How weird is it that I get this? Like, on a profound level... "When we’re spacewalking, we like to grab on to things with our space gloves and be nice and steady. But I got to this one area along the side of the shuttle, and there was nothing good to grab. I had to grab a wire or a hose or a knob or a screw. And I’m kind of a big goon. And when there’s no gravity, you can get a lot of momentum built up, and I could go spinning off into space. I knew I had a safety tether that would probably hold, but I also had a heart that I wasn’t so sure about. I knew they would get me back, I just wasn’t sure what they would get back on the end of the tether when they reeled me in. So I was really concerned about this. I took my time, and I got through the treacherous path and out to the telescope. I felt this deep loneliness. And it wasn’t just a Saturday-afternoon-with-a-book alone. I felt detached from the Earth. I felt that I was by myself, and everything that I knew and loved and that made me feel comfortable was far away. And then it started getting dark and cold. Because we travel 17,500 miles an hour, ninety minutes is one lap around the Earth. So it’s forty-five minutes of sunlight and forty-five minutes of darkness. And when you enter the darkness, it is not just darkness. It’s the darkest black I have ever experienced. It’s the complete absence of light. It gets cold, and I could feel that coldness, and I could sense the darkness coming. And it just added to my loneliness.” ~ NASA Astronaut Mike Massimino’s first-hand take on fixing the Hubble Space Telescope
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 04:07:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015