THE FINAL FRONTIER?

George Goner for The Haunted Cabaret

History is thin.
A thin web of interconnected lines of fact, with great black expanses between.
Unknown valleys and fields, of undocumented action and deeds...
This is something I have figured out, not something I have been taught. When I was young, I believed there were no more undiscovered places or events in the world.  I believed what they taught in school, the history of the world presented as a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, borders clear and well-defined.  Science presented the universe the same way.  Nine planets, different colored stars, galaxies beyond number, but all understandable and in their proper place, basking in the documented truth of human scientific inquiry.

---

 Space travel had already brought us to the moon, and it was not a question of if but when we would voyage to all those planets and stars, and find the destiny that awaited us. The human colonization of interstellar space was one of the big assumptions of science fiction. It has become one of the big assumptions of science.  However, now that our astronauts have spent over a year in space at a stretch, and we see the destructive effect of the environment of space on the human body, perhaps this is one assumption that needs reconsidering.
Steven Baxter, a noted science fiction author with a background in engineering and a thorough knowledge of NASA's manned space program, has written a book called Titan, about a journey to Saturn's moon of the same name. The genre category is science fiction, but this is a horror story in SF trappings. Or perhaps this is SF in horror mode, if the definition of SF is the relationship not only between human beings and technology, but between technology-enabled humanity, and the greater indifferent universe.  I won't put a Titan spoiler here, but let's just say Baxter does not present us with the optimistic Star Trek universe in his novel.
Baxter questions whether we will ever inhabit outer space. Another couple of scientists/authors question whether there will be anyone waiting to meet us, should we actually manage to get there.  Two cheerful fellows named Ward and Brantlee have published a study called Rare Earth, which presents Earth and the life upon it as a phenomenon of Biblical uniqueness.  They argue that the conditions required for intelligent life are so specific and exact that we may very possibly be alone in the universe, despite its billions of stars and possible planets.  Isaac Asimov made a similar, though not quite so bleak, argument in his book Extraterrestrial Civilizations. The arguments of these scientists are persuasive. In light of this point of view, perhaps we should think about taking better care of our own small planet, both for its uniqueness, and because, if people like Baxter are correct, Earth is our only possible home in the vast universe.