Return to the Stars: Evidence for the Impossible (9 page)

Today we know that the plan for the growth and death of every organism is coded in its nucleus. But why should there not be a master plan for the whole of mankind, a great all-embracing punched card on which prehuman and cosmic memories are registered? This premise would explain once and for all why world-shaking ideas, discoveries and inventions suddenly come into existence at some given point in time. The point in time is programmed in the punched card! The selector picks out the storage points in the card and summons up forgotten and subconscious material.

The hectic rush of everyday life leaves us no leisure for getting to know the unconscious. Driven by a constant flood of new and stimulating impressions, our senses never reach the storage points of the primitive memories. So I find it logical that the wonderful sight of memories of the past and a vision of the future appears particularly to monks in their cells, scientists in the seclusion of their laboratories, philosophers in the solitude of nature and men dying alone.

Since the remote past we have all lived in an evolutionary spiral that carries us irresistibly into the future, into a future which I am convinced has already been the past; not a human past, but the past of the 'gods', which is at work in us and will become the present one day. We are still waiting for definite scientific proof. But I believe in the power of those chosen spirits to whom a subtle selective mechanism is given that will one day release to them the information stored up in the dim past about realities that have existed. Until that happy day dawns, I support Teilhard de Chardin when he says; 'I believe in science, but has science ever taken the trouble to consider the world except from the outside of things?'

-----------------------------

5 - The Sphere The Ideal Shape For Space-Craft

All the types of rocket in service today are pencil-shaped. Is that absolutely necessary? Surely there is constant proof that the pencil shape is neither necessary nor ideal in airless space? When a space-ship, which, unlike the multi-stage rocket, is at least cone-shaped, flies to the nearby moon, it has to revolve repeatedly on its own axis. How involved and dangerous! We know from all the accounts of space flight that every change of course calls for a highly complicated steering manoeuvre. The ship's computer has to find out deviations from the flight path in thousandths of a second and equally quickly actuate the small steering jets for course correction. A single, minute steering mistake would have devastating consequences, as only limited amounts of propulsive material are carried and they would soon be used up. Then the steering jets would no longer be able to carry out the course corrections, the space-craft would be unable to return to the earth's atmosphere and it would shoot through the universe out of control until it burnt up.

Undoubtedly the rockets now in use have proved themselves technically. For with the present rocket motors, which are still comparatively weak, only pointed flying objects offering small frictional surfaces can pierce the thick 'wall' of the earth's atmosphere. Yet sharp needles are not ideal for interstellar traffic.

The liberation of higher propulsive energy is the key that would lead to the manufacture of new types of space-craft. The time when technology will have as yet incredible energies as its disposal is no longer so far away. When that time comes, it could lead to pure photon propulsion units that reach a velocity close to the speed of light and can provide propulsion for an almost unlimited period.

Then we should no longer have to economise on every pound of payload, as we do today, when for every pound that a space-craft takes on a journey to the moon, an extra 2,590 lb of fuel is needed. Once that was the case, space-craft would soon be built in a very different shape.

Old texts and archaeological finds around the world have convinced me that the first space-craft that reached the earth many thousands of years ago were spherical, and I am sure that the space-craft of the future will (once again) be spherical.

I am no rocket designer, but there are a couple of reflections that we can all make and which seem completely convincing. A sphere has no 'forward' or 'aft', no 'above' or 'below', no 'right' or 'left'. It offers the same surface in every position and direction. So the sphere is the ideal shape for the cosmos, which also has no 'above' or 'below', no 'forward' or 'aft'.

Let us take a walk round a space sphere that still seems like a science-fiction dream today. But let's not skimp matters. Imagine a sphere with a diameter of 17,000 ft. This monster stands on sprung, retractable spider legs. Like an ocean liner, the interior is divided into decks of various sizes. Around the belly of the gigantic ball—at its equator— runs a massive ring housing the twenty or more propulsion units that can all be swivelled through 180°—a simple technical feat. When the countdown has reached zero, they will radiate concentrated light waves amplified a million-fold. If the cosmic sphere is to rise from the surface of the planet or one of the launching areas stationed in orbit, the propulsion units shoot their columns of light directly down on to the launching pad, giving the sphere a tremendous thrust. Once the sphere has reached the extra-gravitational field and is on its course to a fixed star, the propulsion units around its equator will only be fired now and then for course corrections. There is no risk of the sphere moving out of its flight path in a way that might endanger the crew because it can immediately adapt itself to any situation. Besides, something happens that will be very pleasant for the astronauts; the sphere begins to rotate of its own accord. In this way an artificial gravity is created in all the external rooms that decreases the state of weightlessness so much that conditions are almost the same as on earth. If one flies to the stars, one is still bound by one of the laws of the old earth!

It is important to realise that in this kind of space sphere course corrections in any direction are possible without danger. The propulsion units mounted on the steel girdle round the sphere permit lightning avoiding action or quick turns in any direction. Billiards players will easily catch on to the idea. If a right turn is needed, the sphere gets a light touch from a steering jet mounted on the left and vice-versa.

Spherical space-craft of the kind that may have traversed the galaxies millennia ago will be only minute particles in the infinity of the universe. Shooting along close to the speed of light, the astronauts will only sense this tempo as a slow soft floating away. Time will seem to stand still in their craft.

But what will happen in the 'timeless time' in the interior of the cosmic sphere? Well, once space stations of that size actually travel, a perfectly normal everyday routine will be followed on board. Robots will keep a check on the functioning of motors and machinery, computers will watch the course, astronauts will carry out scientific research in laboratories, think out still bolder projects, observe the stars and think about the exploitation of unknown planets. While the sphere covers millions of miles a minute, days will become weeks, weeks will become months and months become years for the crew. And in deep-freeze sarcophagi a reserve crew will await its biological reawakening when the sphere nears its goal.

But simultaneously on countless planets whole cultures will disappear, generations will die and new ones will be born, for time will rush by according to 'terrestrial' laws on our planet and other stars.

I won't expand on the excursion to Utopia. Science-fiction writers have described imaginary space-ships of the future only too often. My 'sphere story' is solely intended to prepare the reader's imagination for a perfectly serious idea. Supposing we examine the first legends of mankind's creation with this 'sphere story' in mind?

We learnt at school that in the beginning there were only heaven and earth and that the earth was deserted and barren. But out in the darkness, we were taught, shone a light and from this light came the word which gave the order for all life to begin.

Everything about the temporal unfolding of this genesis is absolutely logical. During the long cosmic journey through the universe there was obviously no light; all was pitchblack night. 'There was light' only after the landing of the cosmic vehicle on the planet and then the unknown beings experienced day and night, and life could begin and intelligence originate at the goal of their journey—in answer to a word of command.

In nearly all known creation legends the primordial truth is repeated that the word came from the light. There was a rich oral tradition on the Polynesian islands long before the first white man landed. A select circle of priests watched carefully to see that not a word of the old philosophical and astronomical wisdom was changed, but western civilisation and Christian missionaries stifled the rich tradition that the original population had possessed. In 1930 the Bishop Museum of Honolulu, which was the largest Polynesian collection in the world, sent two expeditions to the islands. Their aim was to safeguard the genealogies and songs that had survived the dubious blessing of western colonisation. Years later the Swedish scholar Bengt Danielsson, who had crossed the Pacific on the Kon Tiki raft with Thor Heyerdahl, visited some of the South Sea Islands with his wife and wrote down the traditions that were still alive in the consciousness of the islanders.

On the little island of Raroia in the Tuamotu group in the Pacific Ocean, 450 nautical miles north-east of Tahiti, Danielsson met an old sage whose name was Te-Yho-a-te-Pange. Danielsson tells us how this priest droned out the history of his people like a gramophone record. It is staggering:

'In the beginning there was only empty space, neither darkness nor light, neither land nor sea, neither sun nor sky. Everything was a big silent void. Untold ages went by...'

Could the account be more pertinent? Do we have to leave it to a primitive man in a loincloth, who lives on coconuts and fish, and has absolutely no technical knowledge, to explain to us what it looks like in space? But let Te-Yho-a-te-Pange go on talking:

'... Then the void began to move and turned into Po. Everything was still dark, very dark, men Po itself began to revolve...'

Have we reached the solar system now, have we entered the field of the orbits of the planets? (The void began to move.) Darkness still reigned. A sphere—called Po here—became visible. It begins to revolve.

'New strange forces were at work. The night was transformed ...'

A telling description. Now the attraction of the planet is at work (... new strange forces ...). We are sinking into the atmosphere. It grows bright as day.

'... the new matter was like sand, the sand became firm ground that grew upwards. Lastly "Papa", the earth mother, revealed herself and spread abroad and became a great country

Then people were on terra firma, which extended far and wide. But before they reached the earth's surface, which 'grew upwards' (an impression that arises when one comes on it from above), matter that was 'like sand' had to be traversed. Is that another way of describing the powerful frictional forces that the envelope of air exerts on the exterior of the space-ship?

Te-Yho-a-te-Pange continues:

'... there were plants, animals and fish in the water and they multiplied. The only thing that was lacking was man. Then Tangaloa created "Tiki", who was our first ancestor ...'

We should never forget this myth of the creation. Perhaps it would be a good thing to tell it in our schools.

The Popol Vuh contained another wonderful account. This book, which is one of the 'great writings of the dawn of mankind' (Cordan) and is in the nature of a secret book was the holy scripture of the Quiche—Indians of the great Mayan family around Lake Atitlan in the Central American state of Guatemala.

Its comprehensive creation myth claims that men only partially stem from this earth, that 'gods' created the 'first beings endowed with reason', but destroyed all the unsuccessful examples and after performing their earthly tasks rose into heaven again, to the place where the 'heaven's heart' is, namely to Dabavil, to him 'who sees in the darkness'.

Is this the reason why the Quiche Indians were imbued with the concept of gods who dwelt in stone spheres and who could emerge from the stone? Does the ball game cult of this tribe, of which the Popol Vuh tells, have its roots in this creation myth? The ball game as cosmical and magical rite, as symbol of the flight to the stars?

Among the creation stories that strengthen my theory, another myth—that of the Chibcha (i.e. men)—is a real jewel. The historical home of these people, whom the Spaniards discovered in 1538, is on the east Colombian plateau.

The Spanish chronicler Pedro Simon describes the myth of the Chibcha in his Noticias historiales de las conquistas de tierra firme en las Indias Occidentales: