Who rules - ancient Rome or ancient Egypt in the biggest empire of all, the human imagination?

They say men think of the Roman Empire daily. But not all of them. Ancient Egypt owns a somewhat bigger space. [NASA’s next stop: An asteroid named for the Egyptian god of chaos https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/30/world/apophis-explorer-science-newsletter-wt-scn/]

New CNN article about the dangerous asteroid Apophis raises the question for me: Is ancient Egypt taking over the universe? Apophis, OSIRIS-Rex, Philae and Rosetta are just more examples, and names, in a long comet’s tail of associations between outer space and ancient Egypt. Ancient Egypt’s mystery dominates our human imagination, fears – and dreams.

Think of the canonical use of sarcophagus-like sleep capsules used by distant travellers in science fiction movies, with 'Interstellar' being just one example. Like astronauts, mummies are bound up in elaborate white suits with masks for their journey through eternity. Consider the Great Pyramid as the largest ever gantry for a space shot to put the pharaoh's soul into space and orbit among the imperishable circumpolar stars.

In fact you might say that ancient Egypt devised the first ‘space ship’ – a pharaoh’s barque that traveled through the heavens like the sun in a journey of millions of years.

Echoing Ra, the satellite rides in a sun-synchronous orbit "Gleaming like the golden barque of Ra", a satellite probes the shadowy secrets of ancient Egypt. Fiction series. “This is a new view of Egypt,” he said. “Thanks to satellite technology.” He clicked on a photograph of a satellite in space. “This is a satellite gazing down on Egypt from an altitude of 570 kilometres. It gleams in the heavens like the golden barque of the sun god Ra, powered by sails in the form of outspread solar panels. Gold covers its 1.4-ton body like the flesh of the gods - a skin of gold-coated Mylar. Pure, imperishable gold not only protects it from corrosion on the outside. The sacred metal also forms its veins and nerves in gold wires and gold-plated electronic circuits and contacts for switches, relays and connectors. “Echoing Ra, the satellite rides in a sun-synchronous orbit, and, from its inclination of 98 degrees, it sees Egypt below, in particular our focus for today, the most ancient burial ground said to be the legendary burial place of the Egyptian god of the dead, Osiris, and birthplace of the cult of death and resurrection. But unlike Ra in his other form as Aton the sun disk, the satellite does not send down rays ending in little beneficent hands to touch the land. Instead it sends a series of radio wave pulses at the rate of 1,700 per second to probe the density of objects on the ground and beneath the dry sand, which it collects in a backscatter of echoes. Then it ponders this knowledge, analyses it and communicates it to mankind through visions seen on a screen. “It sees stone temples, chapels, mud-brick enclosures, boat graves – a fleet of fourteen 23-metre long boats marooned in an ocean of desert. It sees mounds of broken pottery, spoil heaps, the spectral signatures of tombs of the earliest kings...” Excerpt from the Anson Hunter archaeology thiller series. Roy Lester Pond - Amazon paperback and Kindle