We are now at the final frontier at last as a species. Walking into the great unknown.

And for the first time we’re not faking it. Arguably this is the first and last and only frontier humanity has ever faced.

Of course in modern history we ‘discovered’ the New World and Australia but that’s a major insult to those who already lived there. The America’s and Australia/New Zealand have been long since been inhabited. Colonizing on our own home planet is piracy under more than a few other terms too.

Calling that a frontier is lazy and greedy work.

First to the North and South Pole and the first to the top of Everest can claim some kudo’s for being the first on the frontier of accomplishments for us as a species. Inventing the light bulb, eradicating polio – those pushed limits of out excellence.

Every inventor of note, scientist who rocked the boat, artist who pushed the limit all get some credit for pushing a frontier of sorts.

But the first, last and only frontier we will ever face is going inter-planetary as a species.

Now that is a frontier!

To put this into perspective, going into Earths Orbit where the space station is can be compared to your average dude driving to the local shop in space flight terms. To get to the Moon you gotta ditch the car and imagine a flight from LA to Seattle. It’s not a short or long flight but you ain’t wanting to do it in your car.

Going to Mars is like walking to the South Pole in those terms. Like it’s just not comfortable, safe or with any ‘home comforts’. It takes a seemingly eternal effort of walking through the shadow of doubt to get through.

Inter-planetary travel is the final and only frontier in all its brutality and harshness left to humanity.

I may be wrong if we invent time travel. But as it stands, inter-planetary and inter-stellar travel are the last constraints on humanities freedom and right to survive against all odds that nature can conjecture and throw at us.

Now we have been to the moon before. Takes 3 days to get there. Takes minutes to get to orbit, it takes at best 3 months to get to Mars . In a spacecraft that has never been built. With no one having gone before.

Who will be the first human to step on another planet? And perhaps be greeted by a Martian?

We are, most of us destined to witness this in our living lives. ET might well turn out to be just fossils or some microbes but still…

So far as we know, this is not a first in the history of just humanity but a first for all life. The odds are slim that another civilization has got this far since the universe came to be. We could be the first life to exist capable of such belief defying feats.

Otherwise why have we not had a visit from another species till now?

(Despite the claims of Hubbard with Scn and the Area 51 conspiracy crowd).

It’s also a must for our survival. The US, Russia and China are already squaring up to take the most of the rest of the planets resources… Yet just beyond our atmosphere we have unlimited resources!

We need this for more than just our sense of adventure but also our very survival.

We are about to witness the first time in 13.8 billion years that life has managed to evolve on one planet and make it to another. There is no observable evidence that this has been previously achieved – by any entity known to us. Even the ‘Gods’.

We truly are living while our history for eternity is being made.

And there’s a beauty to it.

Life is truly a miracle.

And we are all about to witness the greatness of our collective will as a species and perhaps become the universal ambassadors as life and how it will be viewed.

Forever.

So set a good example in your day to day.

Dortju.