I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut. I still have vague memories of my parents waking me up in the the middle of the night to watch the Eagle land on the moon in 1969. And from then on I’ve known that some day I want to go into space.
Astronauts have always been older than me. And whilst they are older than me, then there’s always a chance that I can be an astronaut when I get to their age. I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but it keeps me going.
But now that’s no longer true. The current space shuttle mission has a crew member (the brilliantly named Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper) who was born in February 1963 and is therefore five months (exactly five months as it happens) younger than me. As far as I know, she’s the first astronaut (or cosmonaut) who is younger than me. And if youngsters like her are being sent up then I’m going to have to finally accept that I might just be too old to get onto the space programme.
So my only remaining chance of getting into space is to become a space tourist (they’ve already taken people far younger than me). And that means I need to get a lot more disposable income than I currently have.
p.s. By the way, here’s a very cool Wikipedia category – People currently in space
You’ll have to give up this contracting lark and set up a business. How about selling museli and yoghurt to people who read The Guardian? :)