Did anybody else watch reruns of the T.V. show “The Jetsons” as a kid? It was a little before my time, but I loved it nonetheless. A huge part of its appeal was its setting—outer space. The Jetsons had such a cool life, filled with amazing gadgets and technology that I often imagined what it would be like to join them.

I now know that living in space would look nothing like the cartoons of my childhood. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would look like, but I do know it wouldn’t be as easy and fun as the Jetson family makes it seem.

Imagine being one of the first colonists on a different planet. Every single thing you do here every day would be different there. Everything. Your body would move differently because of the change in gravity. Your food would taste differently. There would be no civilization to speak of. You would land on a planet, and there would be nothing there. It would most likely be unfeasible to consider a journey back to Earth, especially for a first mission. If something went wrong, you could rely only on your fellow colonists.

Here’s a video of William Shatner talking to Chris Hadfield:

Starting at 2:56, they discuss a potential mission to Mars. Hadfield affirms that he would go to Mars were he given the opportunity, saying, “It was a risk that I decided to take many, many years ago. Really, to accomplish anything worthwhile in life is going to take risk. … And some things are really worth directing your life toward and putting your life on the line for.”

Although the idea of going to another planet still seems far-fetched, Hadfield argues that it is really the next step. He believes “going to Mars is inevitable…It’s just a matter of when we figure out how.” I’m interested to see if it will occur during my lifetime.

Though Hadfield would be willing to go in a heartbeat, knowing full well the dangers inherent in such a mission, and knowing full well he would never return to Earth, I am not like him. As much as I like hearing about space, as much as watching videos of astronauts in space makes me want to experience, briefly, life on the ISS, there is absolutely no way I would go to Mars. Just thinking about it in the most theoretical sense, from the comfort of my own chair, frightens me beyond explanation. What are your thoughts on space colonization? Would you be willing to move to another planet?

My plan for this post was to share my favorite pictures taken by Chris Hadfield. (For those of you who haven’t read the rest of my blog, Hadfield is a former astronaut who served as commander of the International Space Station. While in space, he would post several pictures of Earth a day.) I quickly realized that it would be very time consuming to go back through all of the thousands of photos Hadfield has posted. Therefore, the photos I will be sharing aren’t necessarily representative of my absolute favorite photos. (In fact, all of these pictures were taken within a fairly short time span.) They are, however, all stunning.

I’ve included in quotation marks the caption Hadfield posted with each picture, along with the date it was posted. Here they are in no particular order:

1) “The effortless natural art of the southern Sahara.” 4/24/13

2) “Berlin at night. Amazingly, I think the light bulbs still show the East/West division from orbit.” 4/6/13

3) “Spaceships glowing blue in the dawn as we leave Florida headed across the Atlantic.” 5/12/13

This one is cool because Florida is recognizable even from the different perspective.

4) “Chris [Cassidy] and Tom [Marshburn], helmet lights doing their best to light the universe on the dark side of the Earth.” 5/11/13

This isn’t a typical picture in that it’s a portrait of life in space, not on Earth, but it’s so amazing. I can’t even imagine what those two were seeing at that moment.

5) “Dr. Seuss-inspired swirls in the Black Sea.” 5/12/13

6) “Tonight’s Finale: Dubai, the Palm Island like a trilobite in the night.” 4/30/13

I briefly lived in the United Arab Emirates so my family has followed the economic boom with particular interest. The man-made art looks incredible.

7) “Some selfies are more thought-provoking than others. Amazing what you can see in the reflection.” 9/30/13

Yeah, I mean, this is pretty much what my selfies look like too. (Again, not really a traditional Hadfield picture and posted after he returned to Earth, but still so cool.)

8) “Mecca, home to both 3 million and more than [a] billion of us simultaneously.” 4/27/13

9) “Tonight’s Finale: People ask to see stars – my camera does its best in dim light. Our atmosphere glows in the dark.” 3/27/13

BONUS: This one’s not taken by Hadfield, but it’s so cute I have to share it.

“I think Brianna will be a fine astronaut. The Right Stuff, in miniature.” 5/1/13

Side note: For a little while, I wanted a life-sized Chris Hadfield cardboard cutout, like the one in the last picture. Although that dream was never realized, my friends kindly made me a miniature version who now lives in my dorm room:

Hadfield’s pictures are awe-inspiring, and the captions make them all the more powerful. Knowing that they were taken and posted from space makes them even cooler. I also love reading through the comments and hearing about people’s experiences with the place in the picture. Do any of these pictures speak to you?

Today’s post isn’t strictly space related, but it is Chris Hadfield related and it’s a good life lesson. As I’ve mentioned earlier, Hadfield has been active on many different social media platforms, one of which being Reddit. While aboard the International Space Station, he held an AMA (short for “Ask Me Anything”) in which he answered Redditors’ questions.

A lot of interesting and funny information was shared in that thread, so take a look through it if ever you have the time. What I want to focus on, though, is Hadfield’s response to the question, “Any advice to a young person who wants to get into this field?” Prepare yourselves, because this is really deep. Are you ready? Here we go:

Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you’d be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become.

These words inspired someone so much that they made a cartoon strip, which you should definitely check out.

This message really doesn’t just apply to kids who want to be astronauts; it’s a fantastic lesson for everyone. As a college student struggling with worries about my major, my career, and the rest of my life in the long run, it is especially relevant.

Recently, while I was freaking out about my future, my brother gave me a talk. One thing he said was something along the lines of, “Most people who are happy in life aren’t happy by accident. They found out what they liked to do, and they made plans to do it,” to which I replied, “Marc, you’re basically Chris Hadfield.”

My brother also told me that he schedules an hour of time every once in a while to reflect on what he’s been doing and whether or not he’s satisfied with what’s going on. That’s something I’ve decided I want to do, because it’s far too easy to get swept up in what’s going on now and not worry about what’s going to happen later. I don’t want to wake up one day and find myself trapped in a job I don’t like. So, tonight, I’m doing some reflection. I don’t expect to plan my entire life out, but I’m hoping to make a start.

Over the summer, my family took an old-school road trip up the eastern coast to the Maritimes, a region of Canada consisting of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. (If ever you have a chance to visit any of these provinces, I’d highly recommend it—all three are gorgeous, with tons of outdoorsy stuff to do and awesome people to meet.) Anyway, we spent lots of time in the car. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, probably because there was much less bickering than when I was younger. One of the things my siblings and I did to pass the time was listen to audio books.

At the top of our list was Ender’s Game, a sci-fi novel written by Orson Scott Card. The storyline follows a child genius named Ender Wiggin through his time at Battle School (a military academy that orbits the earth) and beyond in his quest to defeat the alien Buggers in an extraterrestrial war. My siblings and I all read the book during our late elementary school/early middle school years, and we all loved it. Listening again, we caught a lot of deeper meaning we had missed while reading at such a tender age. We had decided to listen to brush up our memory for the movie coming out November 1^st. Here’s a trailer:

This has the potential to make a very good movie, especially if they pull off the special effects well.

At the end of the audio book, there’s an interview of sorts with Card, where he talks about the challenges of creating a movie adaptation. The one thing I remember him talking about is the difficulty of having a story full of children. With the exception of a few key adults, children are the main characters in Ender’s Game. Card mentions that, although every once in a while there is one—or maybe two—really good child actor out there, to fill a whole cast with them is pretty much impossible. The choices are either to use older actors, or to use less talented actors.

In the end, Asa Butterfield has been chosen to star as Ender. I really don’t have any  expertise in the field of child actors, but Butterfield does come with some impressive credentials, having starred in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Hugo, among others. He is also 16, whereas Ender Wiggin is 10. I also know next to nothing about his supporting cast (except for Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley, but they’re definitely not children…), but I’m hoping for the best.

To wrap things up, here’s an interesting issue I just heard about. When I went onto IMDB to check the release date of the movie, I scrolled through the message boards and saw a lot about boycotting. As I explored the comments, I learned that Orson Scott Card has been rather vocal in his anti-gay marriage opinions. Therefore, some people are calling for a boycott of the movie, arguing that Card will profit financially from the movie. Here’s a (biased) website with more on the issue. While I don’t agree with Card’s opinions, he has a right to have those opinions and to express them. These opinions are not expressed at all in the book. Personally, I agree with the comments made by Harrison Ford and director Gavin Hood in this article on the matter. The book is fantastic, so I’m going to go see the movie. For me, it’s as simple as that.

This week’s post deals with two aspects of the commercialization of the space industry, the first part being the privatization of space exploration for scientific purposes, and the second being the emergence of a space tourism industry (shout out to Jordan for the idea!).

1) In my mind, privatization—at least in part—of the space industry is a proper and necessary step. Government programs (i.e. all the big players you’ve probably heard of: NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency, etc.) have gotten us far, but for the most part, their power is waning. [See this great Time article for more about the Space Race.]

Government agencies have serious constraints, namely limited funding, regulations, and bureaucracy and politics. Giving private companies more opportunities to get involved in the space-exploration industry—say, by allowing them access to NASA launchpads—fuels competition and thus increases advancements.

I don’t know how this is playing out on a global scale, but in America, at least, NASA has accepted privatization—whether out of choice or necessity, I’m not sure. NASA retired its space shuttle fleet a couple of years ago, with Atlantis’s last flight in July 2011 marking the end of the space shuttle era. However, as a participant in the International Space Station, NASA must meet certain requirements, one of these being a resupply requirement. NASA has contracted private companies for help:

• Cygnus, a commercial freighter designed by the Orbital Sciences Corporation, reached the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday the 29^th, loaded with food and supplies.
• SpaceX, a leading player in the private sector, launched a new version of its rocket, also on Sunday. This line of Falcon rockets helps NASA resupply the ISS but also launches private satellites.

And that’s not all. According to the Cygnus BBC article I linked above, “The carriage of freight is the first service to be bought in from external suppliers; the transport of astronauts to and from the station will be the second, later this decade.” By buying these “services,” NASA hopes to save money and then invest this money in other missions, such as the exploration of Mars and the asteroids.

If you’re interested, Wikipedia has a great set of charts detailing the different private spaceflight companies and their progress so far.

2) A young industry that will probably boom in the upcoming decades is space tourism. Though NASA would never agree to bring civilians on a joyride in space, private companies could, and some already are! For example, Virgin Galactic has already run two test flights and plans to start commercial spaceflights in 2014.

This company charges around $200,000 for a suborbital flight including four minutes of weightlessness—an exorbitant price for a glorified hybrid plane/rollercoaster ride. It’s not quite a trip to the moon, but we’ll probably get there eventually. And to be honest, if I had $200,000 to spare, I’d probably do it. The list of celebrities signed up for a Virgin Galactic flight so far includes Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Hawking (who was offered a free ticket), Tom Hanks, and Katy Perry.

*Super cool NASA news tidbit of the week: “Nasa plans first 3D printer space launch in 2014”

**Super uncool NASA news tidbit of the week: because of the government shutdown, the NASA website is not running.

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