Humans, Mythology, and Space
When we tilt our heads back and gaze at the velvet sky stitched with stars, we feel an echo of something ancient within us. Before rockets and satellites, before telescopes and observatories, there was a simple, primal instinct: to wonder. That first flicker of curiosity was perhaps humanity’s earliest “mind-step” toward conquering space. However, before we imagined space as a place to visit, we imagined it as a sacred veil, a realm of gods and spirits, a distant ceiling painted by unseen hands.
In the ancient world, the cosmos was never a void to be crossed but a tapestry to be revered. The Egyptians saw the sky as the body of the goddess Nut, arching protectively over the earth, which lay in the arms of Geb. The sun’s journey across this cosmic dome was not a mechanical orbit but the daily voyage of Ra, gliding in his solar boat, illuminating the world below. These images were not merely poetic embellishments but the framework through which they understood existence.
For the Babylonians, the stars were not potential destinations but divine messages. The constellations carved into cuneiform tablets were seen as sacred scripts, recording the moods and intentions of the gods. Similarly, the Maya did not view the heavens as space to be conquered; instead, they viewed them as a complex system of interconnected elements. At Chichén Itzá, the temple of Kukulkán was so perfectly aligned that, during equinoxes, light and shadow created the illusion of a serpent slithering down the steps. Here, architecture and sky danced in ritual harmony, confirming the belief that the cosmos was a living, breathing presence, not an inert stage.
Stonehenge, too, with its imposing stones silently standing against the sky, reminds us that early humans did not seek to cross the heavens but to understand their rhythms. Its alignment with the solstices speaks of an ancient mind tuned to the cycles of light and dark, summer and winter.
Why Space Matters to Us
It is tempting for us, living in an age of science and technology, to dismiss these worldviews as naive or irrational. Be that as it may, in truth, they were deeply consistent with the philosophy of their time. To the ancients, the universe was a sacred order, a web of forces, stories, and symbols, rather than a collection of physical spaces waiting for a human footprint.
If we pause for a moment and ask not how but why we reach for space, the answer is not always technical. The conquest of space is not only about fuel, thrust, and computation. It is also a metaphysical pursuit—a reflection of the human condition. In one of my earlier reflections on space governance, I wrote that “space is not merely the final frontier; it is a mirror of our earthbound ambitions, fears, and hierarchies.” This remains true. Just as the ancients embedded their gods in the constellations, we now embed our politics in the orbits.
Satellite networks echo old empires. Lunar missions rehearse terrestrial rivalries. The old myths have not died; they have only taken on new forms. The same longing for transcendence that inspired a Maya priest to align a temple with the equinox now fuels our debates over space law and the extraction of resources. In both, there is a sacred and profane tension, a yearning to rise, and the danger of bringing our worst instincts with us.
In their eyes, to look up was not to seek conquest but to seek connection. The transition from seeing the sky as a divine canvas to seeing it as a potential highway took centuries. It required a slow and painful unweaving of myths and a new willingness to separate the sacred from the physical. Only then could the idea of a “journey to the stars” emerge, moving from poetry to possibility.
Perhaps this shift reflects a larger aspect of the human condition: the eternal tension between reverence and ambition. In our desire to travel beyond the atmosphere, we risk forgetting the quiet, contemplative gaze that first taught us to watch the stars. We have gained rockets but lost a certain intimacy with the night sky.
In the meantime, the journey of the mind—that first step—remains the actual conquest. Before we build our ships, we build our dreams. Before we measure trajectories, we measure our courage. In this sense, the ancients were not so far from us. They too looked upward, felt awe, and imagined stories.
Our modern maps of space, filled with trajectories and orbits, owe their origin to these first dreamers who saw the sky not as an invitation but as a mirror of the human soul. Their cosmologies remind us that space is not only a place we travel through but also a vast canvas upon which we project our deepest fears, hopes, and questions.
Pronto, whether we view the sky as Nut’s gentle embrace or as an endless ocean of stars, our relationship with space reveals more about ourselves than about the distant planets we chase. The first mind-step was never merely about crossing a physical threshold. It was, and still is, about daring to imagine beyond the horizon of the visible, to project our longings and questions into the unknown.
True to a specific philosophy I hold, space does not exist simply as a destination but as a mirror that returns to us our reflections of hope and hubris. In this fragile and luminous imagination lies the true beginning of our cosmic journey. The real adventure is not confined to launch pads or rocket trails; it lives in the human spirit that dares to wonder. Forthwith, the conquest of space is not measured in kilometers travelled but in the courage to look up and ask what it means to belong to a universe so vast and yet so intimately woven into our deepest dreams.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
Mohammad Zain is an International Relations student at NUML, Islamabad. With an associate degree in English Literature and Linguistics and a BS in International Relations, he brings a unique blend of analytical and literary skills to his writing.