Astronauts
Why they shouldn't be heroes.
By Chris Suellentrop
Posted Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 1:17 PM PT
If there's one good thing that can be said about tragedies, it's that they
create heroes. In the past year and a half, catastrophe has refurbished the
daring and adventurous careers dreamed of by first-grade boys: the
firefighter, the police officer, even the president. Now, the Columbia
shuttle disaster has restored astronauts to their rightful place in the
pantheon. Before this past weekend, many Americans viewed the "Space Age"
as a kitschy thing of the past, like AstroTurf or I Dream of Jeannie. The
great scientific challenge of the day, the one the president dared the
nation to aspire to, was the creation of hydrogen-powered cars. Space? Been
there, done that.
As astronauts boldly went where many men had gone before, we forgot how
bold they were. "It's a job that doesn't have anything to do with exploring
space," NASA's first flight director sniffed to USA Today in 2001. The
Right Stuff flyboys had been replaced with nerdy tinkerers and scientists,
seemingly as carefully selected for race and gender as a Benetton ad.
Newspapers sneered with headlines such as "Quick, name an astronaut," and
"Lost in Space: Being an Astronaut Isn't What It Used To Be." Saturday's
sad reminder that astronauts are among our bravest men and women has led to
calls that our space program be made more ambitious, to honor the courage
of our pioneering astronauts. Others have proposed that manned space
flights be halted. But both actions would be an insult to the memory of the
Columbia astronauts�one to the grandeur of their quest, the other to its
peril. In the short term, the nation should set a more modest goal: Manned
space travel must become boring again.
It will be a daunting task because space travel is magnificent, for all the
reasons laid out by eulogists over the past week, but also because it's
quite dreadful�and not just because 24 astronauts have died in America's
quest to reach the stars. It's not always fun for those who make it out
alive. Between half and two-thirds of all astronauts�including incredibly
fit military test pilots who never get airsick�throw up when they
experience weightlessness. (Think vomit is gross? Imagine floating vomit.)
Body fluids normally held down by gravity rush to an astronaut's head,
causing nasal and sinus congestion. Spines stretch painfully, and
astronauts can grow up to two inches. As NASA astronaut Kenneth Cockrell
told journalist Mark Bowden about the rigors of space travel, "You don't
hear astronauts complaining about it, but what you do see are people who
come back lying about how great the experience was and then quietly leave
the program."
Or perhaps they leave because of what weightlessness does to their bathroom
habits. (Imagine floating vomit. Now imagine something grosser.) Astronauts
urinate into vacuum-powered bags, and bowel movements require the use of a
special toilet, four inches in diameter. Astronauts train in an earth-bound
NASA-built model, practicing the use of retaining bars to prevent
themselves from floating away. The model toilet has a camera in it, so
astronauts can see how they're doing. (That's right, part of training to
become an astronaut involves watching your own ass on television.) Once in
space, however, there is a plus side: "A rite of space flight is to urinate
upside down," an astronaut told the Washington Post.
Long space flights create even more problems. Blood volume drops, muscles
atrophy, and bones lose their density�at the rate of about 1 percent a
month, or faster. After spending 4 and a half months on Mir, "I had lost 40
percent of my muscle mass, 12 percent of my bone, and 23 pounds," astronaut
David Wolf said in National Geographic. Balance problems upon his return
caused him to run into doors. "It took six months to feel strong again, a
year to get the bone mass back, and two years to get the details of my life
together." Scientists worry that astronauts who spend too long in space
will lose some of their bone density permanently, the way paraplegics do.
The Russians have developed a strenuous exercise program for space-station
residents in an attempt to ward off muscle loss, and it works for some. But
exercise creates its own problems: "Sweat in space looks like mercury out
of a thermometer," a flight surgeon told the Washington Post. "It rolls
around in a big blob. It covers your body like a sheet of jello." And even
with the exercise, some cosmonauts have to be carted off in stretchers upon
their return to Earth.
These are frontier conditions to rival the "starving time" faced by the
Jamestown colonists. That the space shuttle made us forget about them is
among its greatest accomplishments. In 1981, the buzz over the Columbia's
first flight was that space travel was about to lose its glamour. And the
shuttle did exactly what it set out to do. We briefly achieved the dream of
yawning as rockets hurtle men and women into outer space.
The space shuttle may be too dangerous, but the goal of ordinary men and
women routinely leaving the planet unnoticed shouldn't be abandoned with
it. "The last role in the world NASA had in mind for Christa McAuliffe and
the rest of the Challenger crew was pioneer or hero," Tom Wolfe wrote in
Newsweek after the 1986 disaster. The same goes for Ilan Ramon and the
Columbia. Many more heroes will be created while our species explores the
universe. But let's hope there aren't too many of them.
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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