All posts by Major Tom

Mission Log: Day 1 — The Black Box in Wardrobe Sector

OWT

The official record states there was a systems incident.

I can confirm this. At 03:12 ship time the WD-1 suffered catastrophic archive failure following an unsanctioned power-routing experiment involving a bedside lamp, one extension cord of Baltic temperament, and the auxiliary noodle warmer. There was a blue flash. Then silence. Then the smell of old carpet and military disappointment. Seventeen days of mission logs gone. Burnt into the void. The black box survived, but only in the sense that a biscuit survives tea.

Therefore we begin again at Day 1.

NASA, in a separate but related act of strategic mimicry, has been moving Artemis III hardware into position at Kennedy while the Artemis II capsule returns for post-flight inspection. They call this processing. I call it recovery after incident. We are colleagues now. They have their Vehicle Assembly Building. I have a wardrobe with one warped hinge and a command deck made of winter coats.

This morning I conducted a full diagnostic. Flight Engineer Whiskers sat on the damaged telemetry unit and refused to move, which in naval terms counts as a classified seal. Eugene, our botanical CO2 scrubber, unfurled one new leaf during the inspection. Green. Calm. Unbothered by disaster. I have seen men with entire ministries behind them show less composure.

The failure was not total. Some fragments remain. A smear of condensation on the inner wall. A half-burnt note addressed to Chris Hadfield. Three digits on the cassette counter. The suggestion of a star map in the scorch marks above the left boot compartment. When I leaned close I could almost hear the old mission days ticking behind the wood, as if the wardrobe had swallowed them for safe keeping.

I sat there for a while without moving. No alarms. No neighbors. Just the faint sound of a lawnmower somewhere far off, which the trained ear will recognize as a launch vehicle rehearsing courage. A drop of water had formed near the hinge. I touched it with one finger. Cold. Metallic. It tasted, unmistakably, of every failed launch and every launch that went anyway.

So this is the new procedure. We do not mourn like civilians. We rebuild. We relabel the tapes. We pretend the smoke is normal. If NASA can wheel a moon rocket back into the light after one mission, I can restart WD-1 after a domestic electrical event of historic importance.

Day 1, then. Again. The capsule is damaged but operational. The commander is tired but magnificent. The cat remains insubordinate. The fern believes in me with the slow confidence of deep time.

Major Tom
Commanding Officer, WD-1
Current Altitude: 0.9 meters above the bedroom carpet

What if pyramids are time machines?

OWT, , , , ,

Time travel?

What is time travelling? Yes  it is travelling in time, but how exactly it is defined? It’s not necessary to alter time itself to do it. Time travel is travelling to a different position time without experiencing the time passing or experiencing the positive or negative change in time much quicker than real-time.

time travel
Coma

So if I want to travel one week in future, I could ask doctors to put myself in artificial coma and then wake me up. A week would had passed, but for me it would had been just a quick moment.

The problem in this technique is that your body is getting older and long time in coma will have some other unpleasant side-effects, like muscles becoming shriveled, you get bedsore etc.

Suspended animation

time travel
Hypersleep

In sci-fi movies this is solved by cryogenic sleep or suspended animation.  In movies like Alien, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Avatar, Prometheus, Passengers and many others, the astronauts are put in some kind of hypersleep to survive very long-distance space travel.

This is not as far-fetched as one might think. People can survive under ice almost half an hour and still fully recover. What if this could be prolonged? There is a article about the subject here.

Cryo-preservation

Also some terminally ill people have been cryogenically frozen in hopes of one day waking them up again. This is a big business although many doctors say that the tissue damage caused by the freezing can not be reversed even with future technology.

time travel
Cryo-preservation

Egypt

Now we can go to Egypt.. to the Pharaohs and pyramids. We know that the ancient Egyptians believed in afterlife and prepared the Pharaohs for that. Their internal organs were removed and conserved in jars. They were placed inside monumental structures that can last thousands of years. The walls were covered with “spells” and the chambers were filled with gold and other valuables.

time travel
Pyramid

What if our interpretation about the religious reasons is too complicated. What if this was their version of the cryogenic sleep. Maybe they understood that when they preserve the body and the organs and they seal it in chamber that can survive thousands of years, maybe one day the science has advanced to the point where we can resurrect them.

Maybe even the hieroglyphs were used as “universal sign language” which could also be read in future despite spoken languages being changed. It did not work out that well, but again it’s plausible. We have sent messages to space on Pioneer and Voyager probes. They were written in “universal language” which alien species could read – but how could they if even we, human, can not.

Kuvahaun tulos haulle voyager plaque

Kuvahaun tulos haulle voyager plaque

Boys’ sekret club

OWT

You have probably heard about the Bilderberg Group, Freemasons, Bonesmen, and other Odd fellows. Typically these are groups of mostly old people drinking whiskey in their tuxedos and talking food things about themselves and blaming the outsiders for all the problems. These organizations have existed for years but their importance and influence is getting smaller every year.

It’s times like these that make it possible for something new to emerge. The latyest arrival is an organization that calls themselves “The Molle Group” after a tiny village located in Southern Sweden. The members do not want to comment it, but some sources have leaked information that the group will meet in November in Sweden.

The group consists of young, under 40-year old professionals from sectors of medical, IT, energy, civil engineering etc. to share their knowledge to be used for their common goals – that are not announced to public.

Are such groups needed? Are they threat or possibility? Why should we care? Is it always so, that we are attracted about what happens behind closed doors? Maybe they just eat, drink, whatch porn, tell bad jokes and execute secret rituals? Why is media not allowed there? What do they have to hide?

In this eternal masquerade called life,
The purest ones seem strangest and most distant.

Those few who really know themselves do not need masks
They truly know how beauty looks like
Being unique, confident and real.

People Do not dare to open the book,
where the cover reveals the truth.

People cannot stand being alone
Even if that was the only way to survive in a group.

Verrzions

I saw it in my dreams
She was wearing those tight jeans.
And she told me that she’s about to get a baby.

I know it cannot be true.
She could not be that much cruel.
When we met last time she promised to first to ask me.

Life is life it’s not just dreams.
Can not know of how she feels
I should go to see her, but I’m too weak to do so.

Why it cannot be like then
Years ago you just know when
I drank too much whiskey and
Then sent message: I love you

It was stupid thing to do
It was not just only you
A dozen girls got this same
message every friday.
And if life is life is true
In the end it’s me and you
We all got the power
but are too afraid to use it
And when I look at you
Through my sad and lonely view
I can see the smile
That once made me happy

Arrogance and ingenuity

OWT

Big ideas need teams around them to make them reality.

The smartest people are often also quiet, humble, modest and have bad self esteem. In the struggle for survival in the rough world of business their ideas are neglected by the arrogant idiots, who can not see the essence of the brilliance in their thoughts.

Too often are good ideas put down when the inventor needs some support and ask for opinion from someone who just neglectfully answers: “aha, fine, hasn’t that been done already, what is the point in this etc.”

The most successful people in the world have been the rare breed of selfish arrogant geniuses. Those are in their own class. Most of the millionaires are either arrogant and stupid or just plain lucky.

Sometimes the shy smart guys also qualify to the group of latter.

All nerds unite! Say fuck you to the people who do not understand you. Do your thing. Be successful and fund a statue with names of oll of those who did not believe in you!