Technology enables us to reach into space and see what no
man has seen before.
But what do we behold
if we aim to see with our eyes closed, and our mind shackled?
When I came into the atrium one morning after shift change the place was in the process of being decorated as if for a party. It was still early in the morning. The domed ceiling was dark orange,
signalling the 'dawn' before the 'sunrise.' The passing of our day in the ship had been color coded into the lighting system throughout the entire ship. Night was indicated with the ceilings becoming a dark blue, while at mid day, the lights were brilliantly white.
Below the dusk orange dome of the atrium, countless paper streamers crossed the open space in every direction intersecting horizontally and vertically. The streamers were illumined further by countless lanterns strung from railing to railing, and from floor to floor.
"What's up?" I asked the nearest person with amazement. He shrugged his shoulders. That's when I noticed Natalia. She appeared to be equally puzzled.
"What's with the Chinese paper lanterns?" I asked.
"Aren't they cute?" she replied.
Some of the larger lanterns looked like planets floating in space.
"Maybe it is the captain's birthday?" I joked.
"I think it's for a wedding, or a carnival dance," she said and began to grin.
"Hey, a carnival would be great! Wouldn't it?"
"Where have you been?" said someone passing by, hearing us talk. "Tomorrow is homecoming day! We'll be celebrating the return of the first surveyor probe." The voice came from a girl who was directing the re-arrangement of potted plants on the main floor. "Tomorrow we'll have our first close up view of Alpha Centauri!"
Of course! Yes! I gradually remembered. Five probes had been launched before the ship got under way, the first one five years in advance. The probes had been designated for a planet-system mapping mission. The first probe was to record all orbital paths, photograph the surface of every major planet, and then rendezvous with the ship at a predetermined point in space.
We were told that the bulletin board revealed the agenda of the celebrations to come. There was to be a full crew meeting with a formal luncheon at noon, followed by the arrival of the first probe within some hours. The final event of the celebration would take place at the atrium where the captain would unveil a scale model of the entire Alpha Centauri system that would be constructed from measurements brought back by the probe. Together with this amazing feat a photo exhibition would be set up, reconstructed from video scans the probe was expected to bring. The final event was scheduled for noon the following day or for the day after. In between, somewhere, would be a computer graphics demonstration of the gravitational interaction of the three-sun system, mathematically reconstructed, all from the measurements taken by the probe.
The probe was expected to be a gold mine of information.
"That's going to be some party!" said Natalia excitedly.
"We will have a chance to see what no man has ever seen before," said the girl who was in charge of the decoration. "We will be the first of mankind to have a close-up look at another solar system."
I could sense her excitement. I looked around quickly, scanning the space for the captain and then hugged the girl. What we expected was indeed worthy a celebration. I was glad Martin hadn't shown me the Alpha Centauri system, yet. This pre-visit was to be our own victory, honestly won against the most imprisoning limits, pushing back frontiers to the very edge of the 'possible.' That, too, must have been the way Bohr and his group started out, rather than taking their giant leap from a standing start. Even a super nova has a long history as a star while it gathers up energy over countless millions of years before the super nova explosion springs it into a different form of "life" in the space of one single, final second. Advancing with the best of our earthly technologies had become our stepping stone towards the freedoms inherent in the Bohr/Miller effect. And now we were on the verge of a significant victory, a super nova of our own making in our universe of profound discoveries.
