From tonite's 5-year ISS Gala

In celebration of having ISS crewed for 5 continuous years, there was
an excellent testimony given at Space Center Houston with stories
shared by many of the ISS crewmembers. The one that moved me the most
was told by Don Pettit. It went something like this:

When driving your car and you pull into your driveway, you say to
yourself, "I'm home".

If you leave town for the weekend, on your return as you enter your
city limits you say to yourself, "I'm home". You may still be dozens
of miles away from your house but you still have the feeling that
you've arrived home.

When you drive across the country on a vacation, on your return as you
cross the border into your state you say to yourself, "I'm home". In
the case of Texas, you may still be hundreds of miles away from your
house but you still have the feeling that you've arrived home.

For those occasions when you fly overseas, on your return when you
first touch land back in your country you say to yourself, "I'm home".
You may still be thousands of miles away from your house, but you still
feel that you've arrived home.

After flying around for months in low earth orbit, when you touch down
on the Earth after finally deorbiting you say to yourself, "I'm home".
Your house may be on the other side of the planet over ten thousand
miles away, yet you still feel like you've arrived home.

The basic theme is that your feeling of having arrived home has a lot
to do with how far away you went. It will be interesting to see that
on some future trip to Mars, the astronauts will return to low earth
orbit and say to themselves, "We're home". Even though today low earth
orbit is the absolute farthest that humans have ventured in decades,
there will come a time when getting close enough to the planet Earth to
see it in more detail than just a light speck will give us the feeling
that we've arrived home.

(He capped the story off with a Trekkish grin by saying that in the
days of warp drive travel, when you've returned to Jupiter you will say
to yourself, "I'm home".)


~ CT

Thanks for attending and reporting.
How many folks actually showed up?
I'm sure the crew had good stories -- these
guys especially are dedicated and good talkers.
How many questions, and anything that surprised them?

"Stuf4" wrote
In celebration of having ISS crewed for 5 continuous years, there was
an excellent testimony given at Space Center Houston with stories
shared by many of the ISS crewmembers. The one that moved me the most
was told by Don Pettit. It went something like this:

From Jim Oberg:
Thanks for attending and reporting.
How many folks actually showed up?
I'm sure the crew had good stories -- these
guys especially are dedicated and good talkers.
How many questions, and anything that surprised them?

It was a big crowd that filled the Imax theater with overflow into the
JFK-podium theater. Not quite the level of heavyweights like at the
Mott memorial from the day before, but still a good turnout. There was
no formal Q/A, so you had to catch them afterward if you wanted any
input. So obviously no surprises.

It was refreshing to hear Culbertson speak so, umm, Frankly, meaning
that he included some negatives with his stories. I got the distinct
impression that he's decided not to get too wrapped up into the
standard political gamesmanship that is par for the astronaut course.

I suspect that if those expedition crews really decided to speak their
hearts, someone would stand up and yell, "ISS is like a prison! A
prison, albeit, with a beautiful view. It's a hypersonic Alcatraz! It
can be a lot of fun at times, but six months up there is pure torture."

Tying this sentiment back to Pettit's profound story, there was a time
when I was much younger that I had a strong aspiration to travel off to
Mars. That is, until I learned how long it took to get there. And on
that spaceship you don't have a beautiful site of the Earth filling
your window. We could label it an interplanetary Leavenworth. But
Pettit's stories included how intense the sensations hit him after his
Soyuz landed and the hatch was open - smells of fresh grass and sounds
of birds chirping. Even a lifer at Leavenworth isn't deprived of those
sensory experiences.

I am confident that technology will progress to the point where space
travel over long distances will become much less deprivatory, but I
don't see that happening anytime soon in the coming decades.

A handful of weeks going out as far as lunar distance fits my
definition of fun.


~ CT

Oh by the way...

At the event there was a live band with a dude who could sing like
Johnny Cash. I had just seen "Walk the Line" so it was somewhat
surreal to hear such a solid cover performance.


~ CT