[Posted October 1, 2009]

Crossing the Universe

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Don't have time for it

World of Weird Things Sep 29, 2009 - GFISH

across the universe in a lifetime. with a catch.

New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft launched so far by humans. After a gravity assist from Jupiter, it’s on a course to rocket past Pluto at 47,000 miles per hour. At that speed it would circle our world in a little under 32 minutes, make it to the moon in just five hours, reach Mars at its closest point in a bit over one month and get to our nearest stellar neighbor in… 87,633 years? Oh. Ok, maybe it’s not really all that fast in the grand scale of things. In fact, when it comes to space travel, it’s about as fast as a limping tortoise on sodium pentothal. But what if New Horizons could keep accelerating as close as was physically possible for it to get to the speed of light? A 2005 paper on the subject argues that it could cross half the visible universe in half a century. And of course, since I’m writing about this paper, you know there’s some sort of major catch to the whole thing… go to story

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Journey into space

Getting past the limitations of spacecraft A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

It is understood that in one year Durvasa Muni traveled everywhere and went into the spiritual sky to meet the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Narayana. By present standards, scientists calculate that if one could travel at the speed of light, it would take forty thousand years to reach the highest planet of this material world. But the yoga system can carry one without limitation or difficulty. more

Lords of all that they survey

excerpt from Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.6.36, purport, "Purusha Shukta Confirmed"

Only those persons with a very poor fund of knowledge claim that they themselves are lords of all that they survey. And what can they survey? They cannot survey even the length and breadth of a small sky in one small universe. The so-called material scientist says that he would need to live forty thousand years to reach the highest planet of the universe, being carried by a sputnik. This is also utopian because no one can be expected to live forty thousand years. Besides, when the space pilot returned from his travel, none of his friends would be present to receive him back as the greatest astronaut, as has become fashionable for modern bewildered scientific men. One scientific man, who had no belief in God, was very much enthusiastic in making plans for his material existence and therefore opened a hospital to save the living. But after opening the hospital, he himself died within six months. So one should not spoil his human life, species of life, simply for the concocted material happiness of life through increasing artificial needs in the name of advancement of economic development and scientific knowledge. Rather, one should simply surrender unto the feet of the Lord to make a solution to all miseries of life. That is the instruction of Lord Krishna directly in the Bhagavad-gita, and that is the instruction of Srimad-Bhagavatam by Brahmaji, the supreme father of all living beings.

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