An odd way to catch up with what's happened to an old friend

Just saw that someone I knew back in the college days is one of the final 100 candidates for the Mars One project. Kind of odd to know someone who's ready to get on a rocket, go to Mars, and never come back. Especially when you knew them they appeared scantily clad on stage and spent time under Double Secret Probation.

Made for some interesting dinner conversation this evening. If your spouse wanted to pursue a lifelong dream that entailed never coming back, what would you do? Support their dream? Break their legs so they can't go? Kick them to the curb for even considering it?

If you're wondering what kind of person would consider a trip like this, it's the same kind of person who would try to steal the T off this tower--at night. (Although he got caught--accounting for one of the probations.)

 

A rambling wreck going to Mars? I thought the geeks make the trips possible but they sent the football players...

 

Don't tell that to John Young. Got an Aerospace engineering degree with highest honors, walked on the moon, flew in the Gemini program and on the Space Shuttle. Brilliant man. I think there were 14 astronauts who were Ramblin' Wrecks.

Back when I went there, even the football players had to take calculus. A typical year was when the team was 1-9-1. The tie was against Notre Dame, who was #1 at the time. It was a moral victory.

 

A chef from my local area is also on the list- could get the first knife review from Mars,which begs the question as to whether gravity affects edge retention

 

what i want to know is why you can't come back? In this case what goes up DOES NOT come down. But why?

I would hope that I knew my spouses life long dreams before we got married. If one of them was to start a new life on another planet and the chances were good that it could happen I wouldn't marry her. I don't share that dream, and never will.

Chances are minuscule, seemingly immeasurable, that I would ever have to worry bout that though. Talking about it even feels like fantasy.

 

He's read enough science fiction that he should know better. On small exploratory trips to space, there's ALWAYS the crazy one in the crew who goes after people with a spork. And the funny, nice, silver-haired guy that everyone likes is always either the first to get sporked or dies heroically saving everyone else.

Although it sounds like there might be someone going with a knife rather than a spork...

 

soo no George Clooney and Sandra Bullock type of astronaunts?
Dang

 

We were just talking last night about how Clooney could plan Dan if there's a movie.

Dan:




George:




You'll have to find your own Sandra Bullock.

 

Just read that he'd be taking a mandolin with extra strings and a star trek uniform with him

Good thing I'm not signed up--I'd be first in line for the spork.

 

Because you asked.... I would break her legs. Easy, didn't even have to think about it.

 

If I told my wife I was going , I think she'd rush to help me pack

 

Does he have kids...looks like a child on his lap. With kids, definitely a no go...all dreams on hold until the kids are grown, without kids, I would be tempted.

 

If he were mine, I would take him out. Or at least make sure he suffered. A lot. His kids are grown or at least in college, but he made a commitment to the wife, and he's going to toss her aside like garbage. Whether it's going to space or chasing a trophy wife, he's abandoning her for something else. And you know there won't be a life insurance policy available for anyone going on a suicide mission. You want a trip, honey? Ok, I'll trip for ya. With a 10" blade in my hand.

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach--and on up under the rib cage.

 

Just kidding about the knife. I'd do something far worse--find a really nasty divorce lawyer. You want to see what it's like to live in a tiny hovel in a barren landscape with scraps to eat and no hope for the future? Let me help you with that.

 

he looks like he can only handle a 6 inch wusthof

 

Maybe the wife secretly wants him to go, and pulled the ol Jedi mind trick.

 

Lucretia, I like the way your mind works.

 

Remind me not to piss off Lucretia. uch

 

That's right!