Space

I volunteer as a science teacher in the local schools as I believe that it is important to give back to the community. When I first arrived in Canada decades ago, I had to take a placement exam at the international school to determine which grade I was supposed to be enrolled as the students came from all over the world, some with better education and some not so fortunate. I remember thinking that the exam was extremely easy for the most part and not surprisingly, I was placed at pre-university grade for that province. I skipped a couple of years as a result of that and was placed at the university here eight months after I landed in Canada.

Here's the thing: I'm not really all that bright. I'm not dumb either but I'm certainly not a genius by any stretch of the imagination. If I placed that high in the placement exam, something was very wrong with the Canadian syllabus at the time. Fast forward to the present, I'm now teaching in the schools every now and then as part of my volunteer work. Before I teach a class, I always discuss with the teacher about what she expects from my presentation. Some of the good ones are very directed: "I'd like you to teach about the solar system as we've just completed the unit on it". Some are less directed: "I'd like you to teach about astronomy. Anything will do, we're just looking for something beyond the textbooks". Those two I can deal with, quite happily so in fact. No, the ones I don't like are those who go, "You've an hour, teach whatever you want". I get the impression that I could go in there and chat about Cthulhu for an hour and the teacher will be none the wiser. Fortunately, I don't encounter those teachers very often. Most of the teachers I work with are genuinely interested in helping their students get motivated about science. It shows when I teach the class - they're attentive, inquisitive and...bratty. I can deal with bratty. Bratty means they're thinking and paying attention. The classes I'm not very fond of teaching are those where the students are completely apathetic and aren't interested at all in the subject matter. I've had a few of those too.

Which is why these days I always start my presentation with a short video clip of killer asteroids slamming into a planet. That usually gets their attention and things go a lot smoother when they're awake.

This brings me to my point today: one of the top questions I get asked by the kids have always been, "Have you been to space?" The question is normally posed with wide-eyed wonder. Have I been to space? No, I've never been to space. Nor will I ever reach space in my lifetime. It used to be that you could only get to space if you worked for one of the space agencies as an astronaut. Nowadays, you can prepay for a seat on a suborbital craft and go into space in a few more years. But I can't. I've had enough damage to my body now that I can't even ride most rollercoasters, let alone survive the G-stresses of a launch. It never used to bother me. For whatever reason, it's bothering me a lot tonight.

Back when I was younger and believed I could do anything, one of my fleeting, juvenile wishes was for my remains to be launched out into space. Of course, that's never going to happen as the cost is simply prohibitive and one needs to get governmental clearance before doing anything like that. I remember wanting to do that not because it was a cool thing to do but because I wanted to travel through the endless void out there. The logic (such as it was) was that even though I'd be long dead, at least I'd still be out there in space.

I'll never leave this rock, not while there still is a rock. The bits of me after I'm dead will remain here, somewhere, waiting for the time when the Sun swallows the Earth as it becomes a red giant. The Sun will consume the Earth's mantle at the very least. As the Bits-That-Were-Me will be somewhere near the surface, at some point about 5 billion years in the future, I'll become a part of the Sun. Everyone living now will be a part of the Sun too, as will everyone and everything that has lived on this planet pre-spaceflight. So, it's not a very unique fate that I'll be heading towards.

Every single heavy element like gold has been formed in the heat and pressures of a supernova. Every particle, without exception. As there are heavy elements here on Earth, somewhere along the line a long time ago, the entire planet was formed from the dead remains of a star. If life began, natively, on Earth (or even somewhere in the solar system) then we are made of starstuff. And we will return to being starstuff about 5 billion years from now. Beautiful symmetry, yes?

There will be parts of me, albeit changed into radiation or massless particles that will eventually travel through space as emissions from the red giant our Sun is going to turn into. I'd be long dead but it is of some small comfort that yes, I will eventually travel through space.

This is a morbid subject and as you can tell I way overanalyse things these days. I really wish this bleeping insomnia would go away as it's driving me batty. :(