Outer Space
and the Sound of Silence
Janet Kuypers
1/18/15 (1/19/15 IST)
The one thing
astronauts talk about
when they speak of outer space
is about the deep blackness of the universe.
That without
our atmosphere giving
the sun particles something to bounce
off of, the vastness of space is an empty void.
But the one thing
they never talk about
when they speak of outer space
is the sounds they hear when they’re out there —
who knows, maybe
they’re too preoccupied
seeing through the universe,
maybe they’re only hearing their heavy breathing
while trapped
in their space suit.
Maybe all they hear is the
motion of their bodies against the sides
of their mini—
atmosphere in this planetary
existence created for each astronaut in their suit.
And sure,
Captain Kirk
or Jean Luc Picard
may not have needed space suits
when commanding the that ship Enterprise
because each ship
was it’s own little planet
with a fully—supported ecosystem
but the question begs itself: how could sound
travel through space?
I mean, I know light does,
how else would we see sunlight
travel through space to get to planet Earth?
But sound,
that’s a whole different
ball game, so to speak, sound waves
travel like light or heat waves, be here’s the catch:
sound travels
by making molecules vibrate.
If there aren’t any molecules in outer
space (or too few to make any difference), sound
can’t travel. Now,
I know it’s all acting,
and I know the whole crew has to
all lean the same way when the ship gets hit.
but the one thing
that the directors want,
and the sound effect guys have to
add in post—production to giving movie—style
explosions,
is probably a little over
the top. We’ve suspended reality
with every ship’s gravity, and we even accept
transporters
duplicating any person,
down to every molecule including
their clothes, to magically be re—assembled
somewhere else.
(which only existed
because in the original shows
they didn’t have props for travel, so they
just made up
the “transporting” idea.)
So over the years we’ve been willing
to suspend our beliefs for science fiction,
and I know
some places claim to hear
noises from our sun, but they’re
actually inferring the vibrations within the sun,
which generate sound
so low humans can’t hear it —
that they have to speed the sun’s vibrations
by fourth—two thousand times, so forty days
of vibrations
are converted to five seconds
so that we humans can ascribe
sound to anything outside of our atmosphere.
Because resonances
inside our sun is sound
bouncing through the gases inside
of the sun, not the sun relaying music to our ears.
So okay, Gene
Roddenberry, we get it,
make the mystery of outer space sound
bigger than life by giving us a sense we lose in space.
And Jean Luc Picard,
and you too, James Tiberius Kirk
we’ll thank the Foley artists as well as the actors
for giving us more than science alone ever could.
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