Douglas Adams May Not Have Gotten It Quite Right

Space is deep - so says Hawkwind (& L. Ron Hubbard)Hyper drives and worm holes not only distort space but also perceptions.  Take movies like Star Wars or shows like Star Trek, for example.  Need to get from Quadrant 42 to Earth?  Punch a button to make it so.  Yeah, it’s a great plot device, but it doesn’t make you stop to think about the reality of it all.  That’s one thing that strikes me whenever I’m reading one of Ben Bova’s Grand Tour books.  In Saturn, for instance, the whole plot takes place on the way THERE.  Those books made me really appreciate what Douglas Adams was getting at writes in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:  “Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."  For the longest time, “really big” pretty much summed up the size of it all for me, but now I'm not quite convinced he got it right.  

One night while I was perusing through Baen’s website, I came upon Les Johnson’s The Size of It All.  Please do yourself a favor and click on over to check it out.  Talk about a reality check.  After I read it, I just had to go out on the porch and look up.  

Wow, I thought.  Space is really, really, really big.

Comments

[Les Johnson]

Thanks for the kind words about my Baen article "The Size of it All." Ever since I was a kid and first looked at Saturn through a rickety old department store telescope, I've been hooked on space. When I want to again experience that sense of wonder, I go outside on a starry night and try to imagine being out in the vastness of deep space - a truly transcendent experience. Now if only we can figure out a way to get there!

Les