when I’m feeling down and blue / and troubled by some foolish game

Yesterday NASA announced their newest class of astronauts. Eight men, two women. Three of them are educator-astronauts, meaning they are teachers, not test pilots or professional scientists or engineers. One of the non-educators lives in my apartment complex with his wife, who I met years ago when she flew on the Vomit Comet with me and later joined the co-op program. I’ve been reading their biographies, and thinking about what they might be in for.

When I first went to college, I had my plan all laid out. I majored in aerospace engineering, got a co-op job at NASA, and did all the right things. The funny thing is that now that I’ve graduated, done a graduate degree, had lots of aerospace experience and started working here full-time, my desire to become an astronaut has disappeared.

I think the flying in space would be cool, but I guess I’ve become jaded. The space program is in trouble, after losing another shuttle. We constantly have to deal with endless complaints that 1) we’re not doing enough, 2) we’re not doing it carefully and/or safely enough, and 3) we’re not doing it cheaply enough. Congress wants a new vision, but they don’t want to fund it. The public wants pretty Hubble pictures, but they don’t want to accept the risks of going up there to service the thing (though they don’t realize it…but if we lost another shuttle while servicing Hubble, it would be the end of NASA entirely). The President wants to go to the Moon, but he won’t be in office long enough to make sure it happens, or to take the “blame” for it if it doesn’t.

I love the space program, and these days it’s hard for even someone like me to keep a positive outlook on the future of exploration. What does that say about any desire I might have once had to become an astronaut? Even if I did apply, I’d be medically disqualified because of my weight and eyesight. (Though I’ve lost weight, I’m still not astronaut-skinny, and they haven’t lowered the eyesight standard enough yet for my vision to be acceptable.)

But it would be a cool job. You get to train to fly. You have at least a chance of actually flying. You get to help make important decisions, and be involved in every aspect of the vehicle, because you are the one who will actually have to fly it. And in the meantime, you get to wear the blue suit, travel the country, and talk to kids about space, and get the next generation excited enough to ensure that even if NASA dies, the public’s general fascination with spaceflight won’t.

…

Anyway. These thoughts are sort of jumbled, as I am not in a very good mood today. But I do congratulate the newest astronaut class, and wish them the best of luck. They are better people than I.