Reaching For the Stars, Together

WE HUMANS HAVE DISCOVERED two thousand planets, at least count, orbiting other stars, and we've only just begun. We humans. The phrase seems somehow strange, unfamiliar, ethereal, as if it implies a human unity which if fact does not exist. but it does exist, and the human made machines running around on Mars, and the new telescopes discovering all the new planets are living proof of it, every day. For truly, no matter who you are, you are part of the entire human experience, you have an influence, a part to play, whether or not you know it. We are all, literally, in this together, for all the good or bad. So, here's to you, congratulations for being on Mars, and for exploring the universe. There is an I Phone app which plays a cute little tune whenever a new planet is announced and confirmed, and added to the rapidly growing list. The cute tune goes off several times a day. If you're not careful, you could end up cursing some brand new planet at three o'clock in the morning. For baby boomers, this is a dream come true. Back in the nineteen sixties, studying all nine planets, wondering if there were any more anywhere else, just knowing there had to be, but not knowing anything at all. Back in the sixties, we never had the foggiest idea that we would live to see the discovery of thousands of planets, and to have done so is, in its own special way, in the back of our stressed and burdened minds, gratifying. Our telescopes are getting to be so good that soon we will probably answer the question of whether there is life on other planets by zooming in on one planet at a time, and just looking around. I remember when we the human species first landed on the moon, and how excited we were about it. Many of us expected colonies on the moons and Mars by now, and maybe interstellar travel, and we are disappointed that it still hasn't happened. For children in the 1960s, the year 2015 was sometime in the far future in a science fiction novel. the science fiction novel has arrived, with plenty of excitement. Retired American astronauts have expressed the hope that when we humans return to space, we will do so as a united world, not as one nation competing against another, the way it has always been. The United States landed Apollo 11 on the moon, a great achievement for the wrong reason. This time, we'll probably get it right.