One of the really neat things about my job is that I get to meet or at least talk to some very interesting people. For instance, a few weeks ago I spent some time talking to a man who had flown on three space shuttle missions – and while speaking with him, I was looking at a photo of him taken from space with the Earth as a backdrop.
It was from this very smart person, a rocket scientist no less, that I learned one inviolate truth about the world we live in … we need to send some poets into space.
Ok, maybe not poets, but at least someone other than engineers. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for engineers. They build cool stuff – like space ships. But I think they should be limited to designing and building them – they shouldn’t own the only set of keys to the things.
The reason I say this is because when I asked him what it was like – you know, being ‘in space’, he said the following:
“It’s pretty cool.”
Honestly, that quote isn’t entirely accurate. He didn’t actually say ‘it’s pretty’. He just said, “cool.”
I suppose a writer worth his salt would have asked an obvious follow up like, “how cool?” or “would you like to try again for those of us who aren’t high?” but I was just dumbstruck.
All I could think was, “Really? That’s all you’ve got? We spend millions of dollars to send you into space and you come back with, ‘cool’? You should be put in prison.”
But being a professional, I didn’t actually say this; I just thought about it for an extended period of time, mumbled something and hung up.
So, who is to blame? I mean, someone has to be held accountable don’t they?
The answer came to me as I stared at the phone. I thought about what it would really be like being up in space zooming around the planet and then – WHAM!
NASCAR. A space ship is nothing more than a 17,000 mph race car – it goes fast, flies in circles and requires the pilot to keep turning left. It’s obvious. You see, nuclear, electrical, aeronautical and mechanical engineers are all the people who work in the space program. They and the other ‘hard science’-type people need a way to blow off steam – you know, fling off the pocket protectors, unclip the bow ties and just really let loose. The space program is their reserve and they’re guarding it jealously. As soon as people find out what it’s really like, everyone will want to see it.
From the beginning of the space program up until June 2010 only 515 people world-wide have reached earth orbit. Only 24 – about the same number of people who go through the check-out at the grocery store while I’m waiting behind some blue haired old lady trying to find a penny in the bottom of her purse - have gone beyond low earth orbit and only a dozen have walked on the moon.
There are nearly 7 BILLION people on this planet and we can not only count the number of people who have been to space, but I’m sure with a little bit of research, I could find their names and nationalities. I know people with more FaceBook friends than the total number of people who have been in space.
But putting writers or artists into space doesn’t seem to be much of a priority, which is really an opportunity lost to bring some of the magic of spaceflight and really, the magic of what these engineers have created, to the significant portion of the population that aren’t rocket scientists.
Until NASA starts fitting artists with space suits, they should require engineer degree holding astronauts to take some additional classes. I would like to suggest the following:
- Creative Writing 101 - Describing what you see using at least four of your senses
- Your friends, adjectives and adverbs
- Colors and why people like them
- Bob Ross painting (I can totally see Bob Ross in space… “We’ll just add a little supernova off in the distance there to give it some color and depth. That’s nice.”)
Until we do these things, the 6,999,999,485 of us without access to space will just have to keep hoping space telescopes keep sending us back images that we can all look at and say, “cool.”
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