Can you hear me Major Tim?
I have a recurring nightmare. I have been picked to become the first British hack to go into space.
Talking to Britain’s latest astronaut, Major Tim Peake, on Channel 4 News last night, I glimpsed my own paranoia. That sense of claustrophobia from being locked up in a capsule and propelled out of earth’s atmosphere to where?
David Bowie’s Ground Control to Major Tom is one of my all time favourite tracks.
The music is what compels, but the lyrics appeal to that residual fear, of spinning hopelessly in space.
That sense of never coming back, of cutting off from all loved ones and, for a time, maybe a long time, staying alive.
I have never dreamt, as Major Tim has, of thrusting into space with joy. But then I have never done what he has done.
He’s flown test flights of planes to the edge of our atmosphere. He’s been to the Ring Road of life and wants to cross into the unexplored terrain of the universe he has seen, stretching out beyond.
For him it is a natural consequence of his working life. For me, it is a shocking disconnection from mine.
That man’s dream is this man’s nightmare.
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You need to take along a pencil I hear as biros don’t work upside down …….
My (previous) bank once made an error (that I didn’t notice), then not long after that sent me a letter saying sorry for making the error and as compensation sent me a Fisher Space Pen!
I don’t believe there is an upside down in the vacuum of space.
Tintin also always accompanies Snowy even when the destination is the Moon
- so you would not be alone but in with
a pool of Euro hacks were it to happen
But 10 years after Channel 4 News did a live re-enactment of the moon landing we now discover that Jon Snow never left the ground because of claustrophobia …… and forgot to patent Twitter …….?
This is the story of Britain. But spare a thought for Ranulph Fiennes’s descent safely from Mount Everest later today.
Well Jon I think that shows just how strong and vibrant your attachments are. I work at the parameters of the social security system and encounter daily the swathes of free falling dispossessed souls without connection or direction in there lives.
Our elected politicians’ syphoning off public funds for the maintenance of their moats, porceline tea sets, plasma TVs and now duck houses is a parallel,( parasitic,) universe utterly apprehensible for the majority of us with out feet still on the ground.
I always understood that the David Bowie song was about another subject altogether. Maybe I’m not literal enough!
The requisite fitness, aptitude and courage escape me but it sure is one hell of a trip – even watched from my armchair! Wonder how it impacts on them when they are back on terra firma? Does the experience affirm their belief in a God, for example or perhaps faith is abandoned? What is the bigger picture?
that’s disappointing Jon. I wouldn’t want anyone else to go out there in your stead. Could they convince you if they had a colourful stripy space-suit made?
I’d have to hitch with aliens – if they get here their technology is obviously far superior (& safer) than ours! If they’re good guys, one might get to see a bit more universe! Til then…
If only the song were enough of a favourite for you to get the title right. It’s “Space Oddity”…
Talking of not understanding the meaning of songs. We had “A whiter shade of pale” to walk down the isle to in 1973. It wasn’t until years later we learned it was about some drugs trip. Ignorance is bliss.
Your circuit’s dead there’s something wrong can you hear me Major Jon?
It does make you wonder about the Moon Landings that was 250,000 miles away, must have been an agrophobic’s ultimate nightmare just floating along no up or down or sideways
Have you seen the Interview that Tim Peake has given to the Young Eagles at the museum of Army Flying.
http://www.flying-museum.org/young_eagles/index.html
Great questions from the kids.