginative exercises that for some have become too real. They contend that they might be true if only we could travel to exoplanets and see for ourselves. But, that's precisely what we can't do. We are fated to live on this blue marble in spite of deep space explorations by robots doing flybys or landing on alien surfaces. Even if we should start colonies on the moon and Mars, they will be dependent on the earth for some of their vital supplies. For all practical purposes, we are alone in this universe, and dreams of space colonies are just that.
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