Shining Lights

It all started with shining lights on sodium atoms to correct for a telescope’s atmospheric distortions. I think it was the scope in the Atacama Telescope, in Chile. At least, that’s how I remember it from what I read about it in the early ’20s. I have forgotten a lot of stuff in that time, but I remember how it started.

It Wasn’t Long

It wasn’t long after that somebody got the notion to combine sodium with nobelium. The nobelium a is synthetic chemical element and had to be pushed up, through the atmosphere, to the sodium atoms. Somebody must have thought that was funny, because the combo created Chile saltpeter (NaNO₃).

It wasn’t long after that that the military enclosed the technology and modified it to manipulate compounds at higher and higher altitudes. They were aiming for Doc Smith’s scheme of making things at a distance.

It wasn’t long after that that borders disappeared, the military lost its reason to exist, and we were reaching out to play with the stars.

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