The Spaceman

Imagine being Scott Kelly, the astronaut who on Tuesday night touched down his landing craft in Kazakhstan after spending the previous 340 days aboard the International Space Station. It was longer than any human being has ever been in space. Imagine that. Try to remember last March 25, the day Kelly launched, how long ago that feels, and remember everything you’ve done since then: All the people you’ve seen, all the meals you’ve eaten, all the times you’ve looked at a tree, or felt sand beneath your feet, or the wind on your face, all the nights you’ve slept in your own wonderful bed. Imagine if that whole time, all those many days and nights, you were instead orbiting 250 miles up above the Earth, moving at nearly five miles per second, encased in a hunk of metal.

Imagine seeing the sun rise five thousand times in a year, fifteen times a day. Because again, you’re moving around the Earth at nearly five miles per second. Imagine seeing the world from that angle, 250 miles up above, the way that only a tiny handful of the billions and billions of people who have lived and died throughout history have ever seen our world. Imagine that becoming normal — to look out the window every day and see pieces of modern art splayed over the largest canvas imaginable, real live Rothkos and Pollocks in the deserts and the cosmos. Imagine the joy. 


Imagine that the last time you were on a mission up there, floating in the sky, you received a phone call from back on Earth on the closed line, the private line, which nobody ever uses unless something bad has happened. Imagine that feeling in the pit of your stomach. Imagine learning that your sister-in-law, your identical twin brother’s wife, a congresswoman named Gabrielle Giffords, has been shot in the head in a Safeway parking lot. Imagine hearing that news and then spending two more months up there, on the ISS, finishing your work, before returning to our planet’s friendly confines. Imagine the fear. Imagine agreeing to go back up.

Imagine your body being a science experiment — part of the reason Kelly spent so long up there was so that NASA could test him to learn about the effects of long-term space travel. Imagine that you want to go to Mars, that you want this more than anything, and imagine that this is a real possibility. If NASA ever launches a manned mission to our distant neighbor, Kelly is a likely candidate. Imagine having that in your head. Imagine being up there, orbiting around the Earth for 340 days, thinking, this is just the beginning. This is the warmup. Mars is 48.7 million miles away. 

Imagine trying to sleep in zero Gs. Imagine trying to do anything in zero Gs. Imagine growing lettuce in space, being the first human in history to eat plant life from somewhere besides Earth. Imagine being on the ISS, 250 miles up above, sometimes with a couple other astronauts, sometimes by yourself. By yourself in space. Imagine how lonely that gets. Imagine thinking about your family and friends living their lives down below, buying groceries and watching movies, and how much that must hurt sometimes. Imagine it all, what it’s like to be a pioneer.

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