How Much is the Universe Worth?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson recently asked this question in a speech: how much would you pay for the universe? He was referring to the recent funding cut that NASA took. He states that if one penny of each tax dollar went to fund NASA, we would surpass our wildest space dreams in a matter of a few decades.

One day, this concept is going to be one of those things that we talk about nostalgically, that people use as writing prompts for historical fiction novels. Right now, we think like this:

Can you imagine living in a country where women don't have the right to vote?

Can you imagine living in a country run by slavery?

Can you imagine living in a country where drinking alcohol was banned?

Can you imagine living in a country with vast tracts of unexplored land?

Can you imagine life without cars, or televisions, or phones, or heaven forbid--electricity?

And 67 seven years from now...

...Can you imagine living in country that wouldn't fund space travel?

And I will be 89 years old, cranky and obnoxious, living in a nursing home that orbits the moon, being interviewed on HoloSkypeOrbital by a 3D replica of my great-nephew who wants to do project on the history of space flight.

"My mother remembers them walking on the moon!" I would screech. "My mother watched the Challenger explode on a black and white TV! They didn't have space travel for real until I was about 52, even though NASA started hiring astronauts when I was only 23! Do I remember life without space travel? Of course I remember! My brain's sharp as a tack--do you even know what a tack is?"

"Let me tell you this, boy," I would interrupt as he sputtered to ask another impertinent question. "There's nothing more torturous than having the technology to do something but having those putrid politicians REFUSE to help do it! We were in an economic recession, them trying to tell women what not to have babies, worldwide religious clashes, the planet dying from carbon fuel poison, just out of a war on terrorists (terrorists are bloody hard to find, remember that, boy) and then politicians took money away from space travel! Can you believe it? Space travel! The only hope the people of the world had--just cut its knees right out from under it."

"What about the Dragon's fire? What about the descent of the Phoenix?" my great-nephew Gary will ask. "Do you remember those?"

"Naming all them spacecraft after mythical beasts won't give them no magical powers," I'll croak. "And of course I remember those! But you know what? Accidents happen. When they were inventing regular flights, with airplanes, you know what? People died. Amelia Earhart? Know who that is?" I'll shake my head. "Schools don't teach anything these days. She disappeared. Forever. Never seen again. More people died in car crashes back then than anything else. And murders! All over the place. But you know what? They still flew planes. They still drove cars. They still had babies. What's a couple of suborbital explosions? Sad, maybe. But they aren't the question."

"What is the question?" 

"The question is this: who are we and who do we want to be? Are we a nation of cowards and small-minded simpletons? Or are we a nation of intelligent visionaries with a backbone of steel and a work ethic of gold? Because that's what it took, Gary. It took intelligence, steel, and gold. Do you believe that?"

"Of course! We have space ships for people and space ships for mining and space ships for protection and space ships for research and we're mining asteroids in the asteroid belt and have a station set up on Mars!" He gets excited and begins to bounce up and down--because that's what kids do when they get excited.

I tap the top of the holo-monitor, the same spot where webcams used to be on a 2D monitor (now the hologram itself is the camera), and exclaim, "Now you tell me something, boy! Can you imagine living in a world trapped on the surface of the planet? In a country with a government who wouldn't fund space travel? Tell me--can you imagine a world without space?"

A Grapefruit Universe

Yesterday, my little brother called me from Texas to tell me that he was walking through a grove of grapefruit trees. I imagined the sun shining down on his broad shoulders as he carefully selected a warm, ripe grapefruit from the ground; around him, light cheerful breezes bumped gently into heads of grass, and rustled the leaves of these glorious trees...


I live in New England; we don't have grapefruit trees. We have a bit of snow, though. He sent me a picture:

When he called, I was sitting in front of my computer, working. In front of a screen. As I am doing right now. All my time is spent in front of screens. Working. Writing. Communicating.

When he hung up, I wrote a poem:

i told Dave i want to be a hermit

 a hermit in outer space

  where there are no screens

just stars and stuff

and the bits that make up the sky, the dark, grapefruit trees

   and stuff

i want to be a space hermit

As you can see, I am not good at poetry. That is why I write in sentences. But I am a little jealous of my brother, strolling through a grove of grapefruit trees and picking up the fresh fruit, peeling back the skin, biting into the tangy, bitter, juicy bits of starlight before laying down in the gently swaying grasses to nap under a canopy of blue heavens and surrounded by the sweet scent of spring...

If I were a space hermit, I'd have a houseboat floating in the giant space ocean moored to an Earth-like island with a grove of sweet, ripe moons--some crimson red with swirls of lavender blue, dilly dilly, or sparkling green and cerulean blue and antique white that dallied in the blossoming dawn. I'd have a fossil museum in my living room, with bones as large as Mount Everest glistening in a heap near the swirling asteroid zephyrs that whirl and spin a path through a wilderness of stars. 

But if you came to look for me, I'd be hard to find; I'd be too busy painting the tiny motes of dust that drift through the starlight streaming through my stained-glass curtains, or surfing on the massive and rolling gravitational waves that soar through the darkness of space and time and crash against planets and stars and the sands of time... and there would be no screens, just everything.

My Cat, the Hacker-Mob Boss

Most people know what their cats do when they're at home alone. Eat, sleep, and sleep, are three very common examples.

My cat, on the other hand, Goblin, is a very suspicious sort of cat. When I come home, she always runs away. When I am in the bathroom or kitchen, she just sits there and meows. The rest of the time, she sits in the corner, under my desk or in awkward places and just stares at me. She doesn't move or blink. Just stares. For hours.

Like this:

When I'm sleeping she either sits on my head, sits on the window sill above my head, or races back and forth maniacally chasing Christmas bows that don't move and pieces of string that don't fight back.

So then I wonder: what does Goblin do while I'm gone?

Here's the thing: NASA was hacked 13 times last year, and 48 NASA laptops were stolen in the past two years. Do I think my cat stole them? No. I think she paid someone to do it. I think she was the hacker, however. She's like a hacker-mob boss who runs a ring of ridiculously smart criminals that are trying to take control of the space station. NASA claims that the space station is safe, but if Goblin can speak Russian, then they had better watch out.

""But why?" you ask. "Why would Goblin want to take control of the space station?

"Don't you read the news?" I reply. 

Look at these headlines: Hundreds of Cats Rescued in Animal Cruelty Case at Caboodle Ranch, Cat Count Nears 70 at Elmer Avenue, President of California Fish and Game Commission Shoots a Cat: Now He Is the One Up a Tree, 200 Cats Removed from NY Home, and worst of all, Japanese Cat Lovers Snarl at New Law which puts a curfew on the public appearance of animals. They have to be home by 8:00pm!

Goblin the Hacker-Mob Boss is merely trying to command a new life for cats of all breeds. By taking control of the International Space Station, she knows she can negotiate for a cat-sized spaceship which she will then command, taking as many cats as possible away from here to start a new life on a far away planet--a planet of milk and fish. I wish her luck.