Cosmos and Gena
Gene was born in the Soviet Union. Although it was already at sunset of the great empire, he managed to get a good look at the portrait of Lenin against the background of the red flag, located on the first spread of the primer. And, of course, Gena loved everything about the cosmos. 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”.
Gene does not remember under what circumstances, but he got a big book about the structure of various mechanisms. In addition to information about the work of the combine harvester, it described the works of Tsiolkovsky and the principle of operation of the jet engine. Now Gene has become even more interesting - it began to seem that, perhaps, someday, he himself will be able to take some kind of participation in the space program.
Then there were books and movies. In Soviet times, astronautics were filmed and not so much was written, but at first, Gene was enough. He was read out by the Faets and Kir Bulychev, he was staring at films about teenagers in space (he forgot his name, it seemed there was 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, honored Isaac Asimov and Harry Harrison. In our village library, the choice was scarce, and there was no money to buy books, so we were content with what we could find. Most of the names, alas, have already disappeared from memory. I remember there was a series of Isaac Asimov about some guy who worked as a kind of detective - he investigated the crimes on Venus, Mars, even Mercury visited. There was also a series of “American fiction” - paperback books, plain ones with black and white covers. Some kind of book with the main character named Fizpok, flying to the Earth from a planet on which the dudes threw each other with hand nuclear grenades, turned into a human on the way. And "Solaris"? What could be more beautiful than this book? In short, we read everything we found.
In the 90s cartoons appeared on TV. Who remembers Lt. Marsh's Space Savers? 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 understood how this animated series ended?
But the soul still lay more to the Soviet works. I do not know about you, but it seemed to Gena and it seemed that there was more romance in them or something. Or the soul. It was they who aroused the thirst for space in the Gene.
Thirst was so strong that Gena felt it almost literally. He madly wanted ... I do not even know what. Not sure what he himself knew. Visit the space. Visit other planets, see new worlds, establish a colony, make friends with the inhabitants of unfamiliar planets, war with another civilization, see trees growing from the sky, or from the head of aliens, or even from where. Look at what is impossible to even imagine.
Gena was in the world - a small, stupid and naive child, and there was astronautics. More precisely, his dreams of her. Gene grew and hoped. No, I did not hope - he waited. I waited for cosmonautics to finally make the breakthrough that would turn all his, Genes, a small and boring life. Not only him, of course - the whole world, but Gena, like any child, was egocentric. He was waiting for breakthroughs in space for himself.
Reason suggested that a breakthrough could come only from two sides.
The first is aliens. Random, unpredictable factor that can change the life of the planet. Actually, nothing really depends on people here. If aliens arrive, they will only have to react, and then how it will go. Maybe it will turn out like for the Martians from the Faet - friends will fly in, make a lifeless planet habitable and help you get out of the dungeons. Or maybe, as they love in Hollywood films like Skyline, Cowboys vs. Aliens and a million others.
The second is moving technology. It seems, it is obvious that humanity will not fly away anywhere, will not discover anything and will not make friends with anyone until it learns to move quickly through space. Need an engine that accelerates to the speed of light, or even faster. The second option is teleportation or one of its variants. Well, it seemed to us as a child.
But time passed, but breakthroughs somehow did not happen. I have long since abandoned the dreams of astronautics, I became interested in programming, and Gena continued to wait.
The news showed some astronauts, interspersed with astronauts, flying to the station "Mir", as the watch. Periodically some kind of experiments conducted in orbit were mentioned, but ... they were some small ones or something. Had nothing to do with our ideas about space and its capabilities.
The Mir station was safely flooded, the ISS was built, and everything continued according to the same scenario. They fly there, stick out in orbit for half a year, repair everything, join up, close up holes, germinate seeds, congratulate them on the New Year, tell them how hard it is to wash their hair and go to the toilet. Satellites launch in such an amount that it is no longer overfilled in orbit.
Gradually, Gena began to realize that, in fact, there was nothing to wait for. They, astronauts and scientists, plans sharply diverged from ours. Their capabilities and the speed of development of astronautics did not at all correspond to the expectations of Genes.
So, imperceptibly to himself and those around him, Gena became an adult. Well, how it became - arms and legs were longer than steel, the family appeared, work, loans, obligations, the right to vote. And the inner child stayed. The one that was waiting.
In the cycle of cares of adult life, children's dreams began to be forgotten. They rarely woke up - only when reading another good book or watching a decent movie about space. I do not know about you, but Gena is not particularly pleased with modern films. Take the same "Startrek" - everything seems to be good, interesting shot, the plot is exciting actors are good, the director is wonderful ... But not that. Do not compare with the "Solaris" (I'm talking about the book).
Only Avatar, Interstellar and District No. 9 really stirred the soul.
In Avatar, this is a real other world, a magnificent full 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 invested a significant, if not the most of the time and soul, precisely in the creation of this world and its demonstration to us with the help of the best visual technologies.
Interstellar is ... This is Interstellar. Only Christopher Nolan could show the cosmos and the people who got into it for the first time. This is "Solaris" and "Flight of the Earth" in one bottle, if compared at the level of mental vibrations.
A "District number 9" just blew the brain. The story is so far from the traditional ideas about fiction - although, it would seem, the plot was lying underfoot - and so elegantly filmed that I want to revise a millionth time. And each time - as the first. This is rarely one of the directors succeeds.
But all this - only surges. On the one hand, they are insanely happy, because they wake up in such as Gena, a child and his dreams. On the other hand - damn it, they wake the child and his dreams in him! Like a gene wakes up from a boring dream called “adult life” and remembers ... About space, other planets, interstellar travels, new worlds, light speeds and blasters. And trying to relate their dreams to reality.
And what is the reality? Trillion commercial and military satellites. Well, probably, they help Gena with something, and he, the ungrateful creature, is again displeased.
Some more rockets fly. In space, then back. Some do not fly back. Some catch on the water. Some explode. Gene, so what?
Yes, there is space tourism. Some rich went to orbit for a lot of money. And Gena does not want to be in orbit. He doesn't 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 every time, send pictures. Boring, uninteresting pictures. Not comparable with those that our imagination painted in childhood.
Ilon Musk, it seems, wants to send people to Mars. When, who exactly, how much will fly, how they will return, what they will do - only Ilon Mask knows. Gena just will not take. Yes, he would not fly, because it is - a surrogate, a deal with conscience, an attempt to fool children's dreams.
The other day, here's a black hole sfotkali. In the headlines they write that it turned out no worse than in Interstellar. Perfectly. So, Gene has already seen the black hole several times - in the cinema and at home, on TV.
Recently met with Gena. They remembered the past, laughed, and then the conversation again went about space. Gene immediately faded, as if we were discussing some incurable sore sitting inside him. It was obvious that he was being torn apart by contradictions. On the one hand, as I think, apart from me, he has no one to talk about space with, but I really want to. On the other - what's the use?
But I decided to help a friend and talked to him. Gene chatted incessantly, and I listened, almost without interfering.
Gene said he was very unlucky with the choice of hobbies. Compared with me - I dreamed of programming from 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 started this presentation. There was a time - moreover, a very short interval - when one opening followed another, literally a cascade. And almost everything is in our country. In those years, not a single man in the street, like us, could even have imagined that this was only the first cream, and behind them, alas, there would be a huge layer of sour milk.
They quickly and effectively did everything they were capable of. They launched a satellite, sent dogs, a man, went into outer space, sent a woman, Americans landed on the moon, and ... That's it.
And they presented it to us as if this was just the beginning. It seems like - hey, look at what we can do! And this is only the first to do it! And what will happen next! And it is impossible to imagine!
Imagine something is possible, and books with movies helped us a lot in this. The first did the trick, and we were extremely enthusiastic and waited for the second. And the second did not come. Such second, so that before the first it was not a shame.
Gena sincerely admitted that he had long been jealous of me, white envy.
As mentioned above, for some unknown reason, I became interested in programming. It was the 98th year, “Basic Corvette”, the book by A. Fox and D. Fox “Basic for All”. Well, the first, as in the space program - computers, programs, networks, etc.
But in IT, very quickly, avalanche-like, came the second, and third, and thirty-fifths. IT deals with the whole world, in all its diverse manifestations. And frankly, in 20 years IT has gone much further and wider than what I had imagined at the very beginning.
This is what Gena envies. He sees that my childhood dreams have come true - at least in part. And he remained at the broken trough.
The trough, alas, is really broken. Recently it was April 12th. Who do we remember and celebrate on this day? Those very first - Gagarin, Korolev, Leonov, Tereshkova, Grechko.
It seems normal - to celebrate the first holiday. But it is normal to remember the second. And who is the second? Who else can be counted among the outstanding heroes of modern astronautics? How many names will you call - those who moved this science forward over the past 50 years or more?
If you are seriously interested in astronautics, then someone will surely call you. And Gena called. And I will not name anyone except Dmitry Rogozin and Ilona Mask. With a sad smile on his face, of course.
There would be no smirk if someone, without using a search engine, would call the ministers responsible for sending the first man into space. How did astronautics come to, if the first vice-premier of the government became its face? Personally, I have nothing against these people - I understand that they did not purposefully climb the pedestal. And the most interesting thing that happens in this field of knowledge is a hole in the lining of the orbital station, about which there is already enough material for the 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 the space - a vacuum. Minor digging, commercial projects, orbital cold wars, money, profits, intrigues, budgets, theft, criminality, effective managers and, I apologize for using foul language, projects.
The paragraph above is my words. I didn't tell them Gena. I'm sure he thinks the same way, but even our long conversation did not bring him to the point at which he could trample his childhood dreams with a dirty boot (or a varnished shoe).
Gene still hopes. What - I do not know. I am sure that he will not read this article - not his resource. Just heartily sorry for an old friend. Maybe all the same aliens will arrive?
Gene does not remember under what circumstances, but he got a big book about the structure of various mechanisms. In addition to information about the work of the combine harvester, it described the works of Tsiolkovsky and the principle of operation of the jet engine. Now Gene has become even more interesting - it began to seem that, perhaps, someday, he himself will be able to take some kind of participation in the space program.
Addiction
Then there were books and movies. In Soviet times, astronautics were filmed and not so much was written, but at first, Gene was enough. He was read out by the Faets and Kir Bulychev, he was staring at films about teenagers in space (he forgot his name, it seemed there was 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, honored Isaac Asimov and Harry Harrison. In our village library, the choice was scarce, and there was no money to buy books, so we were content with what we could find. Most of the names, alas, have already disappeared from memory. I remember there was a series of Isaac Asimov about some guy who worked as a kind of detective - he investigated the crimes on Venus, Mars, even Mercury visited. There was also a series of “American fiction” - paperback books, plain ones with black and white covers. Some kind of book with the main character named Fizpok, flying to the Earth from a planet on which the dudes threw each other with hand nuclear grenades, turned into a human on the way. And "Solaris"? What could be more beautiful than this book? In short, we read everything we found.
In the 90s cartoons appeared on TV. Who remembers Lt. Marsh's Space Savers? 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 understood how this animated series ended?
But the soul still lay more to the Soviet works. I do not know about you, but it seemed to Gena and it seemed that there was more romance in them or something. Or the soul. It was they who aroused the thirst for space in the Gene.
Thirst
Thirst was so strong that Gena felt it almost literally. He madly wanted ... I do not even know what. Not sure what he himself knew. Visit the space. Visit other planets, see new worlds, establish a colony, make friends with the inhabitants of unfamiliar planets, war with another civilization, see trees growing from the sky, or from the head of aliens, or even from where. Look at what is impossible to even imagine.
Gena was in the world - a small, stupid and naive child, and there was astronautics. More precisely, his dreams of her. Gene grew and hoped. No, I did not hope - he waited. I waited for cosmonautics to finally make the breakthrough that would turn all his, Genes, a small and boring life. Not only him, of course - the whole world, but Gena, like any child, was egocentric. He was waiting for breakthroughs in space for himself.
Reason suggested that a breakthrough could come only from two sides.
The first is aliens. Random, unpredictable factor that can change the life of the planet. Actually, nothing really depends on people here. If aliens arrive, they will only have to react, and then how it will go. Maybe it will turn out like for the Martians from the Faet - friends will fly in, make a lifeless planet habitable and help you get out of the dungeons. Or maybe, as they love in Hollywood films like Skyline, Cowboys vs. Aliens and a million others.
The second is moving technology. It seems, it is obvious that humanity will not fly away anywhere, will not discover anything and will not make friends with anyone until it learns to move quickly through space. Need an engine that accelerates to the speed of light, or even faster. The second option is teleportation or one of its variants. Well, it seemed to us as a child.
Fatigue
But time passed, but breakthroughs somehow did not happen. I have long since abandoned the dreams of astronautics, I became interested in programming, and Gena continued to wait.
The news showed some astronauts, interspersed with astronauts, flying to the station "Mir", as the watch. Periodically some kind of experiments conducted in orbit were mentioned, but ... they were some small ones or something. Had nothing to do with our ideas about space and its capabilities.
The Mir station was safely flooded, the ISS was built, and everything continued according to the same scenario. They fly there, stick out in orbit for half a year, repair everything, join up, close up holes, germinate seeds, congratulate them on the New Year, tell them how hard it is to wash their hair and go to the toilet. Satellites launch in such an amount that it is no longer overfilled in orbit.
Gradually, Gena began to realize that, in fact, there was nothing to wait for. They, astronauts and scientists, plans sharply diverged from ours. Their capabilities and the speed of development of astronautics did not at all correspond to the expectations of Genes.
So, imperceptibly to himself and those around him, Gena became an adult. Well, how it became - arms and legs were longer than steel, the family appeared, work, loans, obligations, the right to vote. And the inner child stayed. The one that was waiting.
Bursts
In the cycle of cares of adult life, children's dreams began to be forgotten. They rarely woke up - only when reading another good book or watching a decent movie about space. I do not know about you, but Gena is not particularly pleased with modern films. Take the same "Startrek" - everything seems to be good, interesting shot, the plot is exciting actors are good, the director is wonderful ... But not that. Do not compare with the "Solaris" (I'm talking about the book).
Only Avatar, Interstellar and District No. 9 really stirred the soul.
In Avatar, this is a real other world, a magnificent full 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 invested a significant, if not the most of the time and soul, precisely in the creation of this world and its demonstration to us with the help of the best visual technologies.
Interstellar is ... This is Interstellar. Only Christopher Nolan could show the cosmos and the people who got into it for the first time. This is "Solaris" and "Flight of the Earth" in one bottle, if compared at the level of mental vibrations.
A "District number 9" just blew the brain. The story is so far from the traditional ideas about fiction - although, it would seem, the plot was lying underfoot - and so elegantly filmed that I want to revise a millionth time. And each time - as the first. This is rarely one of the directors succeeds.
But all this - only surges. On the one hand, they are insanely happy, because they wake up in such as Gena, a child and his dreams. On the other hand - damn it, they wake the child and his dreams in him! Like a gene wakes up from a boring dream called “adult life” and remembers ... About space, other planets, interstellar travels, new worlds, light speeds and blasters. And trying to relate their dreams to reality.
Reality
And what is the reality? Trillion commercial and military satellites. Well, probably, they help Gena with something, and he, the ungrateful creature, is again displeased.
Some more rockets fly. In space, then back. Some do not fly back. Some catch on the water. Some explode. Gene, so what?
Yes, there is space tourism. Some rich went to orbit for a lot of money. And Gena does not want to be in orbit. He doesn't 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 every time, send pictures. Boring, uninteresting pictures. Not comparable with those that our imagination painted in childhood.
Ilon Musk, it seems, wants to send people to Mars. When, who exactly, how much will fly, how they will return, what they will do - only Ilon Mask knows. Gena just will not take. Yes, he would not fly, because it is - a surrogate, a deal with conscience, an attempt to fool children's dreams.
The other day, here's a black hole sfotkali. In the headlines they write that it turned out no worse than in Interstellar. Perfectly. So, Gene has already seen the black hole several times - in the cinema and at home, on TV.
Time first
Recently met with Gena. They remembered the past, laughed, and then the conversation again went about space. Gene immediately faded, as if we were discussing some incurable sore sitting inside him. It was obvious that he was being torn apart by contradictions. On the one hand, as I think, apart from me, he has no one to talk about space with, but I really want to. On the other - what's the use?
But I decided to help a friend and talked to him. Gene chatted incessantly, and I listened, almost without interfering.
Gene said he was very unlucky with the choice of hobbies. Compared with me - I dreamed of programming from 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 started this presentation. There was a time - moreover, a very short interval - when one opening followed another, literally a cascade. And almost everything is in our country. In those years, not a single man in the street, like us, could even have imagined that this was only the first cream, and behind them, alas, there would be a huge layer of sour milk.
They quickly and effectively did everything they were capable of. They launched a satellite, sent dogs, a man, went into outer space, sent a woman, Americans landed on the moon, and ... That's it.
And they presented it to us as if this was just the beginning. It seems like - hey, look at what we can do! And this is only the first to do it! And what will happen next! And it is impossible to imagine!
Imagine something is possible, and books with movies helped us a lot in this. The first did the trick, and we were extremely enthusiastic and waited for the second. And the second did not come. Such second, so that before the first it was not a shame.
Gena sincerely admitted that he had long been jealous of me, white envy.
other hobbies
As mentioned above, for some unknown reason, I became interested in programming. It was the 98th year, “Basic Corvette”, the book by A. Fox and D. Fox “Basic for All”. Well, the first, as in the space program - computers, programs, networks, etc.
But in IT, very quickly, avalanche-like, came the second, and third, and thirty-fifths. IT deals with the whole world, in all its diverse manifestations. And frankly, in 20 years IT has gone much further and wider than what I had imagined at the very beginning.
This is what Gena envies. He sees that my childhood dreams have come true - at least in part. And he remained at the broken trough.
Broken trough
The trough, alas, is really broken. Recently it was April 12th. Who do we remember and celebrate on this day? Those very first - Gagarin, Korolev, Leonov, Tereshkova, Grechko.
It seems normal - to celebrate the first holiday. But it is normal to remember the second. And who is the second? Who else can be counted among the outstanding heroes of modern astronautics? How many names will you call - those who moved this science forward over the past 50 years or more?
If you are seriously interested in astronautics, then someone will surely call you. And Gena called. And I will not name anyone except Dmitry Rogozin and Ilona Mask. With a sad smile on his face, of course.
There would be no smirk if someone, without using a search engine, would call the ministers responsible for sending the first man into space. How did astronautics come to, if the first vice-premier of the government became its face? Personally, I have nothing against these people - I understand that they did not purposefully climb the pedestal. And the most interesting thing that happens in this field of knowledge is a hole in the lining of the orbital station, about which there is already enough material for the 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 the space - a vacuum. Minor digging, commercial projects, orbital cold wars, money, profits, intrigues, budgets, theft, criminality, effective managers and, I apologize for using foul language, projects.
PS
The paragraph above is my words. I didn't tell them Gena. I'm sure he thinks the same way, but even our long conversation did not bring him to the point at which he could trample his childhood dreams with a dirty boot (or a varnished shoe).
Gene still hopes. What - I do not know. I am sure that he will not read this article - not his resource. Just heartily sorry for an old friend. Maybe all the same aliens will arrive?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/448242/
All Articles