Besides the obvious exploration to space, where is there to go? I have long felt that I was born in the wrong era! I love the thought of exploration, seeing things first and being there to absorb the local cultures. Imagine sitting on the aft deck of the Beagle with Darwin, or with Scott in Antarctica? Okay, he did die, but what an adventure!The story of exploration appears to be over! We know all, and have seen it too! With space getting slowly smaller, this looks to be the only sanctuary for the 'Scott-like' people that want that sort of thing. There is one other place though, the ocean! There are a handful of people that are trying new depths, but these, not unlike the space race, are playing a very expensive game. Granted, people of history's explorations, needed to be given the funds from wealthy benefactors. Most needed a passage too, whether is was by ship or over land on a horse! As a mere mortal, I can't afford to go into space, or research the Mariana Tench. What can I do to aid in new discoveries? Very little it seems.
Is this really true?
Exploration can come in many guises. We can look for new lifeforms in our solar system, dive to extraordinary depths to find a new species of venomous sea-snake, or simply explore the Internet. We have been doing this for almost twenty-five years now. I loved being a part of the Internet as it began in the UK. From 1993 onward became the dawn of a brand-new way of getting information, there was, of course, also other things people liked to look at. With a 14.4 modem at my side, I was hooked!
It took a while for the public to catch on, but look at it now! A mangled mess of perverseness and criminal activity. Well, not exactly, this is a tiny part of it. I remember that the news 'never' mentioned the good side of of the Web, this was in the late 90s, it always got under my skin, feeding the public with dread that wasn't always necessary!
What is my theory on this then?
Is domestic exploration really dead? To an extent, yes. Take, for instance, if I want to construct a new idea, I am under the pressure of it having gotten marginally harder to think of something fresh. If you are lucky enough to have that banging idea, it is relatively easy to get people to see it, though other, not so fresh ideas, cover up a lot of the greatness that many will eventually miss. If we think about all media at this moment in time, there are a lot of ideas that are simple rehashes! We are making more covered movies and films than ever before. I can't attribute this to the common plight of depression in society, but I do believe my theory can make a link to it.
As we are stuck in the realms of social media, dwindling the hours away, trying to be unique and let people know what we really think of the meal that we just ate, we are bound to a screen that is more often that not, indoors. We may feel that exploring is gone, but the overall problem is perhaps in our new societal values. I am certain, that with little money, there are still places you can be the first to see, things to create and ideas to coax too. Could you be the first to build a drive that powers a real hovering car? It is the man-in-the-shed that bolsters my theory. As a Brit, one thing that I am proud of, is the men-in-their-sheds! An evolutionary set of home-bound geniuses that created such delights as the wind-up radio and the Stylophone! These aren't big, I know, but in modern times, men around the world are in their sheds, they are creating elevators to the sky and building sources of fossil fuel from the sun!
I put it to you, that these people keep the gates open for exploration, take their side and invent! Invent that new technology that will once again take us to places that we have never seen. Be the person that helps prove the existence of ancient life on our moon. This is going to be fun!
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