In another dimension I work for Nasa
In a dark room of screens and stars.
When Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton tried to go to the moon in 1995, or when Jodi Foster travelled in a wormhole in 1997, some part of me realized I wanted to go too. To the moon. Through a wormhole. Into space.
But I also wanted to be Ed Harris in the control room, or out in the fields, nestled between headphones, listening to the great expanse of universe and believing that I’d make contact.
Image credit: Warner Brothers Studios, Movie: Contact, Director Robert Zemeckis, Actress: Jodie Foster, 1997
Image credit: Universal Studios, Movie: Apollo 13,Director Ron Howard, Actor: Ed Harris, 1995
It was the problem solving maybe that the 90s conveyed, that strangely magical union between science and imagination.
I remember the scene above really making an impact on me. It seemed impossible for scientists on the ground to save the astronauts on Apollo 13; they needed to build an air filter fast because the astronauts were in a smaller space than they had planned on because of the explosion that occured. The carbon dixoide they were breathing out was taking over, slowly killing them, and needed to be dealt with. They did not have the right tools and therefore needed to use what they had. The wonder of all of this to me was that the team on earth had all of the exact supplies Apollo 13 did in space. So they worked together, built a new filter, and sent instructions up to the spacecraft. (The beauty of that elegant planning!) For anyone interested, heres how they did it in real life. Spoiler: those scientists figured it out!
Who doesn’t want their job to be finding impossible solutions to impossible problems, only to somehow find possibility? If you work the problem long enough, you’ll discover something totally new. Trust in a totally ridiculous concept. Something so far fetched that people will laugh at you. Like- the world being round, or airplanes.
Or even- the internet.
The idea that science disproves the existence of “god” however you view that concept has always thrown me, since science itself is an act of faith.
Nothing makes sense, until it does.
That being said these films absolutely entranced me, and still do. I watch them, on rotation, throughout the year, sometimes over and over again. More recently, I added The Martian and Interstellar to that list. The best part is, as the years have progressed, we have figured out more about space and therefore the films have more information we never had before about time, wormholes, space travel, and living on other planets. Information that is closer to truth, rather than fiction.
Such as a more clear vision of what a wormhole would look like:
Photo credit: This Article- which is very much worth a read.
Lately I’ve fixated on The Martian and find myself falling asleep to the quiet and endless expanse of being the only human on Mars contrasted with the soft buzzing of NASA scientists on earth working tirelessly to get Marc Watley home before he dies.
(Image credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Movie: The Martian, Actors: Matt Damon, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mackenzie Davis, 2015
The endless hope of the impossible, the clicking of computer keys and indecipherable mathematical equations deducing intercept times and growing plants on a planet with no rain, or breathable air.
I see myself arriving to work, my NASA card around my neck, glasses pushed up on my head, a clicking ballpoint pen in my pocket. I’m wearing some kind of brown leather shoe and something plaid. I crunch the numbers and take a sip of coffee. (Because in this timeline I can drink coffee. Because in this timeline, I can actually “crunch” numbers and understand them).
There it is, the wormhole. I work with my team and we discover the aliens, arriving, in peace, on the horizon.
It may also be about the idea these movies all conveyed for me. The idea that aliens were either incredibly and unequivocally good, or that they were evolved versions of ourselves. The idea that we are part of something immense and wondrous. That notion that all the Star Trek movies convey, an interdimensional community of beings, living in the vast bigness of space.
The idea that time is a thing that can change. The idea that time isn’t what we thought.
I want to be a part of this space community, day dreaming my crazy ideas into reality. Artists in some ways ARE scientists, scientists of feeling, scientists of illusion. But we also tap into ideas that maybe more linear thinking folks overlook. The discoveries of the past and the ones that will happen in the future are because of this joining of the minds; theory and fact- the ability to think of something strange- and to still believe in it.
And so perhaps this new year will, for me, be spent in the curved and wonderous cave of the movies of my most epic and heartening imaginings. Not a disasterous apocolypse and dousing of the light of learning, but the opposite.
A team of scientists, the verge of an answer, gathered round the glowing light of computer screens.
In another dimension I work for NASA. And this is her vision of the future.
Note: In the new year I am offering a 15% off coupon in my art print shop for anyone upgrading to a paid subscription here. I won’t ever be creating a paywall, but your support would be much appreciated as I build my future. The coupon will arrive in your confirmation email upon upgrading and will have a code provided. If you click on the coupon link, it will take you to my print shop if you should be curious.
