Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Reflections from the Moon and Sea

In thinking about what we talked about in class regarding the idea of the moon as a perfect form of frontier I think it interesting to consider the way that we as people of earth continue to look for new methods of expansion but are sometimes unable to look at what could be right in front of us, the ocean. I was thinking about this a little based on the opening credits to Star Trek when Picard claims Space as the final frontier but I don't believe it is. I am drawn to all of the quotes which I cannot remember where I have heard them about how we as people and as a scientific community understand more about space then we do about the oceans on our own planet. Maybe this is because we are prone to looking up rather than down, and seeing potential in the light of the stars rather than the abyss of the deep, but it seems to me that in today's world the "final" and ideal frontier is not space but the oceans of our world.

2 comments:

Liz said...

I was thinking the same thing about the "final" frontier. I think the reason why we look to space as the final frontier is because science has proven it is larger than our minds can comprehend while the oceans do come to an end towards the center of the Earth. Along those lines, space could be the final frontier because it is nearly impossible for us to fill it up . We will keep working towards better technology so we can get further and further into space.

Rinske said...

And also, in some aspects, space seems just as easy (or hard) to physically go to as the depths of the ocean. Nor does the ocean seem to have the ability to capture the imagination as space. While exploring the ocean is actually more practical and would actually prove very useful, space has the imagination as well because most believe that if there were ever anything exceedingly interesting we would already know about it, especially if there was some kind of intellegant life down there. Furthermore, the sea and ocean has always have the concrete ability to hurt people, while humans have always looked up to the stars and had nothing physical to fear.