The alarm rings. Hop in the shower, make breakfast, bundle the kids off to school (or get them set up for virtual, or whatever), head to work, answer the phone, email, punch that clock, come home, make supper, take the kids to Ball practice, go to that club meeting, watch TV, fall into bed, but . . .

. . . have you ever stopped to look up? Or, as the Friendly Giant used to say, waaaaay up? We’re often reminded to stop and smell the roses. How often are we told to pause and glance at the stars?

It’s easy to forget the fact that we live on a Planet — that is, a single world in a universe of thousands, probably millions of other planets. There’s things to do and people to see, and before you know it, you’re wrapped up in your own life, your own time, on your own small patch of Earth. Who’s got time to think of rockets when the boss is breathing down your neck?

I paused last week to look up — at Mars, and the view was incredible. In case you missed it, Perseverance has been busy. This rover allows NASA to take pictures, examine the soil, and test the air of the far away planet. Think of it: on a planet thousands of kilometres away, a robot took a picture, and within hours, I had a copy of it on my home computer. A crystal clear photo of an eerie, ruggedly beautiful landscape. Isn’t technology wonderful?

Yes, I admit, I’m a space junkie. I spent one entire weekend hoping some Martian would pick up the receiver on the Pathfinder, one of the first Mars missions, and say “Hello, Domino’s Pizza? I’d like to try out that thirty minute delivery guarantee of yours.” Or that the Sojourner would catch a glimpse of a Martian family  packing their bags, saying “Dear God, the humans have found us, there goes the neighbourhood.”

Actually, I’d settle for any data that would shake us up a little, because we’ve been ignoring outer space for far too long. These past few months have been full of space things in the popular media, mostly negative comments about billionaires and … anatomically suggestive rockets. But usually, we ignore the subject. The space shuttle is up again? Ho hum. Comet visible in the sky? Snooze. Even when there is a real‑life drama occurring — like the accident on the Mir space station — the world yawns, and tunes into the ball game.

We really should spend more time — and yes, money — on space though. Those ball games come in clearly because of those satellites we lob into the sky — and those same devices warn us of tornadoes, blizzards and other nasties. Data collected from experiments in space is teaching us how to preserve our environment, and how our own bodies work. Money spent on the space program is good for the economy too — because it takes hundreds of scientists, engineers, administrators and even janitors and cafeteria workers, to put a ship in space.

We should also look to space because someday, we’ll have to move there. Assuming we survive climate change and whatever other self-inflicted stupidity we dream up, we need to ensure the long term survival of the species by going multi-planet. The chances of being taken out by a large rock from space are not zero… just ask the dinosaurs.

More than anything else, we need a vision, a dream, something to strive for, as a nation, as a race of people. Something to take our minds of our everyday problems, to put the excitement back into our workaday lives. Learn more about it, talk to your kids about it. There is a way for everyone to be involved in space exploration, even ordinary citizens like you and me.

We haven’t been to the moon in decades. It’s time we looked up, looked all the way up. It’s time we reached for those stars. 

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