Stretching the Solar System, for my Convenience.

@postaday 109; #postaday2011

I’m pretty jazzed about space exploration. I was in the U.S. Air Force, as some of you might know. After basic training and tech school in Texas late last century, I got stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, smack dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California. The longest beach ever. As pretty as joshua trees are, as amazingling tall as jack rabbits are, as fascinating as Mojave green rattle snakes are, and no matter how cool all references to “The Right Stuff, are” I had my fill of desert dormitory living after two years by the time 1981 rolled around. But by then I had gotten to play my bit part in the tracking of the first NASA Space Shuttle flight. I rank it right up there with getting a piece of the Berlin Wall from my former Honolulu Advertiser colleague Mike Leidemann, way back when.

I had always been a stargazer, and I never miss out on an opportunity to wish on those that fall, but there’s one wish I wish could really come true. I wish we could push the earth out a little farther from the sun, just to add a few more hours to the day. Heck, I’d love a 30-, 36-, even a 40-hour day just so I could get eight hours of sleep! There would be more time for hanging with friends, more time to clean the house, more time to write and work and make more money, more time for vacations and traveling!

Short of putting on my super suit and recruiting other supers to assist me in adjusting earth’s orbit around the sun, there’s always that possibility of actually moving to Mars. It’s a little farther, it’s probably chilly, and who knows what could happen? Maybe not in my lifetime, but maybe my daughters will see, or even be, space explorers or Mars colonists!

In the meantime, I’ll pay close attention to my deadlines, get the bills paid on time, try to get to bed at a decent hour, and give each of my friends and family members the one-on-one time they deserve.

As for me time, I always seem to find a way to slip outside of my Hawaii Kai home after dinner to look at the stars and the moon, to be amazed at our insignificance, and to consider the endless possibilities that any one person has when it comes to what we can be or do in this universe.