To Be Taught, If Fortunate

by Becky Chambers

We wrapped our brains around algorithms, trying to create artificial intelligence that could venture to other worlds for us. But our machines were inadequate, and our software never woke up.

Have you ever been in a place where history becomes tangible? Where you stand motionless, feeling time and importance press around you, press into you?

but the lights came back before I located myself.

We celebrate the tree that stretches to the sky, but it is the ground we should ultimately thank.

At some point, you have to accept the fact that any movement creates waves, and the only other option is to lie still and learn nothing.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’. It’s often misused, operating on the false interpretation that fit means physically fit, therefore expressing a dog-eat-dog ethos. The strongest wins the day. But that’s not what Darwin meant, not at all. He meant most suited to, as in, the creatures most suited to – or most fit for – a specific environment are the ones with the best chance of passing on their genes.

I think, to answer the question I asked myself on Opera, a home can only exist in a moment. Something both found and made. Always temporary, in the grand scheme of things, but vital all the same.

What we want you to ask yourselves is this: what is space, to you? Is it a playground? A quarry? A flagpole? A classroom? A temple? Who do you believe should go, and for what purpose? Or should we go at all? Is the realm above the clouds immaterial to you, so long as satellites send messages and rocks don’t fall? Is human spaceflight a fool’s errand, a rich man’s fantasy, an unacceptable waste of life and metal? Are our methods grotesque to you, our ethics untenable? Are our hopes outdated? When I tell you of our life out here, do you cheer for us, or do you scoff? Are astronauts still relevant in your time?

We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship – to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate.

So, while I have no illusions about the challenges at hand or the tenacity of short-sighted thinking or the cost of us steering things wrong, I’m going to stick with hope, because we still have time to choose. The end hasn’t been written yet.