After the bang, much later, after our sun took shape and the earth began to emerge from a molten conflagration that hummed and spat and heaved forth gases that would envelop the entire planet; after bacteria in its waters exhaled enough oxygen to encourage inchoate life, an infinitesimally small portion of which would endure billions of years of evolution to plant seeds and build cities and poison the waters from which it came and turn verdant rainforests to toxic dust; and after that life then began to dream of venturing out into the stars, one man stood in a…