A certain American Airlines 757 pilot gave me and a couple of hundred others a very hard landing this week.
So my jaw finally began to cease chattering when I discovered NASA is beginning to work on dropping flying things from the sky to see if perhaps the impact can be absorbed.
NASA's Web site told me that it dropped a helicopter from 35 feet in order to see whether an expandable honeycomb cushion that NASA calls a "deployable energy absorber" could minimize damage to life, limb, and even nervous systems.
The MD-500's landing gear did bend a little, NASA said, but the agency seemed most pleased that "four crash test dummies along for the ride appeared only a little worse for the wear."
Perhaps you will be most heartened by the words of Karen Jackson, an aerospace engineer who was one of the brains behind the test, which was conducted at NASA's Langley Research Center: "I'd like to think the research we're doing is going to end up in airframes and will potentially save lives."
I know we're only talking about helicopters right now. But given that commercial pilots do enjoy the occasional drink and have even drifted past Minneapolis and headed out to Wisconsin, surely one can dream that one day someone will create an extraordinary cushion for your average 757.
Perhaps space travel has become old. Perhaps people have come to take it for granted. It's been seen in so many movies. So many space shuttles have taken off and returned to Earth that we think little more of them than we do of jumbo jets.
NASA therefore has to use its imagination to persuade tomorrow's generations that space travel continues to be a large step for man.
One small step in this process is a new public service annoucnement featuring that fearsome space creature, "The Rock." Dwayne Johnson himself, a man who has appeared in so many scientifically concocted movies such as WWF SmackDown, WWE Backlash, and WWE Crush Hour, is now telling kids that NASA is cool.
Why Johnson? Well, he plays Captain Chuck Baker in the new movie "Planet 51." The voice of Chuck Baker, to be precise. And that seems to be a sufficient connection for him to tell us that all of the clever things NASA discovers in the dark and beyond are also put to use here on the mundane round lump called Earth.
I know Johnson is trying to inspire, but when he tells us that NASA technologies allow us to enjoy the freeze-dried fruit in our cereal, I wonder how many viewers will look at their Raisin Bran with a jaundiced eye and quivering lips.
The Rock is a professional. He convinced when he played Agent 23 in "Get Smart," just as he did when he when he played Rick Smith in "Reno 911."
But even he struggles with the last line of this PSA. For reasons best known to someone, somewhere, perhaps even out there, Johnson is required to end this PSA with the words" There's no space like home."
Oh, goodness. He's Dwayne Johnson. He's the Rock. Couldn't they have got him to deliver an NASA smackdown? Or are we all just trying to nice-ify our images to the point of blandness?
I have tried to avoid the Balloon Boy, his dad, and all who sail in this online/offline/out-of-line clattermaran.
However, thanks to CBS News, I have learned that Richard Heene once appeared on a fine YouTube extravaganza called The Psyience Detectives and offered 15 reasons why our haggard old world will end on December 21, 2012.
I have no idea if the world will end in 2012, though I suspect Richard Heene doesn't know either. And yet there is something quite eerie that he should assault our eyes and ears in the same week that a movie called "2012" has forced NASA to address all the 2012 doomsdayers.
You see, the folks behind the movie decided it might be quite fun to launch a Web site, InstituteforHumanContinuity.org. The site suggests that "a mysterious celestial body will enter Earth's orbit in 2012 with disastrous consequences." It also offers you the chance to enter a survival lottery that gives you just a chance of ringing in 2013. Applications are, naturally, limited and it seems as if there has already been a huge influx of wise and frightened people from each continent--interestingly, it seems Australians have so far led the pack of those entering the lottery.
Now, you might be wise, and even Australian, and therefore be able to see through this Beverley Hills bunkum. However, NASA is taking this site--or at least the fears it might perpetuate--so seriously that it has launched one of its astronomers, David Morrison, to attack this piffle-peddling.
According to the Independent, Morrison, who works in NASA's Astrobiology Institute, has already received more than 1,000 missives from the concerned. These are not those who merely fear they might not be able to view reality TV in 2013.
"I've even had cases of teenagers writing to me saying they are contemplating suicide because they don't want to see the world end. I think when you lie on the Internet and scare children in order to make a buck, that is ethically wrong," Morrison told the Independent.
The movie's site appears to be nourished by the same notions that incited Balloon Boy's dad: Old Sumerian starmen talked of "ancient astronauts" and supposedly predicted a bit of an earthly disaster in 2012, a thought that was picked up, according to Morrison, by fiction in relatively recent times.
Before we knew it, there were whispers about the planet Nibiru (here's just one on YouTube), which on the "2012" site has become Planet X, a planet that is allegedly being tracked by some of the world's finest scientists.
On the NASA site, Morrison goes into heartening detail about the Nibiru nonsense.
But perhaps the most joyous part of his answers to 2012 questions is when he confesses he had to go to the world's greatest online encyclopedia to learn of Sony Pictures' insidious marketing techniques: "I learned from Wikipedia that creating this sort of fake Web site is a new advertising technique called 'viral marketing,' by analogy with computer viruses."
The search for celestial riches from celestial fears will never go away. However, Balloon Boy's parents have run into a spot of bothersome police scrutiny, and I have heard one or two whispers that production of the "2012" movie is, well, towering inferno of cash that might end up in ashes.
Meanwhile, the mythbusters at NASA stand strong and united against these deleterious influences in our culture.
They pissed it. You may have missed it.
Recently, there was a fascinating glow in the sky that moved observers to ponder just what it might be.
I am assuming that Space.com is an authoritative source of information, for it informs me that the glow that was seen in the sky by so many last Wednesday was, indeed, astronauts' urine.
NASA spokeswoman Kylie Clem told a press conference that this aurora boreapiss was the result of the space shuttle Discovery releasing an unusual amount of water and urine into outer space.
I have never consciously weighed urine--not even my very strange biology teacher asked me to do that. But apparently about 150 pounds of liquid was sprinkled upon the stars.
Such a large release is relatively new, Clem said, and is related to recent restrictions on waste disposal while the space shuttle is docked with the International Space Station.
Regardless, when you release liquid waste matter into space it apparently freezes. Then the sun bathes it in its beams, turning it into vapor, and it wafts away in a glorious glow like a July 4th firework breathing its last.
Some observers even sent pictures in to SpaceWeather.com. (Go to September 10 in the archives.)
I hope this all doesn't mean that astronauts have stopped drinking their recycled urine.
Either way, it is reassuring that their waste matter is still giving someone at least a moment's psychological uplift before it disappears into the dark beyond.
I know readers of this site have strong constitutions.
But as the NASA rocket thingy shot up to the skies last night for another interesting mission, the only thing on my mind was the water they will drink.
Because it appears that they will be testing the idea of sipping their own recycled urine.
I know, I know. There are many cities in the world where the tap water is undrinkable. And I had hoped that this was merely a cost-cutting move in our tight times. But the fact is that this wastewater recycling gizmoid cost $250 million and is one of the featured experiments on this trip. Two more nuggets of information that make my natural ease turn to quease.
"We did blind taste tests of the water. Nobody had any strong objections. Other than a faint taste of iodine, it is just as refreshing as any other kind of water," NASA's lead urinary engineer Bob Bagdigian told the Daily Telegraph.
I understand that it's not easy keeping astronauts hydrated out there in the black beyond. And I know that there have even been Prime Ministers who swore by drinking their own entirely unrecycled piddle.
But some small part of me wishes there was, as Tony Blair always used to waffle, a third way.
This will be one of the last ten flights of the Space Shuttle. It is being retired and after 2010 the only flights to the space station will be Soyuzes.
But the current aim is for 92% of all the water drunk on board to be produced by the crew's urinary tracts and the moisture in the air- some of which might be created, one supposes, by sweating crew members.
The claim is that the astronauts will only be testing the system and not drinking on this trip. However, if you're intrepid enough to squeeze into a shuttle then surely you have the gumption and fascination to take a small tot of your recycled liquid waste. Just like the trying the wine in a restaurant, isn't it?
Well yes, except that when you listen to the chemistry of the process, Lord, it might turn your tummy. They distill, filtrate and oxidate.
The final gourmet touch is the addition of that little smidgen of iodine to control microbial growth. Which I'm assuming is something to do with little mites feeding on your waste and having babies half way down your throat.
I am sorry. As Heidi Klum always says on Project Runway: "one day urine and the next day urout." I'm out.
Is being an astronaut really all that much fun?
You get otherworldly for a while, but, as some children on vacation will tell you, floating can get old very quickly.
While a few astronauts become heroes, some seem to come back to earth and never come back to earth. Their behavior becomes eccentric. Their utterances become bizarre. Some even claim they have seen aliens.
A question worth asking is whether many of these astronauts were already a bit weird before they floated off into space. And I'm not even including the ones who wear diapers whenever they slip into a jealous rage.
Now NASA has had a brainwave that it hopes will send soothing waves through astronauts' brains.
The idea, sponsored by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, is to have a therapist on video inside the spaceship. No, not a live therapist available 24 hours a day for a cut-price fee. Instead, this is recorded video with voice, perhaps not entirely dissimilar to the one at your local energy provider that tells you "por Espanol oprima ocho".
The presumably soothing recorded voice will be clever enough to help astronauts work out what is making them miserable, employing a technique called problem-solving treatment.
Dear Computer, I only became an astronaut because I thought it would please my Mommy.
(Credit: CC Dullhunk)As I understand it, the astronaut types into his computer: "I just don't know what the meaning of it all is" and the computer will ask useful questions such as "Meaning? What do you mean?"
This will help the astronaut, in absolute privacy, come to terms with him (or her) self and his (or her) negative state of mind.
I am all for helping astronauts. Given that space missions will increase in length as we explore our galaxy of water-bearing planets, it will take a peculiarly robust mind and body to tolerate the sheer inhuman stress of the task.
Which is why a digitally shrunk shrink is an extremely worrisome idea. I know there are advertisers who claim that the computer is personal again. But no computer can be quite personal enough.
No, it seems quite clear that NASA should provide a personal shrink (and perhaps masseur, too) in the spacecraft for every long-haul astronaut. Yes, it would increase the numbers on the trip. But it would also increase the possibility of positive human interaction leading to a life-affirming atmosphere beyond the atmosphere.
America has long been able to prove that constant and open-hearted conversation with a stranger is the way to truly lasting and holistic mental health.
And there surely must be a plethora of psychologists, especially given these recessionary times, who would be prepared, in the interests of scientific progress and a fabulously healthy fee, to be an astronaut's little mental helper in his (or her) and our quest for the ultimate discovery.
Machines can't do everything. Really they can't.
How can anyone, let alone an astronaut, possibly reveal the dream about the goat, the golf club, Copacabana Beach, Anne Hathaway, Alan Greenspan, Hillary Clinton, Ari from Entourage, several of the cast from 300 and an open-top Chrysler Sebring to a mere computer?
In any case, there is one other little problem. Because of privacy issues, no one will know which astronauts used the computer shrink and which didn't.
Please forgive me, this is making me miserable. I need to lie down now.
I don't know if you've ever flown Aeroflot, but I am told that on some of the flights you get benches rather than seats--which is why I am rather admiring of Richard Garriott's courage.
Garriott, a video game developer from Austin, Texas, is spending a reported $35 million to get shot up in a Soyuz, according to Reuters.
He says he isn't scared. That's despite the fact that a South Korean lady, who became a Soyuznik in April, complained that she thought she was going to die upon re-entry. Her no-doubt highly sober captain apparently re-entered the capsule into the Earth's atmosphere at a rather unfortunate angle.
Parts of the module became smithereens, and the crew seems to have experienced the space equivalent of the bends.
Garriott is the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott. And the younger Garriott is about to enjoy 10 days in space before, hopefully, returning to Earth in a three-man re-entry vehicle.
The thing is, this vehicle might not get a wonderful Carfax rating.
Its last two landings have been less than optimal. Both times, explosive bolts, which are supposed to detonate before re-entry, failed to do so. Insain, rather than Usain Bolts, clearly.
Nonexploding bolts cause what are known as ballistic landings (the name does not appear to refer to the passengers' mood during one of these returns to Earth).
"I am convinced the probability of a ballistic landing in my case is significantly reduced," Garriott told Reuters. "But if it were to occur, I am physically and mentally well-prepared for it."
You might be wondering why Garriott is not using some family influence to take a ride on a NASA vehicle. Apparently, his poor eyesight prevents him from participating in the U.S. program.
Whereas the Russians, having sent a dog up in space, seem perfectly happy to send those with merely diminished vision and surplus cash.
Garriott will need all his visual powers on his trip. His job will be to photograph environmental movements. Let us hope that he doesn't suffer from any other untoward movements while he is floating in the firmament.
Perhaps, too, he will have time to photograph what is going on at the Russian/Georgian border.
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