Why I Get Depressed Whilst Watching 'Star Trek'

No, it's not because it's shit. In fact, I actually quite like Star Trek. It's ridiculous in many ways, but its an entertaining and fairly optimistic view of the future. You see, I get depressed not only because it's unlikely we'll ever be that unified as a planet, but because space is no longer a frontier anyone is interested in.

The truth is, space is bloody interesting. In fact, the origins of life will probably only be found by exploring space. To quote a popular science fiction show: "life here began out there". What depresses me is that we are no longer investing the money and efforts into exploring space. Quite simply, it is too expensive and too dangerous and not profitable enough. If we found an oil field on Mars then this would obviously change, but until such monetary horizons arise, we will be stuck on this planet with everyone else.

It's the figures that depress me the most. You just have to look through a telescope to understand the vastness of the universe. You look at the Andromeda Galaxy, that bright swirling mass in the sky and our nearest spiral galaxy... that's 2.2 million light years away. When we look at that galaxy, we are seeing the galaxy as it was before humans even walked on Earth. So even if we could travel at the speed of light -- which we can't -- then it would take 2.2 million light years to get there. So, even that massive concentration of stars and planets which undoubtedly has at least one planet capable of supporting life is too far away.

(Andromeda galaxy, courtesy of NASA)

Recently a planet of possible Earth-like properties was discovered in the Gliese 581 system, 20.5 light years away. Compared to the Andromeda Galaxy, that seems to be right on our doorstep but with our current technology it would take over 200 years to arrive at that system. So, it seems people have just given up on that too. And, even if we were to find a way to travel faster than light, we would also need to invent a computer capable of predicting the shift of the stars and the movements of interstellar bodies to make a 'jump' safe. In theory, using subspace or a form of teleportation would be (in the very, very distant future) possible. But to do so would require expedential amounts of energy and a quantum computer capable of performing calculations in different dimensions. So, we would have to invent a reactor, a teleporter (or subspace drive) and a computer to prevent the vessel from 'jumping' into the middle of a star. It all seems too much. Currently the focus seems to be back on the moon which we first set foot upon back in 1969 so why do we need to go back?.. Probably because it's far safer than aiming for Mars or anywhere else.

(Gliese 581c, illustration by Karen Wehrstein, courtesty of NASA)


My Dad is always saying how the people of the 60's and 70's thoroughly expected that we would have a moon base and be walking on Mars fighting Mysterons and sexing it up with green ladies by now but instead we're stuck on this world with more unemployed, more crime and less hope than ever before. Health and safety and greed has now restricted the world of scientific exploration and ground all hopes of exploring space to a near halt.

Yeah, we can't yet travel faster than light but why are we not trying to look at other methods of space travel? I'm not a physicist so I have no idea what other possibilities could be explored but from watching numerous Star Trek episodes I suspect that wormholes, quantum teleportation or subspace drives may be at least worth investing some time and effort in, even if we are doomed to faliure. Afterall, it was the space race that bought about things that have changed our life on Earth. The microchip, velcro and Captain Scarlet are just some examples of the precious things we would be without if it were not for the space race.

But what provoked the space race? Well, America wanted to get to the moon before Russia. It was basically an international pissing contest. Maybe if Russia or China or Craplakistan declared that they were going to try to reach Mars, someone would get off their arses and try and get there first. At the end of the day, we probably have to revert to childish reasons such as money and racing to motivate mankind to better itself.

Another depressing thought is that of international unification. In Star Trek everyone on Earth loves each other. It's like one big international hippy festival and not one person is excluded. But surely this idea will never exist? Well, in honesty it could, but probably not through hard work and peace treaties. I suspect it would only work through war. The only time nations unify to any degree is when they are at war or threatened with war. When people have foreginers to hate, they don't have time to hate each other. So, we would only find world peace if we were threatened by an alien species or if they had something that we wanted which was worth going to war for. We need to 'seek out new life and new civilisations'... and then kick the snot out of them.

If aliens visited us, it would be likely that war would ensue anyway. Either the Duke of Edinburgh would meet with them and call them 'little grey people' or we would simply destroy our intelligent appearance by simply saying the words, "God bless you for visiting us." To which the aliens would undoubtedly reply, "What is God?" The explanation of which would either cause a bout of laughing or instant conflict. In reality:

• ET would be captured and forced to become a star of low budget midget porn.
• The 'Close Encounters of The Third Kind' aliens would leave after having their melodic greeting turned into the new 'Crazy Frog' remix before being blasted back at them.
• The alien chick from Species would succumb to chlymidia or AIDs following her own 'close encounters' with truckers and chavs.
• The Roswell aliens would just crash and die again. They've invented interstellar drives but seatbelts are far beyond them.
• The Aliens from Independence Day would assume they'd already visited Earth and attacked after looking down on Birmingham, Stoke and Sheffield.

Taking into account the above, it's probably best that we don't explore space as much as we could. Mankind is simply too stupid and too scared of change to be trusted with meeting other species. But that doesn't stop me thinking about the possibilities if only governments would allow people to take risks, make gambles and spend their money on things that might one day better mankind. If nothing else, we may find a little bit of evidence that shows how we came to be and where we are going as a species.

And that is a truly exciting prospect.