As Above, So Below—And Closer Than They Appear

This essay takes its title from a line in my long-ago second novel, Standing Wave. Here and now and many years later, I find that phrase a lot less mystical or metaphysical than it seemed to be when I first used it. This is especially the case in the context of meaningful analogies and parallels that can be drawn today between population growth in satellite numbers in the heavens above, and population growth in human numbers on the Earth below. There are five “official” layers of Earth’s atmosphere. The lowest layer, the troposphere, ranges up to about seven miles (11