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To the Instrument at Arecibo II, and: To the Instrument at Arecibo IV, and: To the Instrument at Arecibo V

2022; University of Missouri; Volume: 45; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mis.2022.0043

1548-9930

Andrew Hemmert,

History and Developments in Astronomy

To the Instrument at Arecibo II, and: To the Instrument at Arecibo IV, and: To the Instrument at Arecibo V Andrew Hemmert (bio) To the Instrument at Arecibo II I was reading about all the animalswe've put into space. Monkeys and dogs of course, but also spiders and beastsso small you'd need a microscope to see them. Spiders, in space, still figure out howto weave their webs, though it takes them a minute, and often the end result is wildas a storm cloud, or a nebula. And when a rocket crashed on the moonlast year, it was carrying thousands of water bears, one of the most resilient creatureswe've yet discovered. Their faces bring to mind a hybrid of a drill bit and a dinosaur,and they will more than likely outlast us. There aren't many things that will outlast us,I think. Alligators maybe, sentient driftwood floating through flooded coastal cities. Some music,hopefully, wherever collectors have hoarded records away in basements or museum vaults.I was reading an article about complacency, [End Page 171] how the frequency of so-called freak weather eventsmakes us numb to the worsening state of this world we've created. How even the worst stormscan collapse, dissipate into the larger onslaught of the daily news. Instrument,the researcher on the radio said Hurricane Maria may have hastened your collapse. I flewinto San Juan a year after that storm blew through, and the airport still wore the damage—ceilings torn open, windows missing, some terminals closed off and powerless.We name hurricanes and they begin to feel like individual offenders, like living things. [End Page 172] To the Instrument at Arecibo IV Did you hear about our new moon?Apparently it's a '60s-era rocket boosterfalling out of orbit. Today is supposed to bethe day it disintegrates, whatever pieceshaving survived reentry scattered like coinsin the Pacific. Our first moon strikes meas the jealous type, which seems rightgiven it sometimes wears a man's face.Instrument, it took me a long time to learnhow to share. It took me a long timeto learn how to let anything go.Lucia and I found entrails on the sidewalkwhile out walking, what looked likea freshly extricated heart and intestines.A rabbit is the likely owner,how they seem to overpopulatethe neighborhood, easy targets for cats,hawks, and coyotes. I used to lie awakeat night listening to the howlingof coyotes broken only by the howlingof trains. I lived in Illinois, betweena moonshine distillery and a river.I live in Colorado now, and next month I'm movingto Denver, where some childhood versionof myself watched the millenniumarrive on the television like so much space junkreturning. I had a plastic top hat. I had plastic toys.I had a dog and she swam in mountain lakesand she went deaf from the microbesthat lived there. To live anywhereis a miracle, given how much mattersimply doesn't get to be alive,not even once. The rocket boosterwasn't alive even as it carried lifeatop that controlled explosionwe call flight, we call the final frontier,we call the only hope of survival. [End Page 173] Instrument, I haven't given up on the earth.It took me a long time to learnhow to let anything go. I'm watchingfor shooting stars tonight, which arenot stars but rocks and satellites,burnt offerings falling at a speedI'll never experience. What better thingto wish on—that which burns so brightyou can't help but see the world differentin light of its brief and terminal return. [End Page 174] To the Instrument at Arecibo V I wanted to tell you about seeing the second-to-last shuttle launch.It was cold in Cape Canaveral that morning, cold for Florida at least, and we sat in folding chairs wrapped in blankets, the air its ownwet garment against us. When the shuttle rose on its pillar of beach- gray smoke, a crown...