Love, Death, and Terminal Velocity
Troy M. Morris, Director of Operations
4 minute read
While working on the long mission of preventing massive orbital disasters, with components moving at 7,500 m/s, considering time is a common occurrence. There are a few things in life that bring the human experience to move at incredible speeds, yet leave us feeling incredibly still. The list of these unique experiences may be longer than will be discussed here, but three of the most different examples are of varying frequency in an average lifetime: falling in love, falling from this mortal coil, and free-falling through the atmosphere (not even at re-entry speeds).
The first is apropos for discussion near Valentine’s Day: the act of falling in love. Some might experience this feeling a few times, some only once, the unlucky maybe never. In the multitude of moments that occur when cupid’s arrow strikes, the experience is shared by all in the phrase of falling, taking on metaphorical and physical aspects. In physiological terms, the reaction between attraction and acceleration is intriguingly similar. Heartbeats quicken, pupils dilate, sweating increases, even the passage of time seems to fluctuate faster or to freeze. This is how time can seem to stand still. Locked in a flirtatious look turns the minutes into hours, while a misstep and fall can stretch the seconds into an eternity.
Our experience of this time is relative. An average, platonic goodbye does not stand out like the send off from a lover. Likewise, the million successful steps walked without misstep are of little regard to the rare instances when you slip. Both attraction and acceleration end with an interruption, creating a shock to the system as well. Whether the snatch of a skydiver’s parachute as it slows velocity, or the emotional convulsions of a broken heart, each can end in a disturbance of that norm.
This interruption of the perceived normal is too often how death enters our lives. The passing of a loved one in hospice, a tragic accident that hits too close to home, or a sudden disaster that strikes down a friend in their prime. No matter how far foreseen, likely, or mentally prepared for, the act of death interrupts our living, and sets the body into fits of disarray.
These three experiences, loss of life, infatuation, and physical acceleration, all impact the human perspective of the moment, bending the time prior, and warping time to come. The more physics-minded might mention time-dilation and its interesting effects (which is especially prudent in schemes of orbital size), but the common experience of these time fluxes are better understood in the familiar. Why we feel such jarring reactions to such different occurrences might also be explained by evolutionary biologists, moralists, philosophers, or even a purely medical perspective as done above. What these experiences do to truly change, humans is of interest to those of any profession. These occurrences and interruptions mark time by messing with our perception of time.
In much the same way any service is taken for granted until unavailable, human acceptance of time, memories, and moments float away in the dizzying days and data that fill our consciousness. In those uncomposed moments when humans let go - of fear in a first date, of the trusted plane beneath their body, or of the loved one who will live on in memories - we perceive the passage of time because it has been broken. It is at these seconds of standstill, no matter the maelstrom of the moment, that make us truly experience the human condition.
When we die, the humanity of a human body is lost, irretrievable. When we fall, the vigor of fear, excitement, and more race through at a rate faster than our fall, unexplainable. When we love, the multitude of conflicting and compounding emotions crash as repetitious waves, unrepeatable. It is in these, the uncontrolled occurrences, that humans seek out others to share or support in the face of such primordial forces.
Otherwise-empty planes packed with skydivers, long lines of excited amusement park attendees, dinner reservations made months prior for the same night, and even the reunion of far flung friends and family at a funeral, all bring people together. The examples are infinite, of humans collaborating and attempting to control the uncontrolled.
At KMI, we seek this task in an intellectual and physical pursuit, seeking to control orbital debris. Debris that will destroy modern conveniences, making long-distance lovers less able to communicate after a critical satellite is destroyed. Debris that will bring a sudden, explosive end to experimentation and data collection, appearing as innocently as shooting stars to the casual observer. All due, in an atypical turn of phrase, to the debris being at terminal velocity. This lethal speed turns every collision into catastrophe, so long as this debris stays uncontrolled. The time ticks on unnoticed, until the eventual happens, and the world awakens to an orbital disaster that brings many to a sudden stop. Many people in many industries are putting their power into prevention of this problem, a physical impact above our world that impacts our access to the modern world.
As lovers gather for an annual celebration of romance, as mourners recall their memories, and in your own moments like those skydrivers and sky-focused scientists throwing themselves at their passions, take the time to pay attention to these moments. Enjoy the human experience, live out the human condition, because whether you take notice or not, we are all moving through time at our terminal speed, to our terminal point.
Recommended column to read next: Reentry and Ionized Plasma