With the recent launch of Artemis 2, NASA appears to be keen to revitalise dreams of reaching to the stars, in the wake of the fallout from another of America's Middle East warmongering efforts. It may well be just an attempt at misdirection to draw global scrutiny away from what must surely be destined to end up as another Vietnam. Forever, my own feeling is that politics is a problem that has no solution - and as such, I have very little time for it.
The question of the likelihood of humanity ever becoming the space faring society we were promised back in the middle of the last century is an increasingly avoided one.
As NASA and the CNSN (China's Space Agency) embark on a new space race back to the moon, I look further afield. Science seems to have written off deep space exploration as simply beyond the impenetrable barrier of the speed of light. Black holes and wormholes offer a tantalising glimmer of alternative possibilities, but generally science appears to be stuck firmly at the bottom of a gravity well of its own making.
Magellan's Final Journey is a piece about how ultimately, it may well be The Robots, not humans, that make the leap off the planet and into deep space, unfettered as they would be by short lifespans or the plethora of requirements for human life. As The Destruction of Adam sees humans handing off the spark of creativity, so Megallan's Final Voyage sees us handing off the joy of discovery.
Main stream science makes it is easier to imagine an Enterprise crewed entirely by robots, than one of humans, especially as it continues to cling desperately to its preoccupation with rocket propulsion - a technology that would appear to be wholly unsuitable for interstellar travel.
You Have Reached the End of the Map
I don't really subscribe to the simulation theory conspiracy, but the limits placed on interstellar travel feel a lot to me like playing a limited open world game. One of the first things I did when I started Fallout 4 was to head to the edge of the map... You cannot go that way...
This was not a concern for Portuguese explorer Magellan, who achieved the first known sailing around the globe.
If one assumes that we are indeed living in a simulation, then the constant speed of light might be akin to the limit on processing power of the simulation engine, or perhaps our explorable environment might be simply a constraint of the engine's storage capacity. Throughout history, mankind has assigned the unknown and the apparently unknowable to the zeitgeist. In ancient times it was Gods, in the middle ages it was witchcraft and magic, in the 1950s it was UFOs, and now, in the computer age, it's The Computer Simulation.
Of course, that's not really to say that any number of these previous interpretations of reality are not actually true, but as we progress as a species, it does reduce the credibility - at least in the minds of contemporary peoples - of the previous interpretations of the great unknown.
What's Outside the Cave? The Reality Bubble
Plato's famous thought experiment suggests that even if we could escape from our prison, should we ever return, we would be changed fundamentally. In effect, there can be no return. And this in itself, supports the idea that interstellar travel is a one-way trip.
So, in a sense, it is pointless. What is the point of discovery if it cannot be shared? Moreover, why would we even bother with all the time, effort, and expense to effectively eject a group of astronauts into space, never to return, and eventually, never to even report back?
Perhaps it would be better to spend all that time and effort on trying address inequality and hunger here on Earth. Perhaps once we have done that, The Gods of the Ancients - that have been waiting all this time after all - might deem us worthy enough to receive the gift of the secret of interstellar travel...