Earlier today NASA announced that they discovered the most Earth-like planet to date. Hubs and I are closet space/sci-fi nerds and watched excitedly as the story played on the news tonight. After the story he posed the hypotheitcal question "If they found out that this planet could support life and NASA asked for volunteers to go there and start a colony, would you go?" We discussed the pros and cons of going and ultimately decided that we probably would. We decided that we don't really have many ties here on Earth so we'd be good candidates. I mean, how cool would it be to go and start a new civilization on a planet that is 1400 light years away?
A little bit later hubs said "you know, I don't think NASA would choose us to go and live on Kepler-425b." I asked why. He said "reproduction is essential for species survival and we can't do that." Oh yeah. That. I suppose we wouldn't be good candidates. Their loss. I guess we'll just stay here on Earth.
At least we can have our ashes blasted into space when we die, so the dream of going to space is still alive (even if we won't be)!
This makes me sad, but it makes me laugh too too. A year or so after learning we wouldn't have children, I said to him that it was a good time for us to think about our lives and our dreams. That we should each think about things we wanted to do in our lives, and write them down - however unrealistic they might be - then see how we could make them happen. He never really did, because - when pressed - he said his only dream was to "go into space!" Sigh.
ReplyDeleteThere is just something appealing about space! Glad to know we're not the only people with out of this world dreams though! :)
Delete(We're actually totally serious about having our ashes blasted into space though.)
It is good that you are not going. I would miss you on Earth :)
ReplyDeleteI would miss you too! Luckily they're probably 30-50 years from actually being able to colonize the planet (assuming that it is suitable to sustain human life) so we'd probably be too old by then anyway. :)
DeleteWow, I did not know anything about the earth-like planet. It might be because I don't often watch the news these days. It often depresses me. But this bit of news is quite exciting.
ReplyDeleteAnd again, being unable to reproduce makes another mark on us.
Hubs feels the same way about the news. I am a news junkie and at minimum I watch a morning news show and receive about a gazillion push alerts to my phone from various sources. It's an addiction. :)
DeleteIt's sort of funny to me how we resort to seeing the world through the lens of not having children.
Love a fellow nerd! While it's tough evolving to perfection it also makes us more valuable, yes?
ReplyDeleteYou do have a point! I like to think that we have a lot to offer a new civilization in spite of the fact that procreation didn't work out for us. :)
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