TuesT&T - 172 Hours on the Moon and My Irrational Fear of Outer Space

Tuesday Thoughts and Talks is hosted by Sherry at Bloggity Blog.   The aim is to get people to think beyond the story and discuss a topic related to it.  Today I'm basing my post off the things I got thinking about whilst reading 172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad - mostly how stupidly scared I am of space.

I'm not entirely sure where this fear cam from, or quite when it started either.  I loved learning about the planets when I was a kid (back in the old days when Pluto was still considered a planet) and the idea of space travel fascinated me.  Okay, so I wasn't obsessed with it like a lot of kids were, but I wasn't afraid of it either.

I do, however, know why I'm scared.  It's due to a lot of reasons, the first being that it (supposedly) goes on forever.  How can that be possible?  How can something continue, on and on and on and on and never end?  If you were falling in space, you would never reach the bottom.  You'll just keep floating until you die.  I don't like that.

On a related note, even when I'm not thinking about it, I am always going to be floating on this tiny sphere in the middle of absolute darkness and a vast amount of nothingness.  Doesn't that sound unsafe to you?  And on to more unsafe business... One day, the sun is going to explode.  What makes it worse is that it's a when rather than if scenario.  Sure, I'm not going to be alive when this happens - hell, humans could be extinct by the time it happens - but it's still not nice to think about.  When the sun explodes, things are going to suck.  What will be left?  Infinite nothingness... *shudder*

On top of this, 172 Hours on the Moon brings to mind a lot more questions - like what else could be out there?  There could be anything!  Monsters, magic, parallel worlds... Okay so none of this has much of a scientific basis, but my imagination doesn't seem to care.  As you can see, even though I didn't love this book, it sure succeeded in creeping me out!

Just thinking about space and the future of the world scares me to no end.  We were learning about how the solar system came into existence in one of my classes last week, and I couldn't stand it.  I had to start thinking about something else.

Does any of this really have any relevance to me, a person content to keep my feet on the Earth for the rest of my life?  Uh, not really.  But it still freaks me out.

Have you got any irrational fears that you would like to share?