It’s not as sexy as the recent Mars Rovers expedition, but the Cassini probe is taking some fascinating pictures of Phoebe, one of Saturn’s moons. It looks like the last couple of millennia haven’t been too kind on Phoebe. This picture makes the moon look like a potato that somebody took a bite out of. These pictures stir up my old longings to be an astronaut. I remember thinking how way cool it would be to float in zero-g, to escape the confines of gravity and flip a few somersaults. If I had a few extra trillion, I’d build a big ol’ space station for all my fellow crips. No more having to worry about stairs or curb cuts or broken-down elevators or bulky wheelchairs. We’d all just glide around and play zero-g versions of basketball and rugby. And we would sometimes take a few minutes to drift up to the observation deck to look at the Earth and ask ourselves why we didn’t leave sooner.
WHERE DO I SIGN UP?!
I volunteer too! Make Space For Us!
I’m of the (half-baked) opinion NASA should aggressively recruit little people and leg amputees for the astronaut corps anyway. You get the same cognitive and manual abilities in a lighter, easily-maneuverable-in-freefall package, possibly have fewer circulation problems to deal with in orbit, and save some money on fuel.