JOY OF FLYING

Journey on an airplane is not new to me, though I have not been a frequent flier. I flew for the first time on a small propeller plane carrying about 15 people in its tubular metallic hold way back in1975 or 1976. The plane lifted off from an obscure corner of Calcutta airport at the crack of dawn and landed at Guwahati an hour or so later just as the first rays of the Sun was touching the tree tops. Never will I forget that thrill of being airborne for the first time. The leap of faith as the wheels left the ground and the tilted surface of the runway started to recede, the involuntary clutching at the seat when the plane sharply banked- the feeling that I may fall off - fully knowing that I was safe inside the hull and the sudden loss of gravity when the tiny plane fell through a hole of an air-pocket - a strange feeling in the stomach as I was under zero gravity for may be two or three seconds but what appeared to be ages before the plane crashed back with hard jarring bump and shuddering noise into normal air, are all still fresh in my memory.  Those days are gone now, except for those few who may be taking a course in flying or gliding. The fear mingled joy of flying, when the wings and the pilot, both could feel and react to every naughty unpredictable activity of the air around the plane and when the propellers had to gasp for breath at every large air-pocket, is something no passenger or pilot of a modern-day gigantic commercial jet will ever feel. I feel very lucky to have had this one little experience and glimpse of an age when flying was a joy and an adventure; when a pilot was a hero in the eyes of adolescents like us.

As the plane neared Guwahati airport, it flew low, very low. Small villages of thatched houses, set amongst the pristine beauty of far extending water soaked green rice fields, flashed passed my window seat.  The villages were clusters of deeper darker green of bamboo groves, mango beetle-nut and coconut trees, banana plants and tiny vegetable plots. They indicated a life style of little wants and greater satisfaction that our rural Assam once was. A woman was sweeping her courtyard in that typical style we all know with a bamboo broom. For a moment she stopped, cupped her eyes and looked at our plane. I thought she was young, comely, as our Assamese village girls are. Men carrying a plough on their shoulder were walking with their bullocks for tilling their rice fields. It was the scene of early morning villages arising from sleep into well rehearsed age old daily activity. But the beauty of a scene that I will never forget- like a song of Biren Dutta or a poem of Nabakanta Barua - is that of a string of spotlessly white cranes flying across the face of the green rice fields. Alas I can write only this little sentence to describe its beauty. I wished the plane would linger for a while for me to watch, but it flew on like an arrow of Time, oblivious of human emotions or sense of beauty.

Arrow of time has continued its flight since eternity all through these last 38 years and shall continue to fly into eternity. But across those freshly grown soft green rice fields, the string of cranes continue to fly-on till today, towards some undisclosed destination. They live on defying time.

(I was thinking of writing about my journey on a high flying modern commercial jet, but my fingers typed away something else. I think I might have written about it sometimes in the past too, though I do notr clearly remember.)

FUSION POWER AND FUTURE OF HUMANS

When I was in college/university our professors thought that in another 50 years we shall be able to harness Fusion Power. But we may have to wait another 30 years at the least. It is so difficult to contain the plasma and to extract its energy that man's ingenuity is tested to the extreme. It is wonder for us that scientists now have the confidence to finally undertake construction of a prototype reactor that will generate 500mw of power. I think that it may take another 60 to 100 tears to really master the technology or may be even more. But right now practically limitless amounts of the same fusion generated energy is passing us unharnessed from the natural Fusion Furnace of our Sun. We should do everything to harness this solar energy right now and save the world from CO2 green house heating.

Fusion reactors will find their full utility, when man start to send their spacecrafts far out towards the stars or start to live and/or travel in space based colonies, even far away from the sun. Their Fusion Reactors will be their captive suns. It is certain that once man has a safe technology and building abilities to start large space based artificial habitats, his adventurousness, his inquisitiveness and his everlasting urge for trying to do the impossible, will lead him into the journey of the stars; of the outer spaces. It is not at all an outrageous idea as it may seem; the idea that he may travel far away from the light and gravitational binding on a Sun. 

At the first glance it appears to be extremely unsafe, the idea of going into the eternal darkness of space, with only the star studded blackness all around. But in actual our life on earth is not very different. Here too we are on an unknown lonely planet, alone, surrounded by limitless darkness and dangers. They too on their space habitat will have centrifugal gravity, light and energy of their own captive fusion sun. They will have all the resources they need with them. Their loneliness in space will be same as ours. Instead they will have many more advantages.  No earthquakes, floods, typhoons to face. No danger of falling asteroids, no dangers from a overheated sun. Moreover unlike us they will not be bound to remain in a captive elliptical path around a sun. They will be free to go wherever they want; able to change their direction and destination. Every few hundred years, they can approach a new sun and spend some time in a new alien environment; no end to excitement and adventure.  As their technology advances, there are limitless things that they can do. They will be a breed of humans fully adapted to such lives. What a beautiful life that will be.

Apart from man’s adventurous attitude for trying to undertake the impossible, there could also be other compelling reasons that may force man to leave this planet or this solar system in the future.  The dangers that may compel humans to flee, which right now come to my mind could be such as: 1. An unforeseen instability of the Sun. 2. A likely supernova explosion on a near by star. 3. The disturbance caused to the planets, asteroid belts, the kuiper belt or the hypothesized oort cloud by the approach of an unseen drifting dead star 4.The emergence of a destructive breed of humans on earth, where the survival of our line of thought is becoming impossible to survive. 5. Accidental Radioactive contamination of the whole environment. 6.The attack of an incurable virus of unknown source. 7. Attack by some alien civilization.  8. Emergence of new philosophy that compel humans to leave the sanctuary of a solar system and move out into space. Etc. There can obviously many more possible reasons that right now could be eluding me.

Here I am not talking of the natural Death of our Sun as one of the reason, because it is too far away in time to be considered as part of human existence. It is for sure that man will NOT live that long in his present shape. They will technologically mutate far before that and in fact they may even decide to change the reality of the universe long before that. I don’t think that there is any mistake in my line of thinking. But the greatest factor that I have left out to faith, hope and luck is the fact that all species in this probabilistic Universe however intelligent are prone to extinction from various expected and unexpected dangers; his own intelligence itself also being part of these dangers. 

I am an advocate of doom when I see it coming, but I am also the greatest optimist. I am sure that a defiant, fearless, gutsy, sensible breed of adventurous inquisitive humans will survive and spread their intelligence far and wide in the outer spaces and Fusion Power is going to accompany him, wherever he ventures.