Fine Structure

by qntm

The Astronomer's Loss "For the future," says the astronomer. "Humanity always needs challenges, horizons, adversity, to be constantly striving for the future. We had plans for the future. We went to the Moon and we were going to found a colony there. We were going to go to Mars, and found a colony there too. We were going to colonise Europa, and Titan, and maybe others. We were going to capture and mine the asteroids, build space elevators, build ark ships and go to other star systems. We need space... so that we can study, and learn more about the universe and discover new science. We could be like you, flying faster than light-- we know it's possible now! We could gain that much power. If you only gave us the time. We could colonise the galaxy and the universe." "But you haven't." The astronomer lowers his gaze from the growing ink blot in the sky and looks towards the horizon. Bright city lights. "To survive," he says. "One world cannot protect us forever. Humanity is vulnerable, living on a single unprotected rock. We need to be insured in case of asteroid impacts, or gamma ray bursts from space. We need to diversify genetically, to adapt to new environments and live on new worlds and look at the universe through new eyes. There's no other way to survive. You're taking away billions of years of potential future." "No, we aren't." He tries to stop shaking. "We need... something to shoot for. It's the only reason we ever built anything. It's the only reason we have mathe...