The Right Words
The Right Words
Podcast 7: Beyond The Fishbowl
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Podcast 7: Beyond The Fishbowl

Dedicated to those of the space program & their families; remembering those who lost their lives pursuing its triumphs. / Correction: Sputnik launched Oct. 1957, not '59; thanks to Anethi East.
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The first self-portrait—or “selfie” in space, specifically taken outside the spacecraft—on the Gemini 12 mission—during one of the fist successful task-oriented space walks. Major Michael Collins, later to be the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 11, with Aldrin and Neil Armstrong—made a first selfie inside a spacecraft on Gemini 8—in which he, too, performed a spacewalk, or Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA). There is a preamble before the poem.



This poem can also be read here.

Beyond The Fishbowl

Crossfield flew across the barrier*
Then Shepard rocketed so high
And of Gagarin and Kamarov before them–
What did they feel?
Not ‘why?’

Truly,
there is no membrane;
We live on a gas-ensconced globe,
Spinning and wobbling ’bout its axis
Barrelling in lock and roll
Circling a star–in turn racing
Round the galaxy’s swirling bright core
Itself shot out from the center
Venturing
By expansion thus far

. . .

All this violence in balance
Enormous–yet mutually constrained
Their motions play out like ice skaters
In a gliding dance of refrain

. . .

Armstrong & Aldrin first walked on the moon
With Cernan & Schmidt, the last two
On the face of that satellite ’til next time
They did what most should dream to

Because
We’re like fish in a fish bowl
Or children confined to a yard
The fish not knowing of oceans!
Nor the child of nations afar!

Until a day whence
One jumps the fence—
To glimpse the extent of the gloom
At an old age, but an Earth sage
May just see the limits of home

. . .

There are trillions of planets
Round trillions of stars

Yet those nearby
We’ve but seen from afar;
In our own system:
Two-hundred worlds,
Five dwarf planets,
A hundred-eighty-nine moons

. . .
Let’s see far neighbors!
The Jovian skies
With more than mere cameras!
With Man’s naked eye!

Like children and fishes,
Pets chained to rocks,
Moonshots—
Are feral*
Though great!

Man—
Goes
To the stars!

CA

The mighty, Jupiter—the fifth planet in our Sol System and the first one formed—and it’s dazzling, colerful and swirling, clouds—boasting the famous 300 year old Great Red Spot hurricane, into which 3 Earths could fit and which sees 3 - 400 mile per hour winds. Jupiter has—at present count—holds 80 moons, in orbits around him and is thought to be the world that keeps ours mostly safe from asteroid, comet and interstellar rogue impacts by capturing their culprits in its gravity well. Some of Jupiter’s moons (like some of Saturn’s), feature heavy evidence of the existence of oceans—though they would be under ice, and these moons may possess the chemical building-blocks for life. These moons, discovered by the Italian Astronomer Galileo, in 1610—called the Galilean Satelliets—are most intriguing, with orbital features like those of Earth’s moon, such as keeping one hemisphere facing Jupiter, meaning they rotate on their axes (defining the length in time of their days) only once per each orbit of their revolution around the father planet. One of them, the sulfur red, brackish blak and snowy white—Io—features active volcanic action, and they all possess fascinating gravitational interrelations betwwen them; the other Galilean moons are, Calisto, Ganymede and Europa—the latter two probably possessing the oceans under ice. / NASA: “Pioneers 10 and 11 (1973 to 1974) and Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 (1979) offered striking color views and global perspectives from their flybys of the Jupiter system. From 1995 to 2003, the Galileo spacecraft made observations from repeated elliptical orbits around Jupiter, passing as low as 162 miles (261 kilometers) over the surfaces of the Galilean moons. These close approaches resulted in images with unprecedented detail of selected portions of the surfaces. Close-up images taken by the Galileo spacecraft of portions of Europa's surface show places where ice has broken up and moved apart, and where liquid may have come from below and frozen smoothly on the surface. The low number of craters on Europa leads scientists to believe that a subsurface ocean has been present in recent geologic history and may still exist today. The heat needed to melt the ice in a place so far from the Sun is thought to come from inside Europa, resulting primarily from the same type of tidal forces that drive Io's volcanoes. The next major mission to explore Jupiter’s moons is NASA’s Europa Clipper. The spacecraft will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa to see whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.” / Jupiter itself is a “gas giant”, like, Saturn, Uranus (“Y’UR’enUs”) and Neptune. When astronauts finally visit Jupiter’s inner moons, the enormous planet will take up most of the sky as seen from the surface of those moons. / Photo: NASA

This poem is in honor of all who have contributed to human flight—on and off the Earth (crewed and unmanned)—and in specific advocacy of expediting deep space missions to the outer planet systems—such as to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, which potentially hold a much higher probability of sustaining life than does Mars. It is this writer’s contention that though far away—and requiring a staged mission-project-platform approach—such as those which enabled our success in the Apollo deep space missions—the economic, scientific, and inspirational benefits of human journeys to the gargantuan and heart-stopping beauty of the Saturnian and Jovian systems would be well worth the difficulty and effort and they are are not destinations which should wait fifty years—like the tragedy of our disrespectful delays in returning to the moon.


Happy Birthday Dr. Buzz Aldrin & Congratulations on your wedding to Dr. Faur! Many stellar years of happiness to you both!

Writing, Narration, Art, Production and Performance by & Copyright Carl Atteniese 2022/All rights reserved

Music Licensed from Pixabay:

1. Electronic Future Beats by Qubesounds
2. Cosmic Glow by Andrewkn
3. Astronaut and space-derived recordings courtesy of NASA Sounds


NOTE: The views you may glean from this work are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of whom I mention in the acknowledgements.


A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
Special Thanks to These Special Friends:
*Profile image of Carl………..Mark Longmire
*
Founding Contributor…………..Hicham Derdari, Promoter
*
Historical Consultant……………..Professor Lois Honeycutt
*
Art Life Contributor……………….Professor Yukuhiro Yamaguchi
*
Art Life Contributor……………….RMD, Musician, Teacher, Advisor
*Art Life Contributor……………....Professor Sahara Shin, Sponsor
*Art Life Contributor…………..…..Professor Harris Kim, Teacher, Sponsor
*
Art Life Contributor……………....Alfred DiBlasi, Host of Alfred.TV, Sponsor
*
Art life Contributor…………..…...Paul B. Kwak, Teacher, Sponsor


And for Great Support & Esteem from:

  • Mr. Carl Atteniese Sr., my loving father—airline facilitator electioneer, historian

  • Mrs. Anne Carroll Atteniese, my doting, loving mother & friend to all people

  • Charles XF Carroll (RIP), uncle, poet, friend, camera tech, soldier, sailor, gentleman

  • Mrs. Nancy Atteniese Gerber, my enormously supportive psychotherapist sister

  • Mrs. Mary Atteniese Pustarfi, my other enormously supportive and teacher sister

  • Mr. Jon Gerber, my brother-in-law& good friend—a scientist and family leader

  • Mrs. Lois Diefendorf, a great believer in my writing—writer

  • Mrs. Elizabeth Sgritta, my scholarly and supportive 9th grade English teacher

  • Mr. John Norris, my passionate 10th grade English teacher & encourager

  • Mrs. Stein, my kind but admonishing 11th grade English Teacher


And Special Thanks to…
The American tax-payer, the people in uniform and government who made and make our country possible and the family of NASA, SpaceX and their partners in the US and around the world—who make the greatest journeys of humanity happen—for all Mankind.


* Footnotes:
1. Scott Crossfield was an American aviator and test pilot—who, like Neil Armstrong and 7 others—earned astronaut wings for reaching the height of 50 miles—or roughly 80 kilometers—above the Earth, which the Air Force considers the threshold of outer space; this was accomplished in the X-15 rocket-plane. The international border between atmosphere and space, is, however, the Kármán line (after Theodore von Kármán), established by the at an altitude of 60 miles, or roughly 100 kilometers up. This is the boundary accepted by the United Nations, and where the physics dealt with between plane and spacecraft differ. Above this altitude, the air-dependent control surfaces of a plane will not function properly—as demonstrated in the famous scene from the film First Man, wherein Neil Armstrong’s character in his X-15, was at the mercy of the trajectory it was blasted into by its engine, traveling 3,000 miles per hour—with its pilot unable to use the control stick to guide it, until it descended into denser air. Like a spaceship, the X-15 was equipped with gas jets, like a spacecraft, to alter its pitch, yaw and roll attitude—but imprecise use of this recourse could be fatal.
2. I do not mean to suggest NASA was founded
as a result of Yuri Gagarin’s flight; the history-making civilian aviation and spaceflight department of the US government was in operation before the gallant Russian’s historic launch into orbit.
3. I am taking license with the word ‘feral’, which I do not use meaning “wild,” “untamed” or “without civility”, but rather as meaning “nascent,” “basic,” “not enough” in the scope of what we are capable of—and in defiance of others who would say we shouldn’t do explore space; of course, the moon landings were the most difficult and monumental accomplishments in human ingenuity, intrepid, danger and exploration—and the men and women who made them happen are paramount heroes and historical figures of immense courage and ability…. It is precisely because of their sacrifice and daring—among the other reasons mentioned above—that I want us to go farther—sooner, in their names and memory.



Thank you for listening and reading.

CA

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The Right Words
The Right Words
A podcast of viewpoints essays, verse and voice.