Astronaut Tracy Caldwell, circling planet Earth every 90 minutes in the "International Space Station," will be able to hug astronauts Naoko Yamazaki, Stephanie Wilson and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger as they enter the confined space ship tomorrow morning adding to the feminine total of 54 of the 517 spacefarers since Yuri Gagarin became the world's first space traveler in 1961. With the feminine gender aboard, the question of "law" in space becomes increasingly relevant, especially when on the 236 miles beneath them, the condition of anarchy and war mostly dominated by the male gender - an ancient "bonding" phenomenon - still persists on home base.
Are these humans of the female gender sufficiently aware of the legal codes dominating that minute space when whizzing by umpteen national frontiers at 17,180 mph about 16 times daily? And how will that influence their own political awareness once they debark on good old Mother Earth? Uncontrolled? And without national passports?
Is it not "world law" then which prevails between the space travelers, or "national law?" Are there tiny frontiers marked off on the ship which the various travelers must pass after being "controlled"? And by whom? What! No border guards on Space Shuttles?Absurd questions, right? What one word would characterize the "lawful" principle joining both the individual and collective activities of a spaceship crew? "Systemic." "All systems, go!"
Indeed, I for one am delighted that female members of our common humanity are "out there" systemically observing that beautiful celestial orb, covered 70% with water, every 1.30 hours at 17,180 mph. It's surely an enlightening and transforming experience as many astronauts have remarked upon their "return."
NASA Space Operations Chief, Bill Gerstenmaier, when apprised of the imminent women-in-space record, remarked that "Maybe that's a credit to the system, right? That I don't think of it as male or female. I just think of it as a talented group of people going to do their job in space."
Well "I'd love to have those numbers higher," replied Stephanie Wilson, who is making her third shuttle flight. "But I think that we have made a great start and have paved the way with women now being able to perform the same duties as men in space-flight."
Sisters of the world, YOU ARE ALSO WITH THEM IN SPIRIT! AND IN VISION! AND ESPECIALLY IN DE FACTO WORLD LAW! Please, for heaven's sake, take it to heart and mind. We World Citizens need your insight, support and strength.
Hallelujah!
But I would go further. First off, the name is all wrong. That incredible revolving marvel 236 miles above our collective heads is both in concept and in reality a "World Space Station." "International" indeed! So 18th century. Totally inadequate for our century of instant communication, satellites girdling the globe, permitting upwards of 3 billion to watch the Olympic Games and soccer and golf matches, with cell phones on every ear, plus 7-year-olds at schools worldwide operating individual computers on every desk, and, of course, Google, Yahoo, Bing, Nexis, Sogou, Yandex, and craigslist, etc.. .
Secondly, its empty interior, peopled by fellow humans and especially those of the feminine sex, is realistic and historic evidence of "world law" per se, that is OPERATING for those lucky persons inhabiting that off-planet space vehicle, however restricted. (See my blog on Space). Deny it not national presidents, prime ministers, border guards, spies, diplomats, CEOs of transnational corporations and lastly, those unfortunate armed largely male humans in various national uniforms ordered by frustrated and impotent national "leaders" to kill one another in the name of national "peace," the deadliest oxymoron of any century.
Finally, today is Easter for the Christian world. War President Barack Obama, caught in the web of an 18th century constitution when muskets and cannon balls were the epitome of weaponry, and sovereignty officially and artificially divided between the people and the president,* hailed "the "shared spirit of humanity" in his Easter message to the world of humans.
"On this Easter weekend," he lectured us, "let us hold fast to those aspirations we hold in common as brothers and sisters, as members of the same family - the family of man." When, in Berlin, addressing over 200,000 Berliners, as this space reported earlier, Obama id'd himself as a "citizen of the world" for which confession we, of the World Service Authority, issued to him an "honorary World Passport." No need here to expose the president's verbal contradictions when accepting the ill-suited Nobel Peace Laureate award.
Dear readers, the lesson is crystal-clear. Just as the mythical frontiers of nationalism are nakedly revealed as relative, passe and historically dysfunctional, so the immutable and eternal laws of unity are startlingly and celestially revealed by this whirling systemic space bus.
To the world's Christians, indeed He is risen!
As a "Citizen of the Universe."
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*Contrast Article 2, Section 2 with the Ninth Amendment.
