Chazzbot II

Now at the outset of the next 50 years of space exploration, I contemplate the extraordinary imagery beaming down from the Hubble Space Telescope: distant nebulas and galaxies (and the confirmation of the existence of an organic compound in the atmosphere of a planet in a near-by star system), Cassini’s exploration of Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus for water, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s discovery of water deposited clay in a dry lake bed, and Messenger’s first flyby of Mercury since Mariner 10.

As a result, I am drawn to the visual possibilities that will originate from both robotic spacecraft and human spaceflight. So it is reasonable for me to postulate what still photographic images may be reasonable candidates for “iconic” during the next 50 year cycle, among them:

• first discernable image of a water planet—with evidence of oceans, clouds, continents—in another solar system

• first image of alien life forms either alive or in fossil form

• first image capturing the earliest light of the universe just after the “Big Bang”

• Jupiter and some of its moons as seen from the surface of Europa

• first panoramic image from the surface of Europa illuminated by the reflected light of Jupiter, not the Sun

•Saturn and its rings as (possibly) seen from the surface of Titan

I don’t believe in fetishizing formats. Vinyl, cassette, MP3, CD. Same thing with books: the scent and texture of certain kinds of paper can almost make me faint with happiness, but the important thing is the text. How it gets to you is much less important.

That said, records make me happy. Their vulnerability makes me so, their limitation. Forty minutes, twenty per side, their chipping, their popping, the way their sleeves wear and erode and start to show the shapes, the scuffed corona of the record inside. I dig frailty. It’s not nostalgia that makes me respond to vinyl, it’s mortality and specificity. I put a record on the turntable, I listen harder, I commit a little bit more than I do to digital formats. The question isn’t whether in collecting records, the music thus “belongs to me.” It’s the opposite: with a record, I belong that little bit more to it.

Since 1972, no human has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit, a situation that makes one imagine what things might be like if, after Lindbergh’s flight, the species had contentedly gone back to making do with boats and trains…

[There have been s]pectacular unmanned probes on the order of Galileo and Cassini, yes; but where manned spaceflight is concerned, NASA currently continues on the same irresolute and unimaginative road it has traveled since Richard Nixon’s last years in the White House. The Eagle, Armstrong and Aldrin’s delicate landing craft, returned the two astronauts to Apollo 11’s command module on July 21, 1969. The springy little machine, having done its job, was then cut loose. It fell back into lunar orbit and eventually to the moon’s surface. To this day, no one knows exactly where it is.