It is truly amazing, when you think about how much we have truly progressed over the course of many centuries, or even decades.
Think about it: a little over one century ago, we were still in the infant stages of flight. The Wright brothers managed to successfully engineer the first airplane in the early 1900’s. It was still very much in it’s infancy during World War I, and the first successful trans-Atlantic flights were completed in the interwar years, with Charles Lindbergh. By the Second World War, airplanes were much more commonly in use, and obviously, much more advanced.
In the postwar years, obviously, the technology grew more advanced still. Just a few years after the end of the war, Chuck Yeager proved that we could safely break the sound barrier. Jets grew more advanced. In time, came satellites that humans successfully sent up into space, beginning with Sputnik. Before long, we began to have flights manned with animals and, eventually, people. Then in 1969, the United States enjoyed the huge distinction as the first country to successfully put a man on the moon and, as Kennedy had predicted, safely return them back to Earth.
Since then, our abilities have only increased, and done so dramatically. Today, we have sent rovers as far out as Pluto. We have incredibly advanced telescopes that seem to allow new planets to be discovered on a seemingly consistent basis. And we also have what I feel is the crowning achievement, at least to this point: the International Space Station, which has been up in space now for ever two full decades.
When you think about how quickly we have advanced – and this is just with flight and space exploration – it frankly boggles the imagination. We have, in fact, made similar advances in other areas, including medicine and technological innovations. Most of us have access to the internet on increasingly smaller computers and cell phones, which means that many of us have access to it in devices that gives us a measure of access to people and institutions all around the world, all at the touch of a button, quite literally. Now, I will not expand on what far too many among us use it for, or how disinformation, in particular, seems to be flourishing on the internet, which has made this world seemingly go backwards while our technological advances have been undeniably impressive.
Again, it seems ingrained within us as human societies that we have huge achievements side by side with sobering reminders of just how limited, and often paradoxically bureaucratically barbaric, we truly are.
But I digress.
Yesterday, there was huge news in the area of science and astronomy, as NASA's Perseverance rover to Mars transmitted the first ever audio recordings from the surface of Mars. We have seen pictures now of the surface, but now, we actually can hear what it sounds like, to boot.
Simply amazing.
Also recently, it was discovered that Mars actually has gravitational waves are growing stronger, which will make possible human settlement – a topic that has been discussed quite a bit in recent years – much more difficult.
In any case, this is something that absolutely fascinated me, and I would hardly think myself alone in that regard. Again, space exploration has always intrigued me, even if I struggle to try and comprehend the science behind it. Frankly, I wish to know and understand more, but at least we have news bits like these, that allow us to glimpse the product of these advances, and to learn more about faraway planets and solar systems and such.
And so, if you, like me, are interested in learning more about this, please click on the link to the article below from NBC News. If you click on it, you will be able to learn more about this, as well as access a link where you can hear the recorded audio clips taken from the surface of Mars, for the first time in human history.
NASA rover beams back first sounds ever recorded from the surface of Mars by Denise Chow, February 22, 2021:
The audio clips captured the guttural sounds of wind gusting on the red planet.
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