space... the final frontier

i wasn't planning on being here (in blogland) tonight. a 12 hour work day will do that to you. i was just gonna check out CNN's website and veg on the couch, maybe turn the TV back on. then i came across this picture, from march 30. it is the russian designed and built suyuz spacecraft. i assume this picture was taken from the international space station. it had to be moved to make room for another one that would arrive soon (april 9). i assume this was taken from a camera that is part of the ISS, because the article stated all three inhabitants of the ISS piled in the soyuz (that i assume is the emergency ride home) and moved it 80 feet to another docking port. why the soon to be arriving soyuz could only use the already occupied docking port was not mentioned. the short sojourn lasted 25 minutes. the one event relating to this story that has not yet occurred, the return to earth of one of the vessels on april 20. which soyuz will return was not specified. the occupants were. two of the three astronaut on board prior to april 9, plus the space tourist who arrived on the 9th. the cost of a 11 day spacetrip, $20 million dollars.

the best part was the picture, which captivated me immediately: no matter how i look at the picture, i see two faces on the suyuz craft. i am also reminded of space ghost.

it also made me think about the future of spaceflight. one day, the ISS might be akin to the outrigger canoes the polynesians used to travel the seas. outrigger canoes, wooden sail ships, ocean liners, aircraft carriers. the ISS is an orbit around earth, and technically not going anywhere. just in circles, like NASCAR. but living in space isn't our goal. our goal is to visit planets and moons. then off to stars. so we can search out other earths in the milky way. once we achieved that, then comes intergalactic travel. as amazing as galactic travel would be, achieving intergalactic travel will take an even more amazing leap in technology / knowledge. i always used to like the analogy of sea travel to compare to space travel. for the first time tonight, it is an analogy of spirit / attitude. the human desire to travel, to explore, to push our boundaries, to persevere over hardships that come about in such pursuits.