The Lake by L.S. Lowry

Accelerating down the 401. A road with a claim to fame, the busiest highway in North America. A claim readily seen. Cruising north-northeast, passengers enter heated debate. The driver maintains course but gets dragged in as industrial landscapes zoom by. The greater Toronto hellscape. The 401, a modern-day river Styx. It was there, on the event horizon of bickering, the point of space travel was discussed. Detrimentally, our two camps on the matter were far apart yet in the same car.

“You cannot deny the natural wonder and marvel of space! The progress we, mankind, will make by breaching this modern[-cum-futuristic] frontier, to unravel the mysteries unknown”. 

The other side was entrenched in capitalist critique, “Wouldn’t the drive of capital, hmm rather, the syphoning of value, or worse—a techno-feudal imprint, subsume any and all natural-given wonder to be had? Wouldn’t humanity’s ‘progress’ feel much the same for society at large in the absence of cultural change? When is enough, enough?”.

As with many over-passionate discussions, my memory of it both heightens and dulls the viewpoints exchanged. In lieu of lucidity, that may have never existed, there is just feeling: hazy and ill-defined frustrations, righteousness and misbegotten triumph all dulled yet stronger. Pixels of memory, somewhat lurid and colour bled together, reduced and unified.

The earnest, non-duplicitous dream of space is heady. It goes over my head. I cannot deny the potential of fictions that rouse intergalactic dreams: from classic sci-fi media, and any derivatives accordant or regressive thereafter. These fictions fuel hopes and desires on something referred to as “progress”, a progress unforeseeable in the lifetimes of said dreamers.

Why rain on the space parade? Oh lord!

Amidst all the bunting, through which a dream is sold, the present reality of space exploration might be rather mundane in so much as it seems to not impact everyday life. And if it were to, to an unordinary extent, you probably need not worry

Admittedly, admittedly, denying possibility, denies curiosity. I am not against research furthering the space frontier. Just exosphere, fever dreams held as a beacon of progress, or the clammy business people enacting space-fantasist sermons. Consideration of scale is helpful to deflate some of these marketing dreams: whether it be time, distance, or the number of people.

To me, dreams of space are often attached to nation and economy. Can you feel the acceleration? It’s on the right. The inflection point may seemingly be when you’ve jumped on the space shuttle or you no longer exist. The economy is fighting for you in the war of progress. You will wish you were gone but need not waste time on being forgotten.