The desire to be invisible seems deeply embedded in our psyches. Gbur takes his subtitle from the famous Monty Python sketch “How Not to Be Seen,” in which a series of people hide in bushes, leaf piles, and a water barrel before being shot or blown up. For the same reason, organisms like chameleons and octopi have evolved camouflage skills. In ancient mythology Perseus, Athena, and Hermes took turns donning the helm of invisibility, aka the Cap of Hades, when they needed to evade the sight of their enemies. They are mere newcomers to the art of vanishing at will. Harry Potter has his cloak, Frodo has his ring, James Bond has a car, Wonder Woman has an airplane. It informs his research, and he collects headlines: “Invisibility Cloaks Are in Sight” “Researchers Create Functional Invisibility Cloak Using ‘Mirage Effect’” “Scientists Invent Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak-Sort Of.” His new book, Invisibility, explores the phenomenon as a catalyst for research as well as for science fiction-because across several centuries the science of light and the fiction of invisibility developed side by side, each inspiring the other. Gbur, an optical physicist at the University of North Carolina, has made invisibility something of a hobby. One automaker is now offering a “stealth” paint option-“a dark, enigmatic look,” for “an entirely new personality.” Gregory J. We know about stealth aircraft, aspirationally invisible to radar. Over the past two decades, scientists studying optics have considered invisibility not just as a fantasy but as a practical possibility. “Transparency” is a watchword and a virtue-so we are told-and the desire for invisibility might be a natural reaction. Still, we crave invisibility in response to a growing sense of ubiquitous surveillance: our images captured and displayed everywhere, our inner souls turned out for all to see. If everybody were being perfectly honest with you, they would tell you the truth, which is that they all want to be invisible so that they can shoplift, get into movies for free, go to exotic places on airplanes without paying for airline tickets, and watch celebrities have sex. People who chose invisibility imagined themselves lurking, eavesdropping, and peeping. He was disappointed that no one wanted to use their superpower to fight crime. The humorist and actor John Hodgman explained that he had been asking people this question for years at meetings and dinner parties, and that their choice revealed primal desires and unconscious fears. It was a test of character and a probe of the zeitgeist. These are “two of the superpowers which have fascinated humans since antiquity,” said the host, Ira Glass. The New Space Age will seek to answer those questions, and many more, with a comprehensive look at this significant moment in the history of human spaceflight.Some twenty years ago the radio program This American Life asked listeners which of two superpowers they would choose: flight or invisibility. Why does NASA want to go back to the moon? What toll does space travel take on the human body? And what are the consequences of the increasing amount of space debris littering the atmosphere? Space travel is booming, creating an energy around the exploration of our solar system that hasn’t been seen since the days of Apollo - and leading to no shortage of questions. And there is a plan to finally put a woman and person of color on the moon. There are hopes of one day having the infrastructure and technology to form permanent colonies in deep space. There are efforts underway to make space tourism accessible for the masses. As is SpaceX’s Starship, which NASA plans to use to ferry the astronauts to the lunar surface and back.īut those rockets represent only one element of the grand ambitions possessed by the United States, international space agencies and the many private companies that have set their sights on space over the past two decades. Big and powerful and full of fiery thrust, the Space Launch System rocket NASA wants to use to propel astronauts into moon orbit is a monster, taller than the Statue of Liberty.
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