Earthrise

Believe it or not (and I have a hard time believing it myself sometimes), my real life adventures and the story of the Apollo missions actually become one on occasion. For example today, one of my work colleagues found it fitting to use an image of the Earth taken by Bill Anders at Christmas 1968 from the moon. He found it a fitting example of how we perceive light or something like that. Anyway WHY he used it in his booklet about a new project is not important. What IS important is the fact that he used THAT image. There it was, the most reproduced image in the history of humankind (that is true actually), a direct connection with my central theme here on Flyin' - Borman, Lovell and Anders. Lovell of course, the commander of Apollo 13 - you see the connection yet?. It was the moment they rounded the moon after firing the CSM engine to insert them into lunar orbit.

Now come on - here am I relating my life as an analogue of the story of Apollo 13 and then what dy'a know - the watertight bulkheads between fantasy and reality crack and breach, and irony comes flooding through at the rate of an olympic sized swimming pool full every second.

The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the great vastness of space.....

It's a funny old world.

How do you go to the bathroom in space?

Non propulsive venting:
Evacuation from the spacecraft of gasses or fluids into the vacuum of space without altering the tragectory of the spacecraft.

bbbbrrrrrrrrrbbbbbbbt....

pfffffrrrrrrrrrrrrttttt...

'Ah that's better - the sheer joy of farting in space' - Jim Lovell*.

'There is no single thing that symbolises the freedom of expression in a civilised society than the ability of it's citizens to fart without guilt or fear of social exclusion'.
- Mahatma Ghandi.

Perhaps the most at liberty mankind has ever felt in the expression of this basic human imperative is summed up in this 2001 interview with Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Michael Collins:

People often ask me how I feel about being a crew member of the first mission to land on the moon and not having had the chance to walk on the moon myself. Well, for the most part I say that I felt it a great priviledge to be there atall, and that my mission also had it's unique features. I certainly had enough to do - there wasn't a moment I had the chance to look sorrowfully out of the window at the landing site in Mare Tranquilitatus and long to be there with Neil and Buzz. I was just too busy.

Added to that was the incredible opportunity to savour the fact that at that point I was further away from the earth than any human had ever been throughout the entire history of the human race.
I was also looking out of the window at the dark side of the moon - invisible for all eternity from our home planet. But perhaps most profound of all is the fact that on the dark side of the moon, no communication with mission control or any of the earth's tracking stations is possible. I was in the truest possible sense of the word completely, uniquely and utterly alone.

So it was then that with only the darkest infinite depths of the universe as witness, I vented the most satisfying and profoundly meaningful expulsion of foul gas from the bowels ever before attempted by the human race.

So what was it like to fart in space?

In a word: divine. Yes literally - I felt that I was part of the Universe. Completely bonded with the chemical and molecular forces which constitute our very existence. The universe was breathing me in and breathing me out, and somewhere out there in the great vastness of space there are now random human gasseous and liquid elements contributing to the endless ebb and flow of existence. How did I do it?. I farted into the urine dump tube. Amazing what humans get up to when no one is looking isn't it?.


* Quote attributed to Mission Commander Jim Lovell in official accounts of the mission, but it is also possible that one of the other crew members originated the communication.

just a little medical mutiny...

I'm sick and tired of the entire western world knowing how my kidneys are functioning...

Yes - today I had a doctor's appointment. The doctor I was supposed to see was not there - I was given the wrong location in my letter to confirm the appointment. So the staff at the surgery phoned the doctor I was supposed to see and I could hear intimate details of my case being discussed for all to hear down the corridor - including two other people waiting for appointments.

Then I had a talk with my doctor on the phone and still people were able to overhear the conversation. Then some hours later I was discussing the whole encounter with my partner who also had her sister with her in the car who could also hear all the intensely personal stuff that I had discussed with the doctor....

*rips bio-med sensors from chest*


Flight Surgeon:
"Flight - I just lost all bio-med data on Lovell"

Flight Controller Gene Kranz:
"cut em a little slack Doc, It's just a little medical mutiny - I'm sure they're still with us.."

sheesh!

Oh by the way, I have decided to suspend the snakes and ladders, and fairground grabber metaphors until further notice. This is in the interests of clarity and uniformity and the writer accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage caused directly or indirectly, by this ruling.

From now on all metaphors will be limited only to human space flight and for a limited period only, EXCLUSIVELY to the mission and crew of Apollo 13.

Thank you for helping to carry my dead elephant for a few minutes.

blue moon...

...y o u l e f t me s t aaa n di 'n al o o o o o o o nnnnn

w i t h o u t a dr e e e e a m


i n m y h e a r t . . .



...you know? - the bit where the battery runs down on the cassette player - drifting free in space.
It's cold, very lonely and there is real danger that we won't get home...

floating free in a doomed spaceship - that's how I feel today.

Perfect.

Radio communication from Earth is time delayed and even if it gets through it is sometimes garbled and keeps breaking up.

The dead elephant feels even heavier today.

the impossible dream

this seems to sum it all up at the moment...

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

I just can't roll this one out...

Yeah - a dead elephant. Heavy eh?. Well I am in a new country with a new job and a new language and a new home and a new circle of friends and everything is new. I thought I was good at stuff - particularly communication but after a year of whirlwind craziness I have to admit it - I'm lost. If it were snakes and ladders, I would have just slid down that big fat snake with it's head in the penultimate square and tail all the way back in the beginning of the game.


If it was one of those crane grab things at the fair where you have to lift your prize and put it in the shute to win, I have alllllmost got it to the shute but damn! - dropped it right at the last minute. Ok, so we have our first metaphors - 'snakes' for those moments where life jumps up and bites you in the bum, 'ladders' for the very rare times when things go perfectly, and 'grab 'n drop' for those almost but 'not quite' moments...

OK so far? elephants, cranes, ladders and snakes. Good. The dead elephant on my back at the moment is communication. Or more precisely, the inability to communicate above the level of a six year old in in a new language. Does it matter which language - no not really.

Now all this is fine - perhaps even fun at times, but the craziness becomes a little clearer when you know that I am being paid a ridiculous amount of money to do a job I don't understand, in a country where I can't communicate on any higher level than a six year old in their language. If you have seen the film Being There, then you will know what i mean. Then it delves even deeper into the realm of surreality - I have been doing this for over a year now and you know what, apparently I did it so well last year that they gave me a fantastic end year evaluation, a huge bonus and a pay rise.

Ladder, snake, ladder-ladder - grab 'n drop - woohoo!! in the shute first time *sound of fruit machine coughing up golden coins*. Ok there are some mixed metaphors here I agree. To try and explain: first, the snakes and ladders game is 3 dimensional, so it's far more complicated than simply arriving via a lucky ladder at the end - it is as Churchill said, 'not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end - but is is perhaps the end of the beginning' - and Churchill knew a thing or two about metaphorical snakes and ladders. The grab 'n drop was good though - it's just that I have to empty the case and there is a loooong way to go (10 years to be precise).

So I sit here tonight surrounded by cuddly toys, mixed metaphors and a very complicated 3 dimensional 21st century version of a 1950's board game. I hope that through writing the mist will clear and some sense will emerge from the gloom. The quote: 'Like flying with a dead elephant on your back' is from the film Apollo 13 and refers to the difficulty Jim Lovell had in flying the Lunar Module Aquarius with a damaged and powered down Command and Service Module, The Odyssey (the aforementioned 'Dead Elephant') stuck on the end. He did actually say that too - I asked him when I met him a few years ago. When Jack Swigert shut down the computer and with it all guidance and telemetry, Lovell said: 'we just put Sir Isaac Newton in the driving seat' - a phrase which echoes through my mind very day...

So the end of the beginning it is. I am having to learn how to fly all over again but it is going a little better up here now Houston...

more soon.