As Artemis II prepares to return to Earth from its historic venture into space, my mind turns back to the wonderment of Jules Verne’s 19th-century masterpiece, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” How could he possibly have foreseen or imagined, 150 years ago, that such technology might ever exist?

But Verne was far from the first to look toward the future and envision its infinite possibilities. In fact, in the 1st century A.D., the Roman philosopher Seneca might well have been thinking of a ship such as Artemis II when he wrote these prophetic lines:

“The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject . . . And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them . . . Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.”

– Seneca, “Natural Questions”

Can anyone today even begin to conceive of our world 2,000 years from now?

For that matter, would we want to?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
4/9/26