Preparing for the Final Frontier

Alpha Centauri A and B

Proxima is inside the red circle

Image By Skatebiker at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46833562

Copyright © 2016

by Ralph F. Couey

Except cited portions

On September15, 1965, the CBS television network debuted a new science fiction show entitled “Lost in Space.”  The Irwin Allen production followed the adventures of the Robinson family who were being sent on an interstellar mission to find a new place for an over-populated earth to call home.  The show was known far more for its campy style than anything else.  The main character became, not the Robinson’s, but the evil conniving Dr. Zachary Smith, who had snuck aboard as a foreign agent to sabotage the mission, but managed to get stuck there when the ship took off.  He was certainly the most buffoonish foreign agent ever, in addition to being a sniveling coward of the first order, and the episodes mainly revolved around Smith doing foolish things to get the Robinson’s in trouble.  It was not intellectual by any stretch, but managed to stay on the air for three seasons before being canceled, according to statements by cast and crew, due to declining ratings and increasing costs.

So what, you may ask.  Well, the destination for the Robinsons and their saucer-shaped Jupiter 2 spacecraft was Alpha Centauri, long known to be the closest star to our own solar system, about 4.2 light years away. According to the plot, there was a planet there that could support human life and it was the Robinson’s mission to survey the planet and report back.

As it has turned out, Irwin Allen seems to have been a prophet.

15 Years: Remembrance and Reflection*

Some of the victims.

Attribution not listed

Copyright © 2016

By Ralph F. Couey


*Johnstown, PA Tribune-Democrat  Sept. 10, 2016

15 years.

For some, it seems a lifetime ago; for others, it was just yesterday.

History is marked by watershed events, a moment in time when the world was changed forever.  The terror attacks of September 11, 2001 were just such a moment.  People describe two worlds, one before 9/11, the other post-9/11.  Our lives, whatever they were the day before, have never been the same.

Terrorist attacks were nothing new.  They had been active for decades, filling the evening newcasts with video of violent death and destruction.  But those attacks had always occurred elsewhere.  Belfast, Beirut, Bogota, and other places, always far away.  But never here; never on our soil.

We had been lulled into a false sense of security, content to live out our lives, safe behind the barriers of our two oceans.

Historian Roberta Wohlstetter in her book "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision" described the paralyzing malaise of thought and delusion present before December 7th as "...an unwarranted feeling of immunity from attack."  That statement would apply in June 1950 when the North Koreans stormed south, and again later that year when the Chinese entered the war.

Then came 9/11.

So little do we seem to learn from our own history.

DNA and the Human Journey

Copyright © 2016

by Ralph F. Couey

In recent years, I have developed a growing interest in the history of my family.  Not just the last couple generations, but going back a couple of millennia.  Through some basic research, I had decided that our family was primarily from France, sparking a visit to the remains of the de Coucy castle in northeast France last summer.  After Louis XIV outlawed Protestantism, my progenitors emigrated to County Antrim in what is now Northern Ireland for a century or so, before finally arriving in South Carolina in the 17th century.  Now, with DNA analysis available to the general public, people are able to trace back even further with greater depth.

Out of all the choices out there, I decided to go with National Geographic's Genographic project.  There are others, Ancestry, 23Me for example, but NG has a sort of cachet with me, after growing up with their magazine.

I went online and ordered the kit, paying a reduced price as they were holding a sale at the time.  It arrived about a week later.  Inside the attractive box was instructional paperwork, two swabs, and two containers.  Following the directions carefully, I swabbed the insides of my mouth and dropped the cotton tips into the two containers which I then sealed.  The two containers went into a padded envelope along with a card containing a code which would be used to identify the samples.  That same code was printed in three different places inside the box, for obvious reasons.  Lose the code, and you have no way of tracking the results. 

I went back online and registered, using the code.  I then sat back and waited.  This process takes a long time.  I sent the samples around May 23rd.  I went online occasionally to track the process.  NG acknowledged receiving the samples, and when they had gleaned the DNA samples and applied them to their database.  Finally, around July 21st, I received an email informing me that the analysis was complete and I could read the results.

The Eternal Mystery of the Human Roller Coaster

“The heart is a strange beast and not ruled by logic.”

-- Maria V. Snyder

Copyright © 2016

by Ralph F. Couey

Except quoted and cited passages

 Science has made great strides in the past few decades in understanding human physiology and psychology. Diseases that once ravaged continents have been rendered harmless and even eradicated. Mental disorders that once would have condemned a person to a life sentence in an asylum are now treatable, and in some cases curable. But despite all that has been learned, the human being is still an indefatigable mystery.

The realm of emotion is one that continues to challenge understanding. Unlike other manifestations of the human condition, the study of emotion is not limited to a single discipline. Emotions and their attendant affects are being explored in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, medicine, history, sociology, and even art.

This particular musing crept up on me as I pondered our 38th wedding anniversary (thank you.). I like to humorously say to people, “It’s been 38 years and she hasn’t shot me yet, so it must be true love.” But I was thinking back to that moment in which I first laid eyes upon her. It was in a bowling alley. We were both members of a church league, although we hadn’t yet met. I stood up on the approach, taking that necessary look left and right before addressing the lane. As I looked to my right, about 20 lanes away, my eye was caught by a head of long, black, lustrous hair gleaming under the lights. Now this wasn’t the first girl I had ever seen, nor was it my first head of long hair. But in that moment, something in that sight flipped a switch in my heart. A week later, I asked her out and she said accepted, a rare thing for me on the first try. On our date, I hadn’t been with her more than 15 minutes before I knew without a doubt that she was The One.