The Man Who Floated Away Into Space

i'm not sure how long it's been my only reference points now are distant stars and planets that basically all look the same and don't appear to be moving much from here the radio and gps cut out some time ago and the manual propulsion system engines were damaged in the initial collision i've since been drifting alone and disconnected in some unknown direction towards something or nothing i suppose both are sort of the same to me at this point i can only assume i'm moving rather fast considering the speed at which we were hit but it honestly feels more like i'm just floating in place like i'm submerged in a literal infinity pool with no edge or surface my only hope left is that this is some strange dream or hallucination and i'm still on the ground somewhere soon to come back to reality at any moment admittedly early on when the reality of this whole situation really first started to set in i seriously considered that as a possibility i guess hoped might be more accurate my brain's imaginative wishful nature trying to conjure up and sustain its last bit of artificial hopefulness almost convincing me that what is real isn't and vice versa i've since given up such hope at least of that form i realized around the same time that i had a decision to make to either continue on in terror and paranoia fueled by the hope that there was something to be done something i could do some other way this whole thing could go or i could sit back and enjoy the stars the decision was pretty obvious i'm going to die and no one can save me and i only have so much time left and i'm going to enjoy it i float through the void now free perhaps more than i have ever felt or imagined before totally and completely free i feel infinity play with my limbs as its laws of motion carry me like a child's plush toy i just let it i do not flail i do not fight it i just float i think about where it might be taking me where i will end up what distant space i will float onto what my final view of everything will be you know i have seen the same night sky nearly every night of my life and i've had the great fortune of being in a profession that has given me the opportunity to see it from all sorts of different angles close and afar but right now swallowed up by it totally with no sight of home further out than perhaps anyone has ever been it looks completely different or perhaps it feels completely different either way in this i realize now more than ever just how used to the insanity of everything we so easily become to the grave imminent dangers of living and moving through an unending and unknown space the unfathomable depth of potential and mystery that is just a short float above our heads at all times i can't help but laugh to myself at how bored we so easily become how much we struggle to be dazzled by awe and silenced by humility we must be the only thing cursed with the tendency to reduce the magnificent to tedium to analyze beauty into ugliness to reduce our incredible position to misery we are so small it took no more than one cycle of oxygen for essentially all clear traces of home to disappear from my vision forever all the greatest heroes and sages and leaders and so on from here i don't see any of them we forget that we are a life still in its adolescent years at best yet to even really leave home our species still filled with the angst and juvenile rebellion of a teenager the universe must laugh at our arrogant ignorance our smug righteousness our poutiness we still think we know everything but we know damn near nothing about anything like our pioneering ancestors of every form discovered lands and worlds and ways of being that we take for granted now as the status quo great unknown lands of the future await us great unknown manners and knowledge of how to live and be unknown turmoil ii casualties of this kind and far far worse of course to grow up to age to toy with the universe and venture out into the unknown always carries its great uncertainty and risk but it is perhaps one of the most beautiful imperatives of our kind to do so to live is to be afraid but perhaps to center that fear on something that unites and grows and reveals wonder is to be afraid with some purpose i don't know what else could life possibly be but a series of new horizons new views a constant rediscovery of beauty and wonder i'm going to die a casualty of this cause and i wouldn't want it any other way [Music] if i have any remaining wish it's that this was not all in vain this fatal mission and every pair of shoulders that it stood on every prior fatal mission every prior successful mission i hope that more and more of my kind will see and feel what i do right now with less finality and more intention to continue on into the darkness bringing the lights of their own creation illuminating the heavens and revealing them as new homes today the great frontiers are above us into the once believed heavens that we need not be dead to touch we can touch them now we will we will if we can survive our teenage carelessness and anguish and avoid the irreversible self-harm that so many adolescences fall victim to if we continue to grow and learn and survive together we will live together up here somewhere into forever we either live together or die together i don't know how long my suit will survive after me i don't know if these words will ever be heard by anyone else no matter the case i'll be okay i'll be dead but if anyone does find me or rather what was once me if anyone finds this recording please know that i was happy while speaking these words i have lived a good life an aesthetic voyager who lived and died by the space that enthralled him if you have not already i hope even if just for a moment you see and feel what i do right now i hope you see past me i hope you find reason to continue as a string of life extending further and further out reaching with excitement and wonder into the infinite yet continually insufficient frontier don't cut the string short for trivial absurd reasons if it's absurd to continue then it's absurd to cut it all short and if you can't find the reasons to continue my friendly suggestion is make them up a group of scientists spacesuit engineers language experts historians and technologists all working with the international orbital debris monitoring and recovery program look down at a strange audio playback speaker device as it concludes the last recording contained on it it is attached to what can only be surmised as a half-burnt spacesuit helmet some strip parts of the neck and upper torso portion of the suit still attached it appears somehow futuristic and otherworldly yet entirely human and familiar almost blending science fiction with basic simple human engineering all the materials are known and traceable to earth and the suggested body shape is mostly anatomically consistent with a human the logos and symbols on the spacesuit however after having been extensively analyzed appear to not match anything known by any space program private or federal additionally the surviving technology components appear fairly advanced alluding to some sort of high-capacity oxygen sustainment system and advanced temperature regulation and damage resistance some of the mechanics even still functioning none of which quite match any known current technologies but all of which seem to be understandable through some reverse engineering the audio recording after sufficient cross-analysis and expert translation appears to have been spoken in a strange blend of different but still mostly known ancient languages and it is essentially fully able to be translated the group of scientists and experts completely perplexed consider and discuss what can only be described as a letter in a bottle that happened to float ashore after years and years of aimless floating from some distant time past our future distant land near or far or some mix of both an artifact of [Music] possibility [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Pursuit of Wonder

Views: 994,287

Rating: 4.8615022 out of 5

Keywords: pursuit of wonder, space, floating off into space, the man who was lost in space, gravity, letter to marble 3, exrub1a, aperture, black holes, lemmino, lost in space, what if, What Would Happen If An Astronaut Floated Away Into Space?, vsauce, science, philosophy, short story, animation, What Happened to the People Lost in Space?, universe, how long could you survive in space?, the moon is a door to forever, school of life, kurzgesagt in a nutshell

Id: NfJJUt-7noc

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2020