Océan et espace : quelles spécificités ?

Chapitre suivant : Axe 1 – Rivalités entre puissances

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

(Ten) Ground Control (Nine) to Major Tom (Eight, seven)
(Six) Commencing (Five) countdown, engines on
(Four, three, two)
Check ignition (One) and may God’s love (Lift off) be with you

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You’ve really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare

This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do

Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles
I’m feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much... she knows

Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom ?
Can you hear me, Major Tom ?
Can you hear me, Major Tom ?
Can you....

Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do.

David Bowie, Space Oddity, 1969.

Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens) – Why do we seek to conquer space, when seven-tenths of our universe remains to be explored ? The world beneath the sea.
James Bond (Roger Moore) – You seem to be well-equipped to repair that oversight, Mr Stromberg.
The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977.

Watch ...
This is space. It’s sometimes called the final frontier.
(Except that of course you can’t have a final frontier, because there’d be nothing for it to be a frontier to, but as frontiers go, it’s pretty penultimate ...)
And against the wash of stars a nebula hangs, vast and black, one red giant gleaming like the madness of gods ...
And then the gleam is seen as the glint in a giant eye and it is eclipsed by the blink of an eyelid and the darkness moves a flipper and Great A’Tuin, star turtle, swims onward through the void.
On its back, four giant elephants. On their shoulders, rimmed with water, glittering under its tiny orbiting sunlet, spinning majestically around the mountains at its frozen Hub, lies the Discworld, world and mirror of worlds.
Nearly unreal.

Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures, 1990.

Voyez...
Voici l’espace. On l’appelle parfois l’ultime frontière.
(Sauf, bien entendu, qu’il ne peut exister d’ultime frontière, car il n’y aurait rien derrière à délimiter, on devrait donc parler de pénultième frontière...)
Et sur fond de lavis stellaire flotte une nébuleuse, immense et noire, où une géante rouge luit comme la folie des dieux.
Puis la lueur se précise comme le reflet d’un œil monstrueux qu’éclipse régulièrement le battement d’une paupière, les ténèbre dévoilent une nageoire, et la Grande A’Tuin, la tortue stellaire, fend le vide de l’espace.
Sur son dos, quatre éléphants géants. Sur leurs épaules, bordés d’eau, étincelant sous son minuscule soleil en orbite, en rotation majestueuse autour des montagnes de son Moyeu glacé, repose le Disque-monde, à la fois monde et miroir des mondes.
Presque irréel.

Terry Pratchett, (trad. Patrick Couton), Les zinzins d’Olive Oued, 1997.