An Unexpected Obsession

Star Trek ruined me. No, seriously—ruined me. I wasn’t ready for it. But now, I couldn’t (and I wouldn’t) settle for a “less than ordinary life”.

The universe called to me wherever I went. My mind wandered between Earth and the stars. I jokingly (well, maybe not so jokingly) asked my parents for a space shuttle for the holidays, and watched any science fiction show I could get my hands on – Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5—in an attempt to escape my frustration with this “intergalactic space travel-less” time period.

Movies and novels that I had once deemed “average” were now exhilarating. Velociraptors became evolutionary miracles. Stephen Hawking became my hero. My imagination had been unlocked and was quickly engulfing my ability to settle for reality.

I was caught in my own world of the impossible, struggling with the fact that I had been born in an era where space travel consisted of simple missions to the moon, and aliens were pure speculation rather than fact. I became accustomed to that tightening knot in my stomach. I knew that I would never be able to join Star Fleet, never able to explore the galaxy in search of new civilizations and alien species. And it was slowly killing me inside: slowly, but surely.

And just when I was about to give up my dreams of the stars, I discovered science writing. I realized that I could combine my enthusiasm for scientific knowledge with my overactive imagination. Hence, I found a way to shorten the gap between scientific reality and the impossible. My goal is to shorten your gap as well.

And now I can watch Star Trek without dying inside. Now, I can travel the universe whenever and wherever I am. Here's to finding the impossible in reality. And who knows-- maybe I will make it to the Moon someday.