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Up... Up... And away! Into that land where the future resides.
That permanent Great Frontier. That fairyland of technology.
That dwelling place of gods and monsters. That realm where all
things are possible and all dreams and nightmares come true.
We're talking about Outer Space. For over a century, nothing
spelled the FUTURE in large,friendly letters like space. Want to
set a futuristic mood? Throw in a spaceship. Want to show
something really exotic? Put it on another planet and add a
green-skinned dancing girl for good measure. Outer Space is the
most enduring myth we have about the future. It is the defining
line that we cross over from our mundane world of the present into the
wonderland of tomorrow. It has even defied the conquest of
space. Man has been travelling in space for
nearly fifty years, and yet films about space travel are still
regarded ipso facto as science fiction. Even Apollo 13,
which was about a real space mission, ends up being broadcast on the
Sci-Fi Channel because it takes place in space. That's like
Fargo being declared a Western because it's set west of the
Mississippi.
To the
philosophers of the Middle Ages, Heaven and Earth were two distinct
and separate realms. They weren't just
different locations, they were different in their very natures.
Substances were different, things moved differently, and everything
had its own appropriate sphere of existence. The Copernican
Revolution was supposed to abolish this. Science had declared
that Earth and space were the same and the rules that applied in one
applied in the other with equal strength. But not according to
the popular mind. Pick up any science fiction novel or video and
you will be confronted with ideas that would be utterly preposterous
on Earth, but are allowed a very, very generous suspension of
disbelief because It Came From Outer Space.
Perhaps that explains the attraction of space
travel and why it has periodically had such a grip on popular
imagination. Let's face it, the vast resources that went into
the space programmes in the 1960s and the enthusiasm of the engineers
who built the first rockets was not due to geopolitical
considerations, nor from a level-headed assessment of what benefits
would come from going to the Moon. This was Adventure, which is
probably the real reason why man first set foot on the lunar surface,
and why everyone lost interest so quickly. It's no fun reading a
cracking tale over again just after you've finished it.
To the
philosophers of the Middle Ages, Heaven and Earth were two distinct
and separate realms.