October 9, 2026
As I write this, I'm watching NASA's coverage of the Crew Dragon 12 splashdown. Like with every one of these, they're basically going back over things like the reentry-plasma-caused comms blackout, G-forces, and so on.
Like a lot of kids, I wanted to be an astronaut. (Let's be honest here: I still do.) Except now that I'm pushing 50 it's well out of reach for me at this point, unless I win the lottery and blow a good chunk of change on space tourism. But even that wouldn't be a good idea thanks to the fact that I ain't put together quite right. I've noticed over the years that on roller coasters where I get a good bit of negative Gs at the top of a hill, I get the occasional fire-burp. Spending any amount of time in microgravity would definitely have me hurting on a regular basis.
So every once in a while I get to live vicariously through the people who are physically able to spend time on orbit, and are also quite a bit smarter than me. It's a shame that the things we thought we'd be getting Any Time Now as far back as the mid-60s, like a spin-gravity space-station-slash-hotel with regular trips to and from the surface, never materialized and probably won't in the remainder of my lifetime. Guess I'll have to make do with Youtube and remembering to look up from time to time.
