The launch of the space shuttle Atlantis in combination with my love for watching Star Trek on DVD has made me wonder if I could spend extended periods of time in outer space. The space shuttle will orbit the Earth for 11 days while making repairs to the Hubble Telescope which means the crew will be in that tiny enclosed space for more than a week with only brief trips outside and even so it is in a space suit. I doubt I could handle the pressure(or lack thereof) of knowing my very life depends on the equipment and its reliability. I have been watching my Star Trek:DS9 DVDs and admire the amount of time they spend on the space station even calling it home. At least they can take trips down to the planet Bajor or take a ride through the wormhole into the gamma quadrant to explore other worlds but to get there you must ride in a space shuttle (of course equipped with artificial gravity!) that is small. When I consider that airplane travel is very common place and the space inside is also confined and there is danger that could happen to the craft or yourself due to turbulance, I still fly, though not as often as before. I know that comparing and airplane to a space shuttle is quite a leap, but I am getting more at the level of comfort and familiarity we have with a plane and even though I have some degree of fear, I still fly because it is an efficient means of travel. In Star Trek, the characters have that level of comfort because they have been flying space craft for so many years and while there is risk, it is an efficient mode of travel. The next question would be, Could I stand not seeing the sun for weeks or even months on end? Could I get used to an artifical environment to live and work in? The astronauts who live in the International Space Station could answer that question the best because they spend months at a time orbiting the earth in an artificial environment and I would think from that experience it could be learned how humans would do in deep space. I like to muse on these types of questions because I hope one day in the future all the research into specialized technology that is developed for war could instead be developed for space travel that we could all be mentally prepared for.
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