The words of Sir Richard Branson on this occasion…

“I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now I’m an adult in a spaceship looking down to our beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do.”

“I have dreamt about this moment since I was a child, but nothing could have prepared me for the view of Earth from space. It was magical,”

a proverb worth pondering on, ” the brave may not live forever, but the cautious don’t live at all.”

VSS Unity was fantasy come true for so many of us reared on Star Trek Enterprise and its various adventures, missions, wars, technologies ( teleportation!!)  It was a moment of  vicarious thrill. The words of Richard Branson were so evocative as much if not more than  Neil  Armstrong’s one small step for (a) man ,one giant leap for mankind” uttered several decades ago.

Whether its edge of space or space  its man’s endeavor to reach  new boundaries. It is  also one more chapter in the small book of successful comprehension (part or full?)  of  the magnificent universe’s laws .

As is won’t there have been debates on the amount  of tax dollars spent  for the facilities in New Mexico and its alternative deployment. I do not want to sound like a party popper or a damp squib but what had me worried was  the process of justification of such endeavours as not being only rich men’s toys, but that such commercialized space travel would also be used for quest of materials etc etc. from space.

Haven’t we wrought enough damage on the planet already that now we seek to explore the wonders of what lies beyond – of which even people from science may agree we know not all . Space debris and its long term impacts are issues under study. I wonder what commercial space travel might do to impact space weather and in turn earth’s weather . A thought why not reduce carbon footprint of aviation, (and while on the subject marine and  land transportation also) on this planet first. I do admit that there is a major contradiction here, if we see that it was the quest for new lands, for new commodities , for economic adventurism , that led to the fact that we can drink coffee and sprinkle pepper on potatoes at anyplace in this world- something we owe the people  who had ventured out in sailing ships years ago.

I would rather at this point ,let commercial space travel be rich men’s toys and be used with the research experts aboard to understand impacts on man, machine, space  while  we clean up our home planet before we trample on host ones.  Let the all and sundry enjoy once again enjoy the pleasures of travel on this planet with lesser carbon footprints…Am  I hinting at a tiny diversion or allocation  of funds  for this purpose? A grand collaborative technology  initiative perhaps?

I would like to end with a salute to the spirit of enterprise, to the dreamers and doers and darers for pushing the boundaries ( excuse the cliché).