Film:  Blast

 
Scientists in search of accurate data about the formations of stars and celestial bodies in outer space and ultimately of humankind's origins have manufactured different instruments, equipment and machinery through the years.  BLAST is a balloon lifted telescope created by a team of scientists -- Cosmologist, Mark Devlin, Barth Netterfield from University of Toronto, Gaelen Marsden from University of British Columbia, and several others including students who study the universe.  Launching from the cold snowlands of Sweden and again from Antartica after it crashed and broke the first time, BLAST finally was able to lift off and return with enough data stored for their research.  Memorable moments of the film included the first lift-off in the giant balloon and the crash which destroyed the mirror, and the second return where it was dragged through the snow for miles due to the wind blowing the air balloon.  Director Paul Devlin, the brother of Mark Devlin, showed with his camera the struggle and success of scientists in search of scientific data, showing their human side of trial and error experimenting in their professional lives cut in with their personal family lives.  The occasional moments of professional doubt about BLAST worrying their faces finally leads to hopeful certainty upon its return with data intact in computer hard drives. Hopefully this data gathered will explain the creation of our universe and ourselves with facts and theories that our limited minds can understand about the vastness of outer space.  The money spent on scientific research is well-spent if we understand our own existence and how we were created along with the rest of the cosmos.  Thousands of years of puzzling about it and only in the recent centuries are scientists able to device machines to aid in gathering facts which fit theories, so that the truth can clarify speculation.  Scientists are leading the way out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of divine consciousness.  It almost seems like the search of God for those who are religious -- seeing the various lighted spots from the BLAST data of celestial bodies in the darkness of outer space!  Man and machine will bring theory into fact through scientific discovery and method, and it is great to know that religion and creationists were closer to the truth than evolutionists.  The entire universe, the heavens, were lighted long ago and there probably are other life forms created just as we are by a Force greater than our limited understanding.