Fly me to the moon

By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban

Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

Let me see what spring is like on

A-Jupiter and Mars

In other words, hold my hand

Frank Sinatra’s 1954 masterpiece, Fly me to the moon, teems with definitely fantastic, dreamy calls for flying to an endlessly fascinating place. The dream came true in 1969; the first humans walked on the moon, looking at the incredible Earth, a tiny blue spot in the stunning universe. Ever since, nations have raced to explore and eventually exploit the offspring of Mother Earth, the lunar surface; unmanned, robotic missions have been landing on the moon to set devices to analyse the lunar soil, extract minerals, and establish future colonies and laboratories there; agencies are planning to send tourists to outer space in the very near future. But is Sinatra’s moon the moon out there or the emotional or mental moon that is associated across cultures with beauty, clarity, peace, love, imagination and inspiration? And what if it became possible for you to be there, not in person, at least for the time being, but your genetic blueprint or records, would you like the idea?  Is it preposterous? And why do we have a special interest in life beyond our planet?

Believe it or not

A few years ago, a biotech company announced its plans for building a pyramid on the moon to store the DNA samples of living organisms on Earth. “People willing to reserve a spot on the moon for their DNA can sign up now for only 99$,” wrote the company on its website. Are your eyes glazing over now?   Ben Haldeman, the founder of the San Francisco-based startup LifeShip broke the news. Armed with a very rich background in space research as he developed special optics to analyse the soil of Mars and took part in building huge telescopes to discover new star systems and planets, especially habitable ones, Ben Haldeman indicated that sending the DNA database of all living organisms to the moon is just the beginning; it could be sent to other planets. The future might hold wonders for us.

Just in case  

Explaining the main motivations for the project, Haldeman said “ I think it’s about saving for an unknown future” and a gift to future generations and other possible creatures on possibly other habitable exoplanets .The database would tell the incredible stories of life on the stunning Earth. “If we do get to the point of sending this to beyond the solar system, it’s also a gift to other life out there,” he added.

However, data security continues to be people’s utmost concern; how to prevent DNA hackers from stealing biobanks and making data accessible to pharmaceutical companies and other unknown parties remains a pain in the neck to all parties involved. But when it comes to sending your data to the moon and even further to other planets and stars, do you still have the same concerns?

Insane and mind blowing

Sounds insane like a fairytale? Yeah, but the very concept of space is insane, always mind blowing. If you ask children about their future careers, you will find out that many of them have aspirations to go into astronomy. DNA research is equally mind blowing, it miraculously makes leaps every day. The good news is that an increasing number of people are doing DIY genetic testing at home. It is easy; some cheek cells, a hair, nails or a saliva sample. From tracing family trees, to predicting future diseases or health risks and taking preemptive attack on likely life-threatening diseases, DNA research will definitely and endlessly be shaping our future.

Are we alone in the universe?

Humans are prewired to explore; searching for the unknown always fires our imagination. The great drive that has fueled the passion for expanding knowledge beyond Earth was seeking the possibility of other life on the billions of planets orbiting billions of stars in the universe. With more advanced technology and the robotic age, space becomes a new arena for conflicts among competing nations for more power, better access to space recourses and saver and cheaper energy generation.

Running away

Some people believe that space missions and agendas are a mere evasion of the unprecedented fatal problems resulting from the aggressive use of natural resources. The cost of  combating these environmental problems is too high for superpowers to pay.  Their greedy ‘development’ plans make the search for another place to exploit a necessity. Coping with Earth problems that we make would be much more worthwhile than looking for another home. Let’s fix our beautiful Earth!

The new ark

The name of the company, LifeShip, teems with meaning, vibrant religious connotations and associations. The name instantly activates in our minds the story of Prophet Noah, when God Almighty commanded him to get a pair of all creatures on his ark to start a new life after the recession of waters that covered the whole world. This is exactly what inspires Haldeman and steers him to sell the idea to space lovers. Anyway, who knows what the future holds for humanity?    

 Finally, even if the idea and the project still look preposterous, they at least remind us of the moon. Living indoors, staring at phones and detached  from nature, we rarely see the sky. It would be no longer uncommon to find a couple having the following dialogue :

 He: Look up at the sky!

She: Yeah, the moon, the pyramid!

He: Yeah, there is a pit of you and me out there.

She: Wanna be there too, fly me to the moon!

 By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban Professor of linguistics Faculty of Arts 

Kafr el-sheikh University

Email: [email protected]