Just hearing the word “space” somehow makes me feel excited. I am especially excited when I see pictures of the universe in illustrated books.
I remember when I wanted an astronomical telescope to look at the stars, and when I saw on a TV program that the audience present was an astronomical telescope, I bought as many postcards as I could with my pocket money and entered the contest. In the end, I did not win the telescope, but instead, my parents bought me a book titled “Space and Constellations” for my free research during the summer vacation.
I looked for constellations in the book, but because I lived in the suburbs of the city, I could not see the stars themselves and could only find the constellation Orion.
This almost made me give up on my free research project, but then I decided that if I couldn’t see the stars, I would make them, so I came up with the idea of making a planetarium in my house instead. I made a hole in a plastic ball that I didn’t need in the shape of a constellation based on an illustrated book, and put a light bulb inside.
At first, however, the holes were too big and the spacing was not right, so the constellations did not look like constellations at all. However, after a lot of trial and error, the final result was quite good.
When I submitted it as a research project for the summer vacation, it was quite well received and I was unusually praised by the teacher. By the way, in my life, I have not wanted to go to school for three days, but that next day is one of those precious days.
For a while, I started sleeping at night, looking up at my homemade planetarium. Then I felt as if I was on a space walk, and one day, in my childish mind, I wanted to be an astronaut.
Nowadays, we are so familiar with space travel that even Mr. Maezawa, the former president of ZOZOTOWN, goes on space trips, but at that time, becoming an astronaut was such a tremendous adventure that people would say I was nuts.
Still, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut in parallel for a while, until I decided to become a novelist. However, after a while, that too became a harsh reality. As the manga “Space Brothers” says, becoming an astronaut is an extremely difficult task.
First of all, you have to be an expert in something. In particular, you need a science subject.
As I was born with a surprisingly poor command of science subjects, I gave up early on rather than take a leap of faith and try to master the sciences (I was never good at numbers anyway).
And at some point I gave up on the idea of becoming an astronaut. Probably because I didn’t really want to become one. Instead, I remained to look at pictures of the universe and think about faraway places.
Looking at pictures of the galaxy and other places, as they say, you can forget about the small things in your daily life. It makes me think how tiny human beings are.
Naturally, illustrated books contain pictures of all kinds of things. It could be the rings of Saturn, a nebula, or the surface of Mars. For myself, I was very attracted to the picture of Jupiter. Jupiter is a gas-type star that could not become the sun.
Those who dream of becoming astronauts have their own reasons. Most of them say they want to see the Earth from space. The Earth, the source of life, and the endless space. What do they think when they compare them? I think it is a feeling that can only be experienced by going out into space. And for some people, it is an opportunity to have a mystical experience.
I often hear that some astronauts awaken to religion when they return to Earth. Perhaps they have experienced something, something absolute. And they want to convey that feeling, but only the one who said it can understand it. That dilemma may be what drives them to religion.
That is why, in the future, I would like not only scientists and researchers but also young poets and writers to go to space. I believe that from there, unknown words for human beings will be born. A collection of photographs of the universe. For now, I would like to look at it and contemplate a world beyond the limits of humanity.
See you soon.