Friday, November 2, 2018

Week 10 Mars

"Points of Origin" was fun, especially from an astronomical perspective.  It looked at human expansion within our solar system (referred to in many SF works as "the Sol System"), and it didn't just stop at Mars or Pluto, it went all the way out to the Oort Cloud.  I really like the idea of that.  Humanity hasn't gone to other star systems at this point, but we've gone literally everywhere of note in the entire Sol System.  We didn't just stop at Mars and call it a day, then move on to Alpha Centauri, we went to Europa, Titan, anywhere we could stand, and even places we could not.

It's cool thinking about just how recently we actually had our first (and so far only) man made object pass the farthest reaches of our star system with the Voyager probes.  I believe that was back in 2012 this happened?  One of the neatest parts about this is how in the game Elite: Dangerous, players have actually tracked down the probes, and you can listen to the Golden Record.

I do want to know more about the culture of people who live in the Oort Cloud.  I assume these small modular ships meet up often and families "interact" for some genetic diversity, which is essential in a community like that.  I know the Quarians of Mass Effect do something very similar with their Migrant Fleet.

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