Some years ago I sent an email to Stephen Hawking, the wheel-chair bound cosmologist who studies the origins of the universe. I told him that what occurred at the beginning could not be according to my understanding of what is called The Big Bang Theory.

One of his associates emailed me back giving me a couple of points of the theory that I was not then aware off. I was told that the predictions were based on a universe that was formed from nothing and that it was formed everywhere at once.

So far no earth facts. Just theory.

When and if the Big Bang occurred, it had to be formed within a certain allowed range of energies.

Too much powder in the cannon and every thing would be blown so far a part that stars would not form.

Too little, or a wimpy not-so-big bang and stars would form but the universe would collapse before stars could go supernova and blast their atomic ingredients, formed before the star exploded, out where they could be gathered up and used to form planets.

That is why just the right amount of energy was used by what or whom formed the Universe.

With such precision, do you suspect God?

Stars were formed and are still being formed by the condensation of hydrogen.

They are not too exciting until they turn on the light and glow in the blackness of space. The bright light appears when fusion of hydrogen form helium, the stuff hydrogen bombs are made off.

This glow radiation is powerful and dangerous. On earth we are protected by the atmosphere. Space travelers must take special precautions. When the sun spits out too much radiation at once, we can lose contact with our satellites and have problems with power grids.

I always get the hives when that occurs. Just kidding! But it does screw up my amateur radio communications. "What happened to you on Pitcairn Island? I've lost you to QRM."

Some take sun screen to the beach where such radiation can be excessive. Sun screen is good up in the mountains of Idaho.

As stars cool and age they burn up the hydrogen and fusion forms the 92 natural elements that our chemist like to count. When the star gets fed up with all the reactions it blows itself apart spraying its elemental self all over the place which also coalesce as space waste is gathered up to form planets.

These elements are found in all life. If stars never had been formed and experienced supernova, there would not be life on our planet as we are made of stardust.

Do you remember that song, Stardust written by Nat King Cole?

“Beside a garden wall

When stars are bright

You are in my arms....

In my heart it will remain

My stardust melody

The memory of love's refrain.”

Intermission: Popcorn, Candy and Drinks in the Lobby

Continuing on, the stardust gathers and compresses into planets, not to the extent of stars that can become so compressed that they become neutron stars or black holes and /or go supernova and blow stuff from Hell to hereafter, but they sometimes melt internally, the heavy elements pulled toward the center.

You know that there are so called rocky planets and we have gaseous planets. Earth is one of the rocky ones. Neptune needs Pepto Bismol.

As if being punished internally is not enough, planets get bombarded by meteors and comets from space, some providing great amounts of water to fill up all the nooks and crannies and basins. If lucky in our simple minds, a new planed will have the right conditions to produce life, looking a pretty blue in the blackness of space.

Not all planets are equal. Earth has a nice mix of oxygen and nitrogen to present a gas mix we can suck into our lungs, absorbing some of the oxygen but exhaling most of it, supplying carbon dioxide to the nearest rose bush.

Things happen in deep oceans where hot jets of water form islands where weird life resides. Some think that is where life first formed on Earth.

I can go along with that. That is as good a place as any.

Other planets have a different atmosphere. Some have gobs of methane. Some have an abundance of sulfur and its compounds, which would be a stinky place to visit.

Few planets are “just right” in our terms being too hot, too cold or being made up of the wrong stuff.

Each planet has its own history. Our scientist and engineers make and spend big money getting a glimpse of what is going on the planets in our solar system and on our amazingly different planets. Right now we are parked on Mars again hoping to find if conditions were ever right there for life.

Some scientist would rather look for a planet like ours, just right for summer vacations and cheeseburgers. So far they have found planets but they tend to be large with gravity so high that it would slow a cheetah to a snails pace.

There is supposed to be billions of hospital planets, each too far to reach. We Mormons have always known that.

We have scientist listening for radio signals from space. Being scientist they expect to hear something scientific rather than a comic from Bluton in G-74888399393:

Bluton Comic: How many earthlings does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: From where I’m watching, there are no earthlings.

If we look at a planetary system through the Hubble space telescope, we are seeing what it was like many light years ago. Our scientist and engineers who may be eager to travel in space hoping to land on a lovely globe like ours are just blowing in the wind, another song reminder by Bob Dylan;

"The answer, my friend, it is blowin' in the wind

An' the answer is blowin' in the wind."

We could put a man on Mars. I say, why not. Just don’t think about the cost of returning him (or her) to earth. Send an old man and communicate with him until he dies or is too weak to communicate. Same for the moons of our solar system.

I know that the scientist want to send a vehicle to land on Europa to drill a hole in the ice to look to see if a sea monster’s head pops up. If it did, that would add billions of dollars to the space program. Everybody would want one in the local zoo.

As for me, I’m satisfied to stay on God’s Green Earth to take pictures of the Idaho mountains and lakes, and to breath without a space suit to hinder me.

Politicians want a moon base. Can you imagine living in such a place. Every time you want to go outside into the dark cold or the hot light, you would need your space suit. And when you drove around you would not find one place you could cast a line and pull in a rainbow trout.

That would be no place for me.

Some space scientist are crazy about rocks. Well, I went to Stonehenge which was created in about 2000 B.C. by big rock collectors called Druids. The United States Auto Club was there with antique cars like the Stanley Steamer. All the women were looking at the stones. All the men were looking at the cars. So much for rocks.

O.K. I do know about rocks. I took a number of college courses on the subject but I would be more interested in the Europa Sea Monster.

I would rather read books on my ebook reader or a used tome from Amazon or Alibris on cosmology and space travel.

I’m just an old stay-at-home.

John

TJ Books