Space

I'm thinking about space again. The spaces between us, and the space inside us. The space that makes us, and eventually will break us. I've been listening to RadioLab shows and Ted talks and documentaries on the subject. I even watched a simulated trip to the farthest reaches of space, stopping at some key attractions along the way (pulsars, quasars, neutron stars, and mirroring galaxies). But there's one argument and re-occuring way of thinking about it that doesn't sit very well with me. Everyone from theoretical physicists to NASA scientists all have the same argument when it comes to encountering the far reaches and the chances of other life. They all fall back on statistics (1/1billion or something near it) chance of encountering other life where it exists while it exists. While these arguments have some validity, one thought keeps making me want to call in to these pre-recorded scientists as they spout their 'ones with a hundred zeros behind it' in regards to how long it would take to travel somewhere an unfathomable distance from here. They are still thinking of it in terms of our combustive engines and linear way of looking at the world. And I haven't heard a single mention by any of these well-informed brilliant minds mentioning in their travel estimates 'but this is just coming from what we know about space and how we know to travel through it TODAY'. When Columbus or Magellan or any other early explorer thought of moving around the earth, they thought of it in terms of months. I'm sure if someone suggested to them that in 24 hours, they could travel all the way around the world and end up where they stand, they would laugh in your face (and more likely, lock you up). They hadn't the technology at the time to be able to conceive of jet propulsion or carbon combustion. So what makes us think that we've got it all figured out at this point? What makes us think that linear combustive travel is the only way? just because that's what we've put all investment in over the past couple hundred years?

I just don't buy it. atoms can make a quantum jump. perhaps there's something that is out of our current sights as far as our technological advancement, but perhaps is just over the horizon