discovery Blog and Journals

Just when you thought you were in lack of some summer pump-up music, we are hear to help you out. What do you get when you mix Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot?  The answer will floor you...

I didn’t ask to be this way. I DID NOT want this. It’s not like I just said “Oh I’m going to start dating girls now because I feel like it.” No, that’s not how it happened. So let me tell you how it really happened.

 

I used to be completely against gays/lesbians/bisexuals. In fact, I would even fight against their rights, rather than just minding my own business and staying out of things. At the time, I didn’t realize that I myself was a bisexual. Don’t get me wrong, I accept it now, and I have no problem with it. Just, then… I didn’t. I don’t know what it was that made me feel that way. Maybe it was my strict Catholic upbringing which incidentally, I haven’t believed in in years. Then again, did I ever believe in it? Or maybe it was the fact that I had a cousin who I was very close to that believed people like that went to hell. I don’t know. All I know is that’s who I was and it is a person I NEVER want to become again. Not like there’s any danger of that happening, but still…

 

I don’t remember exactly how I changed my mind but I do remember where and who.

 

Basically, when I first got into college… there was this girl I REALLY enjoyed being around. I wanted to get to know her some more… you know? She was in a couple of my classes. We were majoring in the same thing, except she was doing a double major, which is something I could never handle. But, I really really wanted to be her friend. And it appeared that she wanted to be my friend. Well, it turned out that she ended up inviting me over to her apartment. She lived in the city and at the college we went to, freshmen were allowed to live off campus and she was paying for it and everything so, what the heck? Go for it. But we just got closer and closer. We didn’t really talk about sexuality until it just sorta came up in our conversation. She opened up to me and told me she was a bisexual and I was like… wow. But, I didn’t want my views to get in the way of our friendship. So I tried to open my mind up a little. And she showed me that you should accept people no matter their sexual orientation, skin color, ethnicity, nationality, religious beliefs, whatever it is… you shouldn’t judge them by that, but rather, by the person who THEY are. Because those things don’t determine their personality or who they really are on the inside. So, I started opening my mind up, and I realized… I didn’t care about sexual orientation anymore. It started to not matter to me. And I finally accepted it as a part of peoples’ lives.

 

Slowly, I began to discover my own sexual orientation. I realized that I was falling for this girl, who had been one of my best friends for approximately 8 months now. Whenever I looked at her my heart couldn’t help but skip a beat. I loved her smile. I loved her laugh. I loved everything about her. And I had never felt this way about anyone before, EVER… IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. I just didn’t know how to accept it… STILL. I could accept other people being that way, but me… NO. That would have been insanity. But I had to learn how to. I couldn’t hide my feelings forever… from myself or from anybody else for that matter. I mean, I really had NEVER felt this way about ANYONE… and regardless of what sex that person was, I wasn’t about to let go of it. So I decided to tell her. I decided to tell Tara.

 

So, basically…

 

I set out on a night in May… it was close to the end of our first year. Freshmen were also allowed to have cars on campus, which… it’s kinda weird that they let us have both cars and live off campus. Most colleges don’t allow that. But, anyways, I set out that night at 8:00 in the evening. Tara and I liked spending time together later at night. I had called her beforehand and she was cool with it, said she would love it if I came over. So, I grabbed my purse and got in my car then headed to her apartment. I knew I was gonna have to tell her sooner or later.

 

I pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex. Quickly, I mentally prepared myself for what I was about to do as I got out of my car and climbed the stairs to her apartment. I was hoping she would understand.

 

“Hey, Jenn” she said as she opened the door “Come on in”

 

I walked in.

 

“So, how are things going?”

 

“Pretty good”

 

“That’s good”

 

“Yeah”

 

“Go ahead, sit down.”

 

I sat down.

 

“So, what do you wanna do?” she asked. Even 18 year olds are clueless as to what to do when someone comes over.

 

“Actually, I came over because there’s something I REALLY needed to tell you.”

 

“What is it?”

 

I hesitated for a moment.

 

“Come on, you can tell me.”

 

“I…” I started. “I’m bi”

 

I waited for her reaction and that was it. I was under the impression that it was all over. Oh how wrong I was.

I will simply echo the sentiments of my beloved blogger sister, Melissa: HOLY ZOMG, THIS IS THE COOLEST THING ON THE PLANET.

Seriously, I can't even begin to stress how gigantically huge this discovery is. If it pans out fully, our entire perception of the world will by systematically changed.

But let me back up and try to explain this to you. (You can find the source article here.)

• The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed.

  In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe.

There was an awesome (though Mulderless) episode of The X Files in Season 9 called "4D" that addressed this very issue; in many ways, it confused the fuck out of fans, simply because it's incredibly difficult to think about our world in this way.

The episode centered around a man who could simply travel in between parallel universes. In one, he was a meek and shy mother's boy. In another, he was a ruthless killer and a psychopath. Obviously, the writers took some physical and scientific liberties, but the basic science was there: At any given time, when any action occurs at the physical and subatomic level, the universe "splits" into all of the given possibilities.

Do you realize what this means?????

• A motorist who has a near miss, for instance, might feel relieved at his lucky escape. But in a parallel universe, another version of the same driver will have been killed. Yet another universe will see the motorist recover after treatment in hospital. The number of alternative scenarios is endless.

  It is a bizarre idea which has been dismissed as fanciful by many experts. But the new research from Oxford shows that it offers a mathematical answer to quantum conundrums that cannot be dismissed lightly - and suggests that Dr Everett, who was a Phd student at Princeton University when he came up with the theory, was on the right track.

  Commenting in New Scientist magazine, Dr Andy Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California at Davis, said: "This work will go down as one of the most important developments in the history of science."

Most assuredly. This could explain so many unexplained phenomenon that we experience in this universe: UFOs could be ships from parallel universes. Ghosts could come from another universe. People disappearing out of thin air could be attributed to this as well.

Ok, I'm certainly getting way ahead of myself. This is still just a proposed mathematical theory that explains a lot. But just imagine how amazing this would be!!!!!!

 

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

-- Mark Twain 

It is not as though I hate NASA, but I am disappointed in them. So much so, that it has gotten hard for me to say anything nice about the organization in recent years. Why am I disappointed? Well, I suppose that I, along with many others of my generation, expected that we would be much further along in space exploration by now. Please don’t misunderstand, I didn’t expect to have warp-drive up and running. Nothing quite that fancy. Still, a small lunar base, or better yet, a Mars colony that we could aspire to visit and or work at would have been nice. Was that asking too much? Apparently so, and from the looks of things, I will need to wait another 15 to 20 years before that reality comes true. It may seem like I don’t appreciate any of their past efforts, but that would be untrue, especially for those who gave their life to the program. But based on the collective results over the past few decades, I think it is time to be more realistic, and ask that NASA be shut down.

Closing down NASA should not end man’s endeavors in space though. In its place the private sector should be allowed to jump in and fill the void that has been congested by a government organization, all to willing to pooh-pooh any idea contradicting or challenging its monopoly on space exploration. Is that an unfair statement? In don’t think so. NASA’s condescending attitude made itself quite evident when they first rejected having the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, come on board the new space station. When I first heard about it, my thoughts were about the wonderful opportunity that was presenting itself. Then to hear about NASA’s opposition to the idea, well, it really got my blood boiling. Personally, if NASA was ever shut down, I would say it stems from the day they rejected the idea of the first space tourist. In my opinion that single act signed their death sentence. What they should have done was fully embrace the idea from the very beginning and develop it even further. But to do that, they would need to possess a vision of what future space exploration and development looks like. Clearly they lack any such vision, or if they do have it, it’s buried under layers of bureaucracy. That of course should not be any surprise for what has become a stodgy government organization.

Current plans for a Moon base seem to prove that things have not really improved all that much. Now here is where I contradict myself above. Going to the Moon is for the most part a waste of time. There are no valuable resources on the Moon worth getting at, and the cold vacuum on the surface makes it an exceedingly difficult place to do anything. To make any environment livable for humans on the Moon, one must engineer solutions that are almost identical to living in empty space. You can for the most part stay on the space station in my opinion and get the same results. Yes, you could say that being on a planetary body is a little different than simply living in space. True, but to what end? Certainly going to the bathroom is easier when assisted by gravity. But one must ask why one needs to be on a planetary body like the Moon. Can we mine it for anything? Not for the most part, unless you count deuterium which is not quite in high demand yet. Can we terra-form it over time? No, that doesn’t seem possible either. Well, one could finally say that space tourism is possible.  However, if doing so made sense, then why not develop space tourism in low earth orbit, which should be infinitely simpler and cheaper? We need some kind of vision here, and one that is not a hallucination.

I do like the idea about going to Mars though. I am a big fan of Dr. Robert Zubrin. He has written some great books out on this topic, the best one being “The Case for Mars”. I support Zubrin’s ideas because he tries to find cheap and simple solutions for space exploration. This contradicts the typical big budget and complex projects that NASA tends to favor. However, even NASA has begun to listen to him, and I think his ideas on Mars exploration will be incorporated, at least to some degree, on the next manned mission. If you wonder why Mars is a better location to explore than the Moon, the answer is simple. It has an atmosphere. That alone makes it easier to work in because an atmosphere offers protection from the cold vacuum of space. In addition, the Mars atmosphere is mostly composed of carbon dioxide. When broken down, it can be used as a source of oxygen, which is always good to have. But better yet, if you find water on Mars (and lots of evidence says there is water on Mars), you now have hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, and with these three elements you can start making all kinds of essential stuff for man to survive on the red planet. When you think about it, having basic resources available is a big advantage because unlike the Moon, one is forced to bring everything with him. Mars is farther away than the Moon, but going a short distance to do absolutely nothing makes less sense than going a far distance where possibilities abound. Will NASA know how to take advantage of new possibilities on a planet like Mars? I really doubt that. Instead, it will be the private sector that figures out what and how to do things there.

Now to be fair, NASA is finally opening up to the idea that the private sector needs to be part of their planning in order for them to reach any of their goals. For NASA, it must be quite an epiphany. Too late in my opinion, but an epiphany nonetheless. I think it must be a sign that NASA sees their own demise at some distant point in the future. Like so many companies that fail to innovate, they now see that they must allow others to help and eventually take over the reins (joystick in this case), or their own existence will simply end. Frankly, I don’t think they want to invite the public sector to join them in space exploration, they simply have no alternative. I am also curious to see how things are going to progress. They are obviously experimenting with ideas on private sector cooperation that range from prize money, to more standard looking contractor bidding models. I very much favor prize money models like the X-prize. However, the prize money model may be too liberal an idea for a governmental organization to accept, so I would expect them to favor something else.

.It is high time that we consider shutting NASA down, or bring forth a new organization that accepts the deep involvement of the private sector in a fundamental way. NASA has completely lost touch with their real mission. It is not simply to explore space. It is to explore and develop space on behalf of mankind. And we need to promote space travel more than any time in our history. If you haven’t noticed, pollution, global warming, and population density all indicate that we have pushed this planet to its limit. We need to give humanity more room, which can only be accomplished by moving off planet to places like Mars. It is inevitable, and will be accomplished in future generations, sadly, if not my own.