Deep space. One of the larger shapes out there is murmuring, it is really huge. Now it becomes a choir, a choir of large shapes so many millions of miles away but right out there just above where we are now, murmuring sometimes, calling sometimes, very slow.
A zone of energetic charged particles
It started soon after I got on the wrong bus. They said we were going to the suburbs, and I fell asleep. I remember I had ticked the “Cryo” box. We were busy talking about recent UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel when I fell asleep. I only can wonder about it all. The distances to the next location, to the point of predictability, of fellowship with other living beings may be very great and indeed, as far as this galaxy is concerned, I was living somewhere in the sticks. That is what I was thinking about while I was bumping along on that old bus, before falling into that strange slow cold sleep. Now I am waking up. Harsh.
It is something like ten years later, and now I am just now surfacing after all that. Stiff, still cold but the view is magnificent! So much space out here. While I am adjusting to the time thing, I have been studying “The Mission” (7:44). Nobody is saying anything, I have not seen any other people here. It now is just me in the view-lounge so I can operate freely. Getting accustomed to the atmosphere, after waking up from the deep sleep I am sort of starting over again in my brain. I look out through the window and decided that I don’t really need to understand what the gigantic shapes out there are accomplishing, they just do what they do. They are so far away. I seem to remember that geomagnetic storms occasionally damage electronic components on our spacecraft.
Getting accustomed to the atmosphere ::
Given intelligent life’s ability to overcome scarcity, and its tendency to colonize new habitats, it seems possible that at least some civilizations would be technologically advanced, that they would probably seek out new resources in space, and colonize their own star system and, subsequently, surrounding star systems. Can you keep a secret about who will be coming for dinner?
The Sky Brothers are better company than I was expecting. I call them Sky Brothers because that is how they make me feel. This is in keeping with all the deep space stuff. Confidentially, I have never actually seen any of these Sky Brothers. Not once, really. I just know they are near. Nobody said what to call them, so I just made that up, Sky Brothers. I like that. Sounds good. Sorry. I just realized. All this has nothing to do with the music, so forget about the Sky Brothers.
Fear of the astro, that is me. “Astrophere” (5:51) takes the opening momentum and shifts further into the wilderness of darkness. On Earth it is sometimes called night, but what would we call darkness in outer space? Struggling, my thoughts are suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial beings are extremely rare, that the lifetime of such civilizations is short, or that they exist but for various reasons we humans see no evidence. So, night.
Slow. Now this spaceship is covering distances I never could have imagined, the scope of all that against what I have, or had, been accustomed to on that bus. I had been on the bus for two weeks traveling along the coast, it was good, looking at the ocean. I love the deep ocean. Now I am in deep space. Can I make the transfer? I mean mentally. One of the things I remember from my old science classes is that the radiation out here is a big problem. I wish I could remember some of that stuff now. The “Radiation Belt” (7:23) is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by, and held around, a planet, by that planet’s magnetosphere. The belts around the Earth trap energetic electrons and protons; similar radiation belts have been discovered around other planets. Solar cells, integrated circuits, and sensors can be damaged by radiation, and as always, it remains uncertain if there are any negative unintended consequences to moving these radiation belts.
Time is completely different now ::
Now I am a Cryonaut, I just thought of that. Maybe Cryonaut sounds more like something to do with a deep freeze than like being a no-cry baby. This baby was frozen, I am talking about me. Who else is there? Now I just live to experience being here.
Almost all radiation will be received while passing the inner belt. Now we are passing the “Lost Satellite” (5:01) first, there is the original problem, and then there are the afters. Right now the signals are strong but undecipherable. As I listen, the drama is heavy, thinking about how far we are from the next whatever. This must be like the Arecibo message. Here I have no place to go but I am lucky to be alive. I feel my potency. “Dead Astronaut” (4:42), okay, something went wrong, I am trying to move my arm or my feet or just my tongue, I am not getting any response, nothing… okay now what… Now it is slow. I am watching the gigantic objects out there moving around, I enjoy trying to figure out just what they are doing up there.
Time is completely different now and not at all like it was. “No More Communication” (4:51). Those decay time constants are called “lifetimes.” I think we have just left another realm, what is this new place going to be like? Now things are different again. I am trying to read this new place. Sort of a night feel to the atmosphere, more like I remember how night was on earth, that lonely sound. You could count on loneliness every time. Then it passes again. “Alone with the Abyss” (2:26) there are buzzing throbbing sparks out there, too far to count. Clearly the energy is rising. I am starting to wonder, the probability of earthlike planets, the probability of life given an earth, the probability of humans given life, the likely rise and duration of high technology, and so on. I do not know what is happening.
Of course I want to go home. Back home. I hear the wind screaming by the vent, there must be a solar storm somewhere in the spooky distance. I hope we make it through this. Time and again. Implications for space travel?
“A Thousand Light Years of Emptyness” (6:16) and maybe I hear a fog, a bell maybe by the water again? Always I return to the metaphor of the terrestrial ocean. Deep space. One of the larger shapes out there is murmuring, it is really huge. Now it becomes a choir, a choir of large shapes so many millions of miles away but right out there just above where we are now, murmuring sometimes, calling sometimes, very slow. I expect that the scale of the Sky Brothers is hard to get used to, we are so small and they might not even see us, but they are listening. Can you see that they have given me a sign, and only I can know it?
The discrepancy between the obvious mystical signs and the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life, this is the “Fermi Paradox” (6:44). The Fermi paradox is a conflict between the argument that scale and probability seem to favor intelligent life being common in the universe, and the total lack of evidence of intelligent life having ever arisen anywhere other than on Earth. Enrico Fermi lived on Earth from 1901–1954. This is about the absence of clear evidence for space aliens. Compared to the apparently high a priori likelihood of its existence, and after running out of fuel and all, well, we are expected to deorbit. I almost look forward to the change.
I am still out here, listening constantly. Sometimes I remember thinking about the bus where I fell asleep. The dark view is worth it all. What if…?
Immensity is available on Cryo Chamber. [Bandcamp]
