Gena was born in the Soviet Union. Although already at the end of the great empire, I managed to see enough of the portrait of Lenin against the background of a red flag, located on the first spread of the primer. And, of course, Gena adored everything related to space. He was proud that he lives in a country that has the most impressive list of achievements in astronautics, each item of which began with the word "first".
Gena does not remember under what circumstances, but he got a big book about the structure of various mechanisms. In addition to information about the operation of the combine drum, it talked about the works of Tsiolkovsky and the principle of operation of a jet engine. Now Gena has become even more interesting - it began to seem that, perhaps, someday, he himself will be able to take some part in astronautics.
Addiction
Then there were books and films. In Soviet times, not so much was filmed and written about astronautics, but Gene, at first, had enough. He read Faetami and Kir Bulychev, stared at films about teenagers in space (I forgot the name, there seemed to be a series), and continued to dream of space.
The 90s came, our information and media space expanded, and Gena and I saw Star Wars for the first time, read Isaac Asimov and Harry Harrison. In our village library, the choice was poor, and there was no money to buy books, so we were content with what we could find. Most of the names, alas, have already faded from memory. I remember there was a series by Isaac Asimov about some guy who worked as something like a detective - he investigated crimes on Venus, Mars, even visited Mercury. There was also a series of "American Fiction" - paperback books, nondescript ones, with black and white covers. Some book with a main character named Phssthpok flying to Earth from a planet where dudes threw hand-held nuclear grenades at each other, and on the way turned into a man. What about Solaris? What could be better than this book? In short, we read everything we found.
In the 90s, cartoons appeared on TV. Who remembers Lieutenant Marsh's Space Rescue? Every day, exactly at 15-20, after the daily news, like a bayonet at the TV, so that, God forbid, not to miss 20 minutes of happiness, about the endless battles of people - ordinary and blue, artificial. Who understands how this animated series ended?
But the soul still lay more to the Soviet works. I donβt know about you, but it seemed and seems to Gene that there was more romance in them, or something. Or souls. It was they who awakened in Gene the thirst for space.
Thirst
The thirst was so strong that Gena felt it almost literally. He madly wanted ... I donβt even know what. I'm not sure he knew either. Stay in space. Visit other planets, see new worlds, establish a colony, make friends with the inhabitants of unfamiliar planets, make war with another civilization, see trees growing from the sky, or from the head of aliens, or from anywhere. Look at what you can't even imagine.
There was Gena in the world - a small, stupid and naive child, and there was astronautics. More precisely, my dreams about her. Gena grew up and hoped. No, he did not hope - he waited. He was waiting for astronautics to finally make that breakthrough that would turn his whole, Gena, small and boring life upside down. Not only him, of course - the whole world, but Gena, like any child, was self-centered. He was waiting for breakthroughs in astronautics for himself.
Reason suggested that a breakthrough could only come from two sides.
The first is aliens. Random, unpredictable factor that can change the life of the planet. Actually, nothing much depends on people here. If aliens arrive, all that remains is to react, and then how it goes. Maybe it will turn out, as for the Martians from the Faetians - friends will fly in, make the lifeless planet habitable and help them get out of the dungeons. Or maybe, as they now love in Hollywood films, like Skyline, Cowboys vs. Aliens, and a million more others.
The second is movement technologies. It seems obvious that humanity will not fly away anywhere, will not discover anything and will not make friends with anyone until it learns to quickly move through space. You need an engine that accelerates to the speed of light, or even faster. The second option is teleportation or some of its variants. Well, that's what we thought when we were kids.
Fatigue
But time passed, but somehow there were no breakthroughs. I gave up my dreams of astronautics a long time ago, got carried away with programming, and Gena continued to wait.
The news showed some cosmonauts, mixed with astronauts, flying to the Mir station, as if on a watch. Some experiments carried out in orbit were periodically mentioned, but ... They were somehow small, or something. They had nothing to do with our ideas about space and its possibilities.
The Mir station was successfully flooded, the ISS was built, and everything continued according to the same scenario. They fly there, stick out in orbit for half a year, fix something, dock, close holes, germinate seeds, congratulate them on the New Year, tell how difficult it is to wash your hair and go to the toilet. Satellites are launched in such numbers that it is no longer crowded in orbit.
Gradually, Gena began to understand that there was, in fact, nothing to wait for. Them, astronauts and scientists, plans sharply diverged from ours. Their capabilities and the speed of development of astronautics no longer corresponded to the expectations of Gena.
So, imperceptibly to himself and others, Gena became an adult. Well, how did it become - arms and legs are longer than steel, a family has appeared, work, loans, obligations, the right to vote. But the inner child remained. The one who was waiting.
Bursts
In the cycle of cares of adult life, childhood dreams began to be forgotten. We rarely woke up - only when reading another good book or watching a decent movie about space. I donβt know about you, but Gena is not particularly pleased with modern films. Take the same "Star Trek" - everything seems to be good, interestingly filmed, the plot is exciting, the actors are good, the director is wonderful ... But not that. Do not compare with Solaris (I'm talking about a book).
Only "Avatar", "Interstellar" and "District No. 9" really shook the soul.
In "Avatar" - a real other world, a magnificent complete immersion in the realities of another planet, albeit with a standard Hollywood story inscribed inside. But when watching the film, it is obvious that the director has invested a significant, if not the most, part of his time and soul into creating this world and demonstrating it to us using the best visual technologies.
Interstellar is... This is Interstellar. Only Christopher Nolan could show the cosmos and the people who first got into it in such a way. This is "Solaris" and "Escape of the Earth" in one bottle, if compared at the level of spiritual vibrations.
And District 9 just blew my mind. The story is so far from traditional notions of science fiction - although, it would seem, the plot was lying underfoot - and it is so beautifully filmed that you want to review it for the millionth time. And every time is like the first. It's rare for directors to do that.
But all this is just splashes. On the one hand, they are insanely happy, because they wake up in people like Gena, a child and his dreams. On the other hand - damn it, they wake up a child in him and his dreams! Gena seems to wake up from a boring dream called "adulthood" and remembers... About space, other planets, interstellar travel, new worlds, light speeds and blasters. And tries to relate my dreams to reality.
Reality
What about in reality? A trillion satellites, commercial and military. Well, they probably help Gene in some way, but he, the ungrateful creature, is again dissatisfied.
Some other rockets fly. In space, then back. Some don't fly back. Some fish in the water. Some explode. Gene something so what?
Yes, there is space tourism. Some rich people went into orbit for a lot of money. And Gena doesn't want to go to orbit. He doesnβt even want to go to Mars - he knows that there is nothing interesting there.
There are some automatic devices that launch to other planets. They fly through once, send pictures. Boring, uninteresting pictures. Not going to any comparison with those that our imagination painted in childhood.
Elon Musk seems to want to send people to Mars. When, whom exactly, how many will fly, how they will return, what they will do - only Elon Musk knows. They definitely won't take Gena. Yes, he would not have flown, because this is a surrogate, a deal with conscience, an attempt to fool children's dreams.
The other day, they took a picture of a black hole. The headlines write that it turned out no worse than in Interstellar. Wonderful. This means that Gena has already seen a black hole several times - in the cinema and at home, on TV.
Time of the first
Recently met with Gene. They remembered the past, laughed, and then the conversation again turned to space. Gena immediately dimmed, as if we were discussing some kind of incurable sore sitting inside him. It was evident that he was torn apart by contradictions. On the one hand, as I think, except for me, he has no one to talk about space, but he really wants to. On the other hand, what's the point?
But I decided to help my friend and got him talking. Gena chatted incessantly, and I listened, almost without interfering.
Gena said that he was very unlucky with his choice of hobby. Compared with me - I dreamed of programming since the 9th grade. He said that he, like millions of other people, was misled by the time of the first.
What it is - it is clear, I began the presentation with this. There was a time - and a very short period of it - when one discovery followed another, literally cascading. And almost all of them are in our country. In those years, not a single layman, like us, could even imagine that this was only the first cream, and behind them, alas, there would be a huge layer of sour milk.
They did everything they could quickly and effectively. They launched a satellite, sent dogs, a man, went into outer space, sent a woman, the Americans landed on the moon, and ... That's it.
And we were presented as if it were just the beginning. Kind of like - hey, look what we can do! And that's just the first one! And what will happen next! And it's impossible to imagine!
It is just possible to imagine, and books with films helped us a lot in this. The first did their job, and we were insanely inspired and began to wait for the second. The second one never came. Such the second, so that before the first it was not a shame.
Gena sincerely admitted that he had been jealous of me for a long time, white envy.
other hobbies
As mentioned above, I, for some unknown reason, became interested in programming. It was 98, "Basic Corvette", a book by A. Fox and D. Fox "Basic for Everyone". Well, the first, as in astronautics - computers, programs, networks, etc.
But in IT very quickly, like an avalanche, came the second, third, and thirty-fifth. IT is engaged in the whole world, in all its diverse manifestations. And, to be honest, in 20 years IT has gone much further and wider than what I imagined at the very beginning.
This is what Gene is jealous of. He sees that my childhood dreams have come true - at least in part. And he was left with nothing.
broken trough
The trough, alas, is really broken. Recently it was April 12th. Who do we remember and honor on this day? Those very first ones - Gagarin, Korolev, Leonov, Tereshkova, Grechko.
It seems to be normal - on a holiday to honor the first. But it's okay to remember the second. And who is second? Who else can be ranked among the outstanding heroes of modern astronautics? How many names can you name - those who have moved this science forward over the past 50 plus years?
If you are seriously interested in astronautics, then you will probably name someone. And Gena called. And I wonβt name anyone, except for Dmitry Rogozin and Elon Musk. With a sad smirk on his face, of course.
There would be no smirk if someone, without using a search engine, would name the ministers responsible for sending the first man into space. What has cosmonautics come to if the first vice-premier of the government has become its face? Personally, I have nothing against these people - I understand that they did not purposefully ascend to the pedestal. And the most interesting thing that is happening in this branch of knowledge is a hole in the skin of the orbital station, about which there is already enough material for a whole series.
finely. Boring. Hopelessly.
Gene, like me, is already 35 years old. We were born 20 years after the feat of the First. 50 years in astronautics is a vacuum. Petty swarming, commercial projects, orbital cold wars, money, profits, intrigues, budgets, theft, criminality, effective managers and, I beg your pardon for obscene language, projects.
PS
The paragraph above is my own. I didn't tell Gene. I'm sure he feels the same way, but even our long conversation didn't get him to the point where he could trample on his childhood dreams with a dirty boot (or patent leather shoe).
Gena is still hopeful. For what, I don't know. I am sure that he will not read this article - not his resource. I just feel bad for an old friend. Maybe aliens are coming?
Source: habr.com