Episode 12: THE WORLD SET FREE
in Earth’s history and choose to intervene. The Paris
Exposition of 1878 is a major part of this story as Augustin
Mouchot adapts his solar concentrator dish to printing
presses and ice-making machines. In similar fashion,
Frank Shuman exhibits his own irrigation
machine in the Egyptian desert, powered
by the Sun. And we visit Albert Einstein and
Mileva Maric diligently working to solve the
photo-electric effect. This is the key to all
solar technologies.
And yet we have failed to listen to the story
of science. It was science that heralded our
technological age of advancements and
enabled the impossible to become possible.
We remember how, as Neil pilots our Ship of
the Imagination in chase of the legendary
Apollo 8 mission, on a date with destiny at the Moon.
Should we wake up from our slumber we will
have a far superior world and e xistence for us and
our progeny. Neil takes us on a dazzling ride to the
resplendent future that is at our fingertips.
Image: Richard Foreman, Jr./FOX
A serene beach, a perfect day, but this is not our
home. Welcome to Venus, but not as we know it, for
this is Venus of old. Over time a runaway greenhouse
effect inflicts mayhem on the planet’s ecology, boiling
off its great oceans, creating immense
surface pressures 92 times that of Earth, and
turning the sky into a poisonous fume.
Safe inside our Ship of the Imagination, we
survey this hellish wasteland before Neil flies
us back to Earth to scale a huge structure
built by a small life form. England’s White
Cliffs of Dover are seen as precious vaults of
carbon.
Charles David Keeling reveals the
Earth as one living breathing sphere. One
breath happens annually. We examine the
changing nature of Earth’s atmosphere, our effect on
it and explore the ramifications of global warming.
We look back at the long story of global warming
and developing alternative energies as a remedy.
Taking Our Ship through time we view critical points
“Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers
still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean.
We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.”
– Carl Sagan, “Cosmos”
Episode 13: UNAFRAID OF THE DARK
On our voyages through space and time we have
journeyed from the heart of an atom to the observable
cosmic horizon, from the dawn of time itself to a future
far far away. Now we are ready for an experiment. If
thought through and performed correctly the grand
understanding of our Cosmos is the ultimate reward.
In the 15th century, Martin Behaim created the first
mapped globe of our world, months before Christopher
Columbus set sail for Asia, but discovered the New
World. Behaim’s understanding of his then incomplete
Earth was far more than our understanding of the
Cosmos now. We take to the skies in Viktor Hess’ hot air
balloon and uncover the unknown cosmic rays. We visit
the great Egyptian Library of Alexandria, a repository
and magnet for the world’s knowledge. Boarding
our Ship of the Imagination for a final time we meet
the crazy conundrum that is Fritz Zwicky, forecaster of
supernovas, neutron stars, gravitational lensing and the
mysterious dark matter.
It is dark matter’s existence that is proving most elusive.
The fearless Vera Rubin solved the mystery in the 1950’s
with her unique view. She looked at the stars anew and
realised they were just foam on the crest of the wave;
the true ocean was still out there and still unknown. All
that we know, all that we think we know, a hundred
billion galaxies, their innumerable stars, planets, moons
– add them up and in all of human history we only have
found a mere 4% of the unknown…
So much is still out there, and the vastness of this
humbles us. It gives us much needed perspective that
is absent from other human endeavours. Yet we have
always been curious explorers, and the rich mysteries
that call for our attention cannot be ignored. There is
a hidden force in the universe that overwhelms gravity
and is pushing the Cosmos apart. We cannot see it, but
we know it is there waiting to be found.
Of all of our explorations, only two robotic ambassadors
from Earth, Voyager 1 and 2 have travelled the vast
distances to reach the cosmic shoreline at the ocean
of interstellar space. The Voyagers transformed our
understanding of astronomy with their epic travelogues
from the depths of our Solar System. Yet perhaps their
greatest gift was a simple one; an image of Earth
from beyond Saturn, a Pale Blue Dot. Carl Sagan’s
legacy from the Voyager missions was this hard won
image, an image which reframes our species’ cosmic
consciousness. Our signature messages on the Voyager
Interstellar Golden Record will live on a billion years
from now in a galaxy of untold possibilities.
As we come to the end of our “Spacetime Odyssey,”
we look back on the philosophy of science and how it
is an uplifting and spiritual experience for all.
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