World Space Week 2026: What question would you take into space?

A rocket can carry instruments beyond Earth. The question that first made us look up can travel with us, too.

World Space Week runs from October 4 to 10. Its 2026 theme, “Rocket Revolution,” turns attention toward the technology that helps us reach and use space. The United Nations established the observance to celebrate how space science and technology contribute to human life.

For me, this week also makes room for an older question: why does the universe exist at all?

In GOD PLAYS DICE, I describe lying awake at seven, wondering about the universe before I knew the language of cosmology. The words came later. The question stayed.

What does that question have to do with HD-Blast?

HD-Blast is short for higher-dimensional blast. I am exploring whether our Big Bang could have been the aftermath of an event involving an additional spatial dimension—another possible direction beyond the three we ordinarily describe.

That is my unproved hypothesis. Nobody has established that the proposed event happened. A picture of it cannot become evidence simply because it is beautiful or easy to imagine.

The Big Bang also needs careful wording. It describes the universe’s hot, dense early history and expansion. It is not an ordinary rocket explosion happening at one spot in surrounding empty space. NASA’s explanations distinguish the expansion of the universe from that familiar explosion picture.

How would we judge a possible explanation?

Start with three questions: What does the idea say should happen? What could we measure? What result would count against it?

Those questions matter more than whether a proposal has an exciting name. A calculation needs a clear connection to a physical measurement. Other explanations need a fair comparison. If the evidence challenges the idea, the idea has to change or be set aside.

This is why I want GOD PLAYS DICE to be readable without a physics degree. A reader should be able to follow the question, understand the limits and disagree with the proposal. Curiosity does not require agreement.

A small way to join the week

Choose one question about space that you have never quite put into words. Write it in a sentence. Then look for an explanation that tells you both what we know and what remains uncertain.

Mine is: What could have led to the hot, expanding universe we observe?

What is yours?

GOD PLAYS DICE, Volume One, is in production. Explore the book and find the free preview on the homepage.

This is an independent author reflection during World Space Week; it does not imply endorsement of HD-Blast by the event’s organizers, the United Nations or NASA.

Explore the book and free preview

Sources

United Nations — World Space Week 2026 (checked October 6, 2026)

World Space Week Association (checked October 6, 2026)

NASA — Imagine the Universe cosmology Q&A (checked October 6, 2026)

Related: Physical units and testable predictions