On a dreamy midsummer’s night, you’re out in the countryside. Man-made radiance, the source of urban life, is nonexistent here. It is only you, the earth below and the vastness and mystery of the twinkling void above ‘ space. Space is everything between us and the sparkling stars that we take for granted, including all that is between and beyond those stars. Of course, we cannot yet pinpoint the boundaries of the universe. Even though you are standing somewhere in a secluded, open field and can look up to see the sky ablaze with blinking white light, most of space is empty. Essentially, space lacks a dense atmosphere unlike the one we have on Earth. This means that space is a vacuum, where no sound can be made or heard and likewise there is no night or day.

Approximately 8.5 percent of all U.S. tax payers’ dollars are allocated to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) annually. Their mission (taken from their Web site) ‘ ‘ to conduct research to counteract the harmful events of space on human health, test new space technologies and learn to operate long-duration space missions.’ Now the question to ask is this: Does this statement reflect the wishes of the majority of the American public? What do we want from that mysterious and inconceivable dark mass that encompasses us and all that exists? Judging from our happily apathetic, pop culture-numbed mindsets, we don’t give a shit. As far as we’re concerned, we exist here on Earth, and that is enough. Oh yeah, we sure do notice the big yellow ball in the sky that hurts when you look at it, and hear stuff on ‘Fox News’ about more camera robots landing on Mars or Neptune or wherever. In spite of this, we sure as hell don’t take the time to actually think that in comparison to the powerful and overwhelming scale of the universe, our solar system is smaller than one nanometer (one-billionth of a millimeter).

My point? Whatever is out there beyond our 200-kilometer-thick atmosphere is almost endless (in theory). There is so much (too much, in fact) left to explore, analyze, discover and use and apply. This includes so many possibilities, like the theory of parallel universes, which could lead to the possibility of equivalent life time lines, time travel and the key to unlocking the real meaning of time itself. NASA needs to probe further and utilize far more advanced technology and equipment if it is ever to indeed determine this never-ending quest to uncover the universe’s long-held secrets, which in turn would assist us in discerning the real gist of why we, as human individuals, are a part of the immense vastness.

For all intents and purposes, NASA may only do this with increased government spending on science and research laboratories, rather than on wars that surpass insignificance and stupidity; or on up-and-coming ‘Second World’ countries who are all probably conjuring ways to dethrone the most powerful and considerable nation in an actually not-so-major and minute world.