Dinner conversation inevitably turns to strolling down memory lane. So, most apps are just time distractions, but a few are pretty cool, like the ISS app, the Marine Traffic app, and the NightSky app. It seems whenever I'm here in the village, more times than not we luck into an ISS fly-by. I, trying to distract from a failing chess match, ask about the night sky tonight. We both instinctively reach for our phones and open up our space apps.
Mine was still set to Morocco so nothing showed up. Solo_ojo's showed that we had 38 minutes before a fly-by (22:23 - 22:34 pm). I still lost the match, and I learned that I need to take care of my rook's better.
I digress. The irony of staring at our devices to show us what's in the sky... Rather annoying. Overhead, Arcturus. Its Hawaiian name, Hōkūle`a, was used by ancient Polynesian voyagers for navigation, and it was critical in guiding canoes to the Islands. The northern sky is very busy with the Big Dipper and Polaris. The west, the waxing crescent moon, Venus, and Jupiter all cluster together.
The ISS always traverses from west to east, so we walked down the path to get a better view to the west. Doubting we would catch it because it was a low-elevation pass (just above the horizon), I started listening to the cacophony of nocturnal sounds. And just like that, there it was. Distant and dim. No flashing lights. Moving fast, like a ship sailing along a distant coastline.
To think, 30 minutes previously, it was sailing across the South Pacific. Now (11:30 pm) it is over northern China. By the time I finish this post (maybe 1:00 am?), it will be somewhere along the SW coast of Africa. That is some celestial geometry! Space is profoundly trippy.
The ISS app showed that 3 Russians, 1 Frenchwoman, and 3 Americans are onboard. How incredible their conversations must be. Do they watch movies? Do they play chess? I imagine they stay clear of discussing politics...
Curiosity gets the best of me, so I ask AI (Claude)... what data are they collecting. "Expedition74", Claude explains, is running "cutting edge biomedical and deep-space survival experiments."
on a side note: OMG, I just quoted AI... wtf? I don't even want to know how to properly cite Claude...
Another digression... From what I deduced, the focus is pancreatic cancer research, cartilage replacement, and how spirulina can consume carbon dioxide that astronauts breathe out (in anticipation for longer trips to...Mars).
I'm already making a mental note to purchase some super blue-green algae at a health food store here in Portugal to take back to Morocco...
So, curing diseases on earth and getting humans to Mars.
Again, I return to the paradox of standing in the darkness staring at the sky while staring at devices trained to tell us what we are looking at. Basically using devices, tiny pieces of the space age, to track space.
Returning to the chessboard and relating it to space exploration, there's a lesson to be learned: high stakes psychological battles governed by strict geometry where a single structural vulnerability can collapse an entire empire. By this I am referring to the white queen coming out of nowhere to take my black rook. Chess and the ISS. The connection? Different expressions of human instinct: the drive to be calculating, control (both yours and your opponents) space, and minimize errors under pressure.
I realize that I under-utilize the rook(s). When I want to use it, there is still pawn in front of it. Then I forget about it. I moved the pawn and I didn't even catch the trap. I was able to recover, but what a blow to lose that piece so early on.
No comments:
Post a Comment