Heads or Tails Tuesday - Wonder

This week's Heads or Tails Tuesday offers the choice of 'wonder' or 'wander'. I often post accounts of my wanders, so I've opted for 'wonder' as my theme.

When was the last time you felt a genuine, child-like sense of wonder, untainted by the cynicism of adulthood? For me, it was a couple of weeks ago. I had just walked through my garden gate, after darkness had fallen, and looked up at the night sky, as I often do on a clear night. I felt my usual sense of wonder at seeing Orion's Belt, the Big Dipper and countless other heavenly bodies I couldn't name. The same questions came to mind as usually do at such times. Is there anyone out there? If yes, what are they like? How many different kinds are there? What would the flora and fauna on their worlds be like? Why are we here? What is this all about? And where is it going?

Suddenly, these thoughts were interrupted by a brilliant light which approached from the north-west. It got brighter and brighter as it flew over my head, and continued on its way towards the south-east. To my amazement, the light suddenly grew fainter and fainter and blinked out. I knew instinctively that it was a spacecraft. I then realized what it was - the International Space Station, which some other local bloggers had reporting witnessing on previous nights. As soon as I got indoors, I turned the laptop on and headed to the NASA website. Sure enough, it confirmed that the ISS had flown over my city at precisely the time I saw the bright light.



My sense of wonder increased when I read that it was docked at the time, with the Space Shuttle, Atlantis. Not only that, but there were men OUTSIDE the docked craft, working on it, suspended in space, as they flew over my head. Wow!


As if that wasn't enough, I felt my sense of wonder increasing even further, when I realized that the first powered flight in the history of mankind, took place on December 17th, 1903 - a little over a hundred years ago. Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright, had been experimenting with flying gliders for a few years beforehand.

Orville Wright

Wilbur Wright

But their ultimate goal was powered flight, which they achieved at the end of 1903, with the famous Wright Flyer, pictured below.


Although the Wright Brothers' claims to be the inventors of powered flight have been disputed in recent years, for my purposes, that's irrelevant. Whoever invented powered flight, the fact remains that within a few decades of the Wright Flyer's inaugural trip, humans were launching spacecraft into orbit. Shortly afterwards, men were launched into space, and landed on the moon. We now send probes to examine the planets of our solar system, as well as a telescope that can spy on distant galaxies. Heck, we've even landed a probe on an asteroid, raising hopes that if a biggie ever finds itself on a collision course with Earth, we may just be able to deflect it and save the planet, as Bruce Willis did in that dreadful movie. How can anyone not feel a sense of wonder at what we've achieved with flight, in such a comparatively short time?

There we have it - my Heads or Tails Tuesday babblings for this week. Happy Tuesday!