The first installment of this tale was the most adorably enjoyable Lois and Clark story I've come across in a long time, with its absolutely delightful interaction and dialogue between Lois and Clark and Lois and Jimmy. This new part lacks all such interaction between our favorite Daily Planet reporters, so it's clearly quite different. I'm still loving it, though. I'm a space buff, but my real interest is in the universe as such, not in our own rather pitiful attempts to travel very far out into the big black yonder. Nevertheless, Terry's description of what such a space journey would actually entail is so detailed and so knowledgeable that I, at least, am totally fascinated. Reminds me of that time a few years ago when I visited the British Museum of Science or Natural History or whatever it is called, and I was contemplating a full-scale model of the Apollo 11 Moon landing module. Honestly, people, you should have seen it, particularly the horrible outside ladder which the astronauts had to use to get in and out, and which appeared to end several yards above ground level. Talk about having to
jump to get where you wanted to go! And what if you missed? And fell and broke your leg??? Horror!!!
Anyway, as I stood there watching it in reluctant fascination, this elderly gentleman came along, accompanied by two young boys. Would you believe that he said that he had actually been involved in the Apollo project himself, and had helped design it? I don't know if he told me the truth, and I even forgot to ask about his name (arrgghh!!! Slap forehead!!!) but I sure hung around for a while and asked him a lot of questions. And he told me about many of these little fascinating details, such as yes, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did indeed wear diapers, or maybe it was small urinals, as they walked on the Moon. Well, what do you do if you just
have to go, and the one thing you absolutely can't do is open any part of your clothing? Those astronaut suits, by the way - they didn't offer that much insulation for the fingers, and can you even believe how cold it is on the Moon? God - when I just think about it --- And the stuff they ate. Little hard-looking rectangles or cubes of compressed whatever, some of it funnily colored. They drank it down with - was it recycled urine? Naah, don't think so, considering the Apollo round trips to the Moon were over and done with pretty quickly. But if people are ever going to travel to Mars, then believe me, recycled urine is what they are going to have to drink. (And really, seeing people have already been staying for months in space stations, what else
could they have been drinking?) And just drinking anything at all in zero gravity, where liquid, if left to itself, will shape itself into balls which float around serenely. This is true of any liquid, so imagine going to the bathroom in zero g... (Or imagine being sick - no, on second thought, don't imagine it...!!!) And sleeping strapped onto your bed, or bunk, to prevent you from sleep-floating around all over your sleeping quarters. Ever wanted to know what it's like to float when you sleep? Go into zero gravity and find out.
Well, as I was reading your story, Terry, you bet I was remembering all of this! And just like last time, you made me smile again and again. I didn't do any quoting at all last time, but I'll do better now and start quoting several of my favorite parts:
Despite having been willing to commit any number of petty crimes - and a couple of felonies - to stow away on the first cononist's shuttle, the Messenger, none of the subsequent missions had grabbed her interest as a reporter.
I'll say! Don't I vividly remember the day in the summer of '69 when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, and everybody was glued to their TV screens to savor those grainy black and white images and listen to that static-crackling solemn message from Neil Armstrong, "A small step for a man... but... a giant leap for... mankind." But it was only about a year later that people were already so bored out of their skulls with trips to the Moon that nobody initially even noticed that the Apollo 13 mission seemed to be turning into a major disaster.
Ah, but there is nothing like a friendly voice to welcome you on board what could potentially be a flying coffin, is there?
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Thank you for flying the shuttle Valkyrie."
LOL!!!
Ann
