June
10, 2019
Greetings from
the final frontier,
I’m so excited
you can probably feel it from there. (If
you are touching your screen trying to feel it from there, don’t blame me for
smudges. Also, look up the term ‘hyperbole’.) I just found out that NASA is opening the
International Space Station to commercial customers.
I have already
started practicing being weightless by hopping around the kitchen, and while my
vertical leap is not very impressive, I did achieve a moment of extreme
dizziness which is probably like being in zero gravity.
Of course, I
am going. I have given this very serious
consideration during the time it took me to start this sentence, and I am
convinced I am a perfect candidate to be an astronaut. Other than mild claustrophobia and vertigo, I
have the Right Stuff. And, a unique opportunity
on my horizon.
This morning I
watched a video of Christina Koch, speaking from the International Space
Station, and she said this: “Enabling a vibrant economy in low earth orbit has
always been a driving element of the space station program and will make space accessible
to all Americans.”
Well, maybe
not all Americans. NASA estimates the
cost to stay on the International Space Station will be about $35,000 per night. So, unless there is some kind of Groupon I suspect
a few Americans will not make the trip.
One minor add-on
to the adventure that was not mentioned in NASA’s teaser was the transportation
cost. The flight to the ISS is estimated
at $60 million. (I assume that is round
trip but couldn’t find details on Expedia.)
Also, so far, no Uber alternative.
Nevertheless,
(a word made up of three other words you never use together, separately) I have
a strong suspicion that I am going into space.
Father’s Day is coming, and I am one of those hard-to-buy-for people.
(So far ‘hardtobuyfor, does not exist in the dictionary, but ‘heretofore’ does;
go figure.)
I was asked to
supply a list of gift ideas for Father’s Day, and I plumbed the depths of my
creativity and included ‘Dark Navy Socks’.
This list was met with an unfiltered display of disdain. Which is absolute proof that my family is going
to send me to outer space.
I imagine they
discussed the usual list of ideas; ties, tools, breath mints. And they already gave me the t-shirt with ‘World’s
Greatest Dad’ on it. So what’s
left? You read my mind: space. (Not to say that my mind is just ‘space’. Also, if you were surprised to learn you could
read minds, please see ‘hyperbole’ reference earlier.)
I can imagine
my family saying these words: “I wish there was some way we could put him in a
metal tube and launch him into a hostile, airless place, so he could tell his
endless stories to complete strangers who only speak Russian.” They do love me.
The training for
qualified astronauts is about two years, maybe another two years to get ready
for time on the space station. But regular
people are not going to put up with that.
We freak out if there is a three-minute delay in the TSA line because
some idiot packed a 4.5 oz tube of embarrassing ointment that now we ALL know
about. So I expect that there will be
some kind of express training where I will be given a tight fitting unitard and
some Raybans to wear on the walk to the rocket.
Maybe some instructions on how to use the toilet in zero-G. Good to go.
I imagine that
NASA will want to spice up the routine on the ISS; less of that research and
experimenting and floating and the like. Sure, you can look at the view, but there
are sixteen sunrises a day up there so that will get old after a while. I’m hoping there will be excursions, like maybe
do a little space surfing, dangling off the end of the ISS by one of those long
cables, get a selfie or two as we float past Earth. If there’s a gift shop I’m definitely getting
that t-shirt that says ‘In space no one can hear you fart’ to give to my
friends who like Ridley Scott movies.
Really it’s
the perfect Father’s Day gift. It’s an
experience any Dad would enjoy, and for sure you didn’t get it for him last year
and forgot, like that time you gave him that ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ t-shirt two
years in a row, which kind of takes the sincerity out of it. I mean it’s not like there’s research or a
contest, it’s not meant to be taken literally, it’s kind of like hyperbole.
One last note,
I just discovered I’ve been mispronouncing ‘hyperbole’ for the last five
decades. Could we just not mention it,
please? I mean, why is it spelled like
that anyway?
Hope
this finds you looking down on everyone,
David
Copyright
© 2019 David Smith
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