Space: The Final Frontier (and trying to make some space in your fridge)

I have always been fascinated by space. Both the actual word space and space, as in that room between the sparse bits of matter that occupy the tiniest fraction of the universe. To say matter is sparse within “space” is in itself a record-breaking understatement. As a matter of language it is truly a magical and existentially fascinating word.

Without getting into an actual list, the word space itself has at least a dozen distinct meanings. For our purposes, it is space as in everything outside of earth’s atmosphere and space as in having sufficient room for and between objects and elements of our lives. Once again demonstrating the reason for the sparsity of my social invitations.

I am horribly unqualified to explain matters of universal-level space. But on the other hand, so is everybody else. Including, as they would be the first to admit, people who study this shit for a living. The best they can hope for is to try to make the somewhat dim people like myself understand how incomprehensibly large the universe is. We, as humans, are ill-equipped to even perceive it, let alone understand it.

While I’m on the subject, whatever the subject actually is, which I’m hoping we will both figure out along the way, people who study this Astro-physics stuff have my genuine respect. And not for the reasons you may or may not expect.

If you choose this subject to spend your life studying, first of all you have to be really, really smart. Much smarter than me, which admittedly is a pretty low bar. You have to eventually understand devilishly complicated mathematics. Which automatically rules out some absurdly high percentage of people. Most of whom proudly proclaim (not just admit) that they stink at it.

Tandem time (a lesser-known MC Hammer work. I actually remember it. Instead of “singing” he actually stops and does dishes for a few minutes). When did it become not just ok to suck at math, but to proudly tell anyone unfortunate enough to have to listen? I guess that leads to the bigger question of when did we, collectively, become stupid? And when did we become proud of our stupidity? When did it become a badge of honor to be dumb? (I smell the presence of fat ass Rupert around here somewhere.)

But of course not everyone is stupid and these people who devote their lives to exploring the universe are particularly special. And here is why. When you choose this line of work you already know without the slightest doubt, that you will die with few, if any, of the answers to questions you have spent your whole life studying. You not only have to be brilliant, but you must also have the kind of personality that does not desperately need concrete answers to questions that you spend your whole life trying to answer. There is no chance I could do either of those things and most likely neither can you. We all like nice clean results, preferably before we are dead. So mad respect to the men and women that live that life.

So where were we? Oh yeah. The observable universe. Well, it is big. Quite big actually. And the things in it are rather few and far between. No bother at all finding a spot for the big screen. You’ll easily find space to wedge that second jar of mayonnaise you bought because it was on sale.

I may get some mail from people who know better but as far as I can tell more than 99.9 percent of everything out there resembles the Republican health care plan. That is, nothing. So just try to consider just how much nothing that really is. It can be billions and billions of Carl Sagan miles from one spec of dust to another. And if that doesn’t make you feel small, take a look down the next time you’re in front of a urinal.

That was unnecessarily mean and not even necessarily true. And to top it all off it was misogynistic. Although I doubt that there are many woman who would feel slighted at being left out of a lazy dick joke. Which coincidentally was the name of my first high school garage band, Irving Moscowitz DDS and The Lazy Dick Jokes. It was considered, at the time, the zenith of the thankfully short-lived Urology Rock trend.

But I digress. From what exactly I’m not sure. Oh yes, space. We have established that it is incomprehensibly big. Also, that the things in it, while still many in number, are ridiculously small and few by comparison. And the truth is, it is probably even much bigger than we are able to see yet. The Hubble Space Telescope has provided unprecedented views of the daunting vastness of the cosmos. 10,000 galaxies exist in just one view. Allowing us to peek back billions of years into the past. And yet it is still only the smallest fraction of a fraction of what is out there.

I’m not sure where I’m meaning to go with this. On one hand, it is yet another reminder of how small and lonely our own world is. On the other hand I feel pride in the accomplishments of our species despite the fact that I had nothing to do with it personally. Yet another way of looking at it is as a giant puzzle or game. One which will be played by really smart people for as long as we are able. Which brings me back around to this. Our own youth and frailty as a species. If it is our job to explore creation, it seems to me we have been particularly ill-equipped. We are small and fragile and individually short-lived. How short-lived we are as a species is still to be determined. But I would very much like to imagine humankind surviving for eons and slowly chipping away at the mysteries.

I don’t know what that might look like but despite my constant kvetching, I really am rooting for us. Perhaps even with a modest sense of optimism. And maybe that is why I like Star Trek as much as I do. It takes place only a couple of hundred years from now and though they are still far from perfect, they have a sense of purpose and a pretty optimistic view of who we are and what we might become. It really is a hopelessly romantic love letter to humankind. Star Trek tells us that we will see how big the universe is and use that knowledge as a unifying force. A force that molds us willingly into tolerance for each other and those we encounter. And a worldview (universe view) that values life above all. It springs from the well of knowledge that all life is indeed incredibly rare, small, and completely dependent on each other for survival. From the smallest and weakest to the largest and most powerful. All life is tiny, fragile, and needful of other life.

I don’t know if we can create a Star Trek future of space travel and alien encounters. It may very well turn out to be impossible from a technical standpoint. It may be that our physical form is just too needy and frail to traverse those ridiculous voids of nothingness. But there is nothing to stop us from becoming like them philosophically and emotionally. The need for water, air and gravity might make it a leap too big for us to make physically. But the tolerance and unity of Star Trek is most definitely within our grasp. And if we can survive long enough to make that leap we may very well learn to explore the universe in ways that we can’t yet even imagine.

Do you think that anyone alive 200 years ago could imagine the world we live in now? There were a few like Jules Verne and Ada Lovelace but I think even they would be surprised to learn of the tools that even the least of us have at our disposal. Jules Verne would probably look on in wonder as I lay in my bed among dog bone crumbs, wearing only a duck sauce-stained Bob Marley T-shirt. I hold a device in my hand.

I explain to Verne, actually I invite my French speaking roommate in to explain to Verne, exactly what it is I am doing. Over the next five minutes I use that device to order a quart of chicken and broccoli with cashew nuts, added at a slight upcharge. A quart of mixed Wonton and Egg drop soup and a quart of House fried rice for Acho, my French roomie. Next, I bought 36 rolls of toilet paper and 24 rolls of paper towels on Amazon.

Verne just stared in shock as a man appeared at my door 20 minutes later with the food. Verne said something in French. He didn’t seem happy. Acho pointed out that Verne wanted to know why we didn’t ask him if he wanted anything to eat, and it was kind of a dick move. He was right of course. But it honestly hadn’t occurred to me that a highly regarded, long dead French author and visionary might be in the mood for some shrimp with lobster sauce.

Despite my rudeness, Verne spent the night on our couch. Acho taught him how to navigate the roughly three hundred streams available on the TV. For some reason he seemed to enjoy The Bachelor and watched with French subtitles. All night. He was still watching when I emerged from my bedroom bright and early just a bit after noon. Together we opened the front door to find two large boxes of toilet paper and paper towels. Wow! He said before finally succumbing to the silliness of this clumsy tale and vanished back into space.

We have no idea what we might come up with in the next 200 years if we somehow find a way not to boil the oceans or blow ourselves up. We might even figure out a way to explore creation from the comfort of our crumb covered beds. Or not. But I’m very much hoping that we are still around to give it a shot.

Does anyone remember that I slipped Ada Lovelace in next to Jules Verne as an example of long-gone visionaries. Have you ever heard of her? I had never seen her name before yesterday when I googled 19th century visionaries. I learned immediately, to my relief, that she was in no way related to Linda Lovelace, a woman famous for a very different and specific reason.

Ada was the daughter of Poet Lord Byron and, take a deep breath, Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron. Yes, that 10-word name is one person. Both of her parents had quite interesting and in some ways, somewhat scandalous lives. But both were also a very big part of the Abolitionist Movement, the first efforts to end slavery.

Ada Lovelace could arguably be called the mother of modern computing and most certainly the first computer programmer. She worked with Charles Babbage on the first analytical engine, later to be called computers. As with any kind of history, there is debate as to her exact role and contributions. But she is without controversy the first to see and use the engine for anything other than crunching numbers. There is zero doubt that she played a massive role in the development of computers to the point where my description of her as mother of modern computing is not at all ridiculous and equally as true as anything we might be able to glean from any kind of historical research.

Here’s the point. How the fuck did I not know of her until yesterday? How is it that you almost certainly never heard of her until just now? The truth, as it often does, sucks. And we, as we often do, suck. We never heard of her because until very recently women never got the credit for anything other than being hot or spitting out babies. And the ugly truth remains that we still have a very long way to go before we can safely say that women have achieved the full measure of equality they have always deserved, but almost never received.

Times are changing. Things are improving. I was gratified to see that there is indeed an Ada Lovelace Day celebrated. She has become an emblematic figure of the movement of women into traditionally male fields within science and technology. But don’t kid yourself. We are not yet close.

All you need do is turn on your TV today to see right wing shit stains celebrate with glee the loss by The U.S. Women’s National Soccer team. Our own supposed fellow citizens cheering against our countries team because the women of the team dared ask for equal pay and equal respect for their absurd level of commitment and incredible accomplishments.

They, and every woman, deserves nothing less than full equality in every way.

Why not? There’s more than enough space.