More Good "Bad Astronomy"...and Ultrarunning

Another gem from Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, here, in talking about the Mars Curiosity mission:

[don't feel bad, I can't make out the unmagified Earth either]

Plait says, in some memorable prose:

The Universe is terribly vast, hugely distant, cold and indifferent to us.

But remember this: The picture above was taken by a machine made by humans, and it’s sitting on the surface of another world. It took hundreds of people thousands of worker-years to imagine it, lobby for it, create it, loft it, and land it on Mars. You can’t see that in the picture because the camera was turned the other way. But if you can step out of the picture in your mind and simply turn around, you’d see that rover on the Martian dust, a testament to human curiosity, the drive to explore, and the need to leave the nest for parts unknown.

It doesn’t bother me in the least that the Universe doesn’t know or care about me. I know and care about it. And that’s what counts.

That's why we still need a viable space program.  And in a parallel way, the thoughts expressed here kinda touch upon the why of Ultrarunning--the lure of the unknown, the uncovering of the hidden, the feeling that only you and a select few other hardy souls have invested the effort of psyche and body to reach the edge and find out what you are made of.

It's Official: We're Number 2

China has just soft-landed a rover on the Moon.

Seen on the My Way news feed on Sunday:

BEIJING (AP) - China's first moon rover has touched the lunar surface and left deep traces on its loose soil, state media reported Sunday, several hours after the country successfully carried out the world's first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly four decades.

The 140-kilogram (300-pound) "Jade Rabbit" rover separated from the much larger landing vehicle early Sunday, around seven hours after the unmanned Chang'e 3 space probe touched down on a fairly flat, Earth-facing part of the moon.

State broadcaster China Central Television showed images taken from the lander's camera of the rover and its shadow moving down a sloping ladder and touching the surface, setting off applause in the Beijing control center. It said the lander and rover, both bearing Chinese flags, would take photos of each other Sunday evening.

Later, the six-wheeled rover will survey the moon's geological structure and surface and look for natural resources for three months, while the lander will carry out scientific explorations at the landing site for one year.

I recall vividly the images from 20 July 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon.  I was at a girlfriend's house, was due home on curfew, but didn't want to miss a moment of the historic event as it was broadcast on live TV (I stayed late and got in trouble).

Since then, things space have always fasincated me...I think it's an absolute travesty that the U.S. has so scaled back our manned space efforts.  The effort is expensive, sure, but we could easily squeeze it out of our bloated military budget.

Plus as the reality of man-made climate change sinks in, there may be immediate short-range benefits to mankind as this planet slowly sinks below the waves.  Translated: we may need an escape plan after we've finished trashing this pale blue dot.

 

Paved-Over Souls...and Ultrarunning

Here's one of the reasons we become--and remain--Ultrarunners:

Our kinship with the Earth must be maintained, otherwise, we will find ourselves trapped in the center of our own paved-over souls with no way out. 

Quote attributed to John Steinbeck, from the Fall 2011 issue of Sylvanian, the quarterly publication of the PA chapter of the Sierra Club.

Call it a battery recharge or communing with Nature or what have you, we come from the Earth and to the Earth we will return.  In the meanwhile, we can retain that connection via spending time in the backcountry. 

Now, whether you run trails as we do, or walk, matters not; what does matter is being out there.