Jane here, returning to Rhys’s speculation earlier in the week about what she’d like to be. The question was triggered, she said, by a bit of computer-speak: “Choose an identity”. What a wonderful thought! What identity would I choose?
I’d choose to be an astronaut.
Think of it! To stand on the Moon, to gaze at Earth, to walk and run and live my life for a while under low lunar gravity. Yes, I know it’d mean sealed living quarters, cumbersome space-suits, and the ever-present danger of an airless environment. That wouldn't put me off. I’d like to visit Mars, to marvel at the huge mountains and canyons of the Red Planet. And if I could, I’d travel further still – to Jupiter and Saturn and their moons. And then if there was a chance of voyaging outside the solar system…
I wouldn’t want these adventures for practical reasons, though I realise how important the practical aspects are. I’m not driven by a wish to search for ET, or find precious minerals, or conquer territory. I just want to see these wonderful places, as a famous man said about somewhere else, because they are there. I bet that’s the motivation for every astronaut who’s even pulled on a helmet.
And if I couldn’t get even as far as the Moon, I’d at least like to orbit the Earth, to see the stars from space, to look at our planet as a globe, and experience the weightlessness of space.
Would I be scared? Certainly. Space-sick? Don’t know. Uncomfortable? Probably. So what? It’d be worth it.
I’ve always been fascinated by space travel, first in science fiction, then in fact. I remember the magic of those Apollo missions – heavens, the first Moon landing was forty years ago! Like many space-struck earth-people in 1969, I hoped that the “one giant leap for mankind” would have led to colonisation of at least the Moon by now. Progress has been painfully slow, but it hasn’t stopped. There’s the International Space Station, and various unmanned exploring missions going on, though sadly they don't make the headlines much. This week I sat spellbound at my computer screen, connected via the Internet to NASA while it broadcast live images coming from the moon, sent back by one of its latest survey vehicles flying close over the lunar surface. Not quite like being there, but amazing all the same!
OK, I’ll never be an astronaut. The day will come when space travel is open and affordable for people like me, tourists who are travelling to experience, not to contribute. But it's not here yet, though one or two millionaires are achieving something of the space experience already. But even if I suddenly became a millionaire (and here we move from fantasy to sheer impossibility!) I suspect I’m past the age and the fitness-level that would be required of anyone leaving the Earth.
Never mind. I can dream, and enjoy dreaming. I can cheer on the people pushing back the frontiers in space, even though the advance is slow and painstaking seen from down here. It’s still an advance, and the space dream is a dream worth having.
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