A trip to the stars....

I had a friend ask me the other day why I like Sci-Fi so much. After a bit of thinking, I shared a story with them.

A few years ago, I had a friend that grew up in a big city, but was now living in Storm Lake. We were heading home from a trip out of town one night, must have been close to midnight. I was driving and I decided to show him something I was sure he'd never seen before. We were on a secondary highway, pretty much out in the boondocks. I found a gravel road that split two corn fields, the nearest house probably a mile away.

He asked me what I was doing. I told him to hang on, he'd see soon enough. I parked the car and told him to get out. He looked at me like I was crazy, but eventually got out of the car. I told him to stand by the car and look up. It was the most beautiful night. Not a cloud in sight.

He looks up, and the first words out of his mouth were 'Holy--it'!!

Growing up in a bigger city, he'd never seen the night sky like you can see it out in the country. Too many lights that dull the experience. We looked up, and while I've done this numerous times, it still blew me away. I swear you could see every single star in the sky.

To make it even better, it was so quiet out there that we found ourselves whispering to each other, just so we wouldn't disturb anything with our noise pollution.

He was awestruck, which is exactly what I was trying for.

If you've never tried it, try it sometime. You'll be blown away by the sheer magnitude of our galaxy.

Which brings me to my answer to the question my friend posed.

As a little kid, I was always awed by the night sky. I started watching Star Trek and became enamored by the idea of traveling through space. I grew up with NASA sending men to the moon. Through the years, space travel has been overused by TV and movies to the point where most people don't even care when a shuttle launch happens.

Seriously folks, we are shooting people into space on a freaking rocket! I realize we've done it hundreds of times, but think about how much time and effort goes into one mission to outer space. Can it ever be ho hum?

Take a look sometime at the Hubble Telescope website. There are pictures of thousands of galaxies that the Hubble has found in ONE SMALL corner of the universe. It's mind boggling to realize how much is out there in space. And seriously, how egotistical are most humans to believe that in all those galaxies, that there is no other intelligent life?

It's questions like that and the awe that our universe inspires that makes me such a Sci-Fi fan.... because I want to believe the impossible is possible.

Any comments or questions, drop me a note.

'Til next time....