Chances of survival

I was reading a CNN report on two asteroids that passed near earth. They came even closer than moon distance from earth. Near earth asteroid 2010 RX30 (32-65 ft diameter) and 2010 RF12 (20-46 ft diameter) went passed within 0.6 and 0.2 lunar distance from earth. NASA reports nearly 5o million objects pass near earth every day! Pretty heavy traffic huh?

When Stephen Hawking said that the chance of survival of human race was very grim unless we find an efficient way out of earth there was lots of criticism about his pessimism. Well thats my opinion too. Earth is not a permanent abode for sure. The natural resources are getting exhausted, water and air are becoming unconsumable, environment is getting uninhabited and there are tons of flying objects we have to stay clear off.. Our only energy source, sun itself has an expiration date so even the best optimistic has to act proactively at one point.

That reminds me of a great short story I read sometime back. "The Star" by Arthur C Clarke. Its the story of some space explorers returning to earth after visiting a planet. The planet and all its inhabitants are dead. It was a very civilized society and they knew that their Sun is going to explode in forseeable future. But their technology was not advanced enough to take them out of their solar system.

So they just waited for the end, peacefully and patiently.. In the final years they spent time preparing a safe hold for all the valuables. Not of monetary values, but those things that truly represented their civilization, their people and culture. For some future space tourists..

Imagine a similiar scenario on earth. If we know that our solar system is going to perish in next 3 years what would we do? We can work frantically to make a space ship to send few people to space. Or send a bunch of people up in space in suspended animation, hoping that some technologically advanced alien forms will recover them and revive the human kind. But what will happen to you and me, or the majority of other humans, a zillions of life forms on this planets? How will we react? Most people do good deeds to please god, in exchange of a prosperous life. But if you know that, you and everything and everyone you love and care about is going to perish in next 3 years how would you react?

At philosophical level we all know that nothing will last for ever. We all are going to die.. but we dont care much because there is plenty of time. But if you have fixed time frame, then... Probably most of us would accept it and lead a quality life in whatever time available. Hopefully..

One of the explorers in the story "The Star" is a priest. On his way back, he is very disturbed. What he saw might have challenged his faith. The story ends with a beautiful question by the priest: "God, there were so many stars you could have used, what was the need to give these people to fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem? Has anyone heard that question? Only God knows!

For the last somany billions of years we have been protected from these cosmic calamities. For how long are we safe? Well, there is no point in worrying about that. Hope our society doesn't become complacent from the over dose of optimism floating around. These are scenarios that demand us to be realistic. Lets build one brick at a time that might help future generations for a flight to a safer heavens. Until then like the frog, which is being devoured by the snake, pleading for food (borrowed from Ramayana, hope the great poet Vatmiki would forgive me for destroying is beautiful verse!) lets go around and have some fun.