Since the time I first studied astronomy as an undergraduate, there have been many new discoveries in the science. For example, the earth was found to be orbiting the sun. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t that long ago, but when I thought about how long it has been that scene from “Space Cowboys” came to mind where Jay Leno is asking whether the “boys” had fought on the side of the Blue or Gray. All kidding aside, advances in studies of our universe continue to make much of what was known yesterday antiquated today, though the great writers of SciFi seemed to have anticipated some of the new discoveries being made. This is not to minimize the significance of the great minds like Newton and Einstein, but they had to exercise a little more caution when it came to expressing their imagination. Fortunately, due in large part to the popularity of Carl Sagan, Star Trek and other such programs the great minds of those like Michio Kaku are emboldened to make known their flights of the imagination without fear of losing their academic standing, though it remains true there are stranger things in the universe than we have the capacity to imagine.

Within a relatively short period of time the thinking in astronomy of a static universe changed to that of an expanding one. For a while it was thought this expansion was slow and uniformly gradual, but to the surprise of astronomers it was found the expansion was not only uniformly fast but accelerating! Even more dumbfounding was the fact this acceleration began five-billion years ago, somewhat past the half-way age of the theoretical beginning of the universe, and scientists haven’t a clue to why this happened at that particular point in time!

The scenario is one of a football game. Both sides have been struggling and the game is down to the wire, and only a punt by one team will win the game. So, whoever the team was five-billion years ago decided to punt the universe. But as many of you know punting is usually problematical, and oft times a last resort. In the case of the universe, the “punt” seems to be a miss since the galaxies are doomed to move away from each other at an enormously accelerating rate and will eventually leave each one in the darkness of space without neighbors.

A happier thought is one of sparing the “neighborhood.” We all know the problems of congested cities with their degradation of quality of life and those who can move to the “burbs,” but the dream of most is to have a few acres in which to roam. Those like me love the wide open expanses of the deserts where there is no sign of human habitation and your eyes can take in panoramic miles and miles of miles and miles without anything of human manufacture interfering with your line of sight. It’s the old story of those that would move on elsewhere seeking solitude once they heard the sound of a neighbor’s ax. The point was well made by Lee Marvin in “Paint Your Wagon,” and some of us don’t mind having been “born under a wandering star.” Could it be that despite the enormous time involved, the billions of years in the process, the “planning” is for an uncrowded universe?

There may be a “Great Intelligence” at work in the universe, in its creation and continuing to work on it. But if so, it is far beyond either our intelligence to comprehend or even our imagination. However, I can imagine something like gods in conflict much like a football game and punting the universe five-billion years ago. And how about this; some of you are old enough to remember hitting the radio trying to get it to work, and at any age you have probably kicked or thought about taking a hammer to something, the contemporary target of frustration most likely being a computer, and most of us are familiar with the expression that when all else fails “get a bigger hammer.” Might the gods be of the same disposition?

Alas, when it comes to things on an astronomical scale whether in size or time we mere mortals are incapacitated. It is all too vast, too huge to comprehend. We are left wondering like the Psalmist looking at the stars; of what possible significance could we be in the vast scheme of the universe? But, ah hah! We mortals are capable of speculation about such enormous things as the universe, and in our speculations we take on the very characteristics of the gods in such speculation. Despite the very enormity of it all we are capable of wonder, capable of investigating and discovery of things that a few years ago would have been solely the purview of SciFi. And so we are emboldened to think in terms of things nearly supernatural in their characteristics, things like colonizing other planets, star and time travel. If in nothing else humans are gods we are such in the individual empires of our minds, and these minds capable of challenges that were the stuff of science fiction scant years ago.

Though many mysteries of the universe are under scrutiny and investigation, the two greatest mysteries of all that effect our very lives remain; those of life and death. But as I watch, read and listen to those like Michio Kaku I have cause to wonder whether the questions surrounding these two great mysteries may yet be answered. This I know, until these two mysteries are solved there cannot possibly be a “Theory of Everything.” But it wasn’t that long ago TV was the stuff of science fiction, and only scant years ago computers were strictly the stuff of SciFi, and when I look at what changes have been wrought in only my own lifetime my mind reels!

Still the pragmatic problem facing our species is whether we will destroy ourselves before reaching our full potential, and given the tremendous advances we have made that full potential is truly mind-boggling! But despite the tremendous advances in learning and the sciences we continue to have the barbaric wars engendered through politics and religion, the very real possibility of world famine rears its ugly head as too many unproductive mouths breed with no thought of how to feed the resulting children, and the “Lord of War” continues a very lucrative career while the inner cities of America and elsewhere in the world resemble the Black Hole of Calcutta, cages with too many rats.

It has taken wealthy patrons of the arts, a leisure class to give humankind the best of the arts and sciences. It takes time for the best minds of our species to roam at will, to do the kind of stargazing, experimentation leading to discovery that has proven of such benefit to civilizations and the quality of life some few enjoy. But the greater part of the world’s population lives hand-to-mouth, never benefiting from the great advances of more civilized nations. It seems a race, now, as to whether civilized nations will prevail in the face of so many dangers threatening. Even here in America the legitimate question is being raised whether we can weather the threats we now face, those of potential economic collapse and being a debtor nation to those that want to do us harm.

At the same time that I have lived long enough to see such dramatic advances in the sciences and technology, I have lived long enough to experience good jobs being plentiful and one paycheck taking care of a family, to have known a time when gas was fifteen-cents a gallon and bread fifteen-cents a loaf, a nice house could be bought for $3,500 or a nice apartment in Hermosa or Redondo Beach with ocean view and within easy walking distance of uncrowded and clean beaches could be rented for $35 a month. Despite the empty rhetoric of politicians, there are none that have the temerity to promise Americans a return to the kind of hope those like me were born into and once had for the future of our nation.

It could be interpreted as despair that I turn my attention to things like whether our solar system and earth, intelligent life here on earth is unique in the universe, even whether we might be an experiment of the gods, whether the universe can be viewed as a football game and punted. But so long as I am able to even speculate about such things, to me it is evidence of my maintaining hope in the face of seeming hopelessness. The result being that I have not yet thrown up my hands in despair, but continue to maintain the kind of hope some might very well consign to “faith” in science fiction.

But given the scant number of years our species has been around, and given the miracle of intelligent life that has enabled us to do so much in what amounts to the blink of an eye in the cosmogony of it all, how can I not take hope that we humans are very special and the punt may yet prove to go through the goalposts and win the game. After all, the terms infinite and immortal have relevance to us though we haven’t the capacity to imagine them. Nevertheless, they remain the speculation of the empire of individual minds in which we retain the status of gods, and perhaps the children of gods.

But what happens if our species should have to punt and we miss? One idea, and one found in some theologies, is a few favored of the gods will be there to continue the game. In my opinion, why not? There must be a reason we humans are so competitive minded and game-oriented so why not the gods, or even the ending to “Men In Black?” Our god-like capacity of curiosity, to explore, discover, invent, create, and speculate about things beyond imagination leave me wondering about the things I’ve experienced and seen in my own relatively short lifetime; and of course I’d like to know what those folks in Texas recently saw?