The ultimate galactic adventure - what would it be like to go into space?

As did Professor Brian Cox’s The Planets before it, Secrets Of Our Universe has provoked water cooler debate about all things space, and in conjunction with exciting recent events such as the Indian moon landing, the Virgin Galactic commercial flight last month, and this week’s talk of mummified aliens, conversation in households and workplaces across the land has taken a turn toward the interstellar.

At Weekend Towers, we love to take a look up to the stars and contemplate our somewhat meagre existence in light of the incredible scale of the universe as a whole. And while space is on the lips of the masses, our boy Dan has decided to pay heed to some of the big questions and even plan for his own potential future far from the big blue marble we call home.

Beam us up, Danny Boy...

Space... The final frontier...

I’m far from the only person in this parish who has dreamed of a trip into the stars, and with Messrs Bezos, Musk and Branson gunning to get as many average Joes into space as possible before their time is done, the chance for us normal folk to fulfil this crazy ambition is closer than ever.

But what would it actually be like? Would the terror outweigh the awe? I struggle at the top of an eight-foot ladder; how would I actually handle leaving the atmosphere?

In an interview with Tim Peake in last week’s Weekend, the man himself described space as a potentially very scary place to be. “It’s empty. It’s a vacuum. The temperatures will kill you, the pressure will kill you, the radiation will kill you,” he warned... strongly.

Yet while bearing the harsh reality of the dangers of the cosmos in mind, he also reflected that his own experience was one of relatively peaceful calm. “I found it a very, very tranquil, serene environment to live and work in,” he related.

Peake, of course, is a trained spaceman, and as such spent a long time training to deal with the psychological effects of leaving Earth. Naturally, for Everyman Dan, these would be a little harder to grapple with. Yet as a kid who spent his formative years with a lightsaber in one hand and a tricorder in the other, the chance to follow my science fiction heroes into the stars would quite simply be too good to give up.

Do I think I’d be scared? Undoubtedly. But I’m sure plenty of you will agree that the fear would surely be worth it.

In August, West Midlands former Olympian Jon Goodwin took a trip on a Virgin Galactic space tourism flight. Reflecting on looking at the Earth from space, he described the pure clarity as “very moving”, and stated that the experience as a whole was “without a doubt the most exciting day in my life”.

Fellow passenger Keisha Schahaff said that “it was really the best ride ever, and I would love to do this again”.

What more do we need to know? Bring it on...

Comfort blankets

This isn’t to say that nerves wouldn’t sometimes get the better of any of us lay people lucky enough to ever be able to take a trip into the stars.

With this, it can be fun to think about what we would (if we could) take with us to make time in space more comfortable, calm and stress free.

Reportedly, with water obviously being at a premium in space, crews of the International Space Station have always considered wet wipes as being gold dust, so a pack of these to keep us squeaky clean on our voyage into the unknown could be a good shout.

Along similar lines, experts suggest a toothbrush as a very prized commodity, as letting your hygiene go while living the zero-gravity life can leave you feeling like you’re climbing the walls.

For those (and I suspect this would be pretty much everyone) who want to make notes about their experience in real-time, its important to remember that due to the lack of gravity, most pens won’t work in space. So go old school and pack a pencil.

These are all quite practical choices for your ‘carry-on luggage’, but most of us would probably also be keen for a few real home comforts. Photos of the fam are bound to be a given for most folks in this regard, but for me personally, this would also be the ultimate Desert Island Discs situation, so a soundtrack of relaxing favourites would have to make the cut. Naturally, certain obvious tracks by Bowie and our region’s own Babylon Zoo would need to feature, along with John Denver’s Leaving On A Jet Plane (We’ve all dreamed of recreating that scene from Armageddon... come on).

A biggie, of course, would be snacks. As far as I’m currently aware, there are no fried chicken joints in space, so stuffing my bag with treats of a tasty nature would be a must. We all remember Homer Simpson enjoying the zero-G crisps, right? Forget Armageddon; recreating this moment would make my life complete.

Is there life on Mars?

The aforementioned David Bowie once posed this question in song, and the debate over the possibility of alien life somewhere in the universe rages on. The subject was thrown into chat forums with gusto this week with doctors in Mexico performing examinations on two mummified “alien” corpses that had been presented to the country’s congress by self-proclaimed UFO expert and journalist Jaime Maussan.

Sceptics had of course been out to disprove Maussan’s suggestions that the bodies were “non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution”, yet forensic doctor José de Jesús Zalce Benitez said that the examinations showed the bodies had not been assembled or manipulated – a cornerstone suggestion of many people who believed them to be fakes. However, it is very important here to note that a previous claim about the discovery of an alien body involving both Maussan and Benitez was debunked.

Wherever you stand on Maussan’s claims, they have fuelled the debate afresh, and there are few people who don’t have an opinion on the subject of alien life and whether or not it is out there.

Professor Brian Cox has suggested that the Maussan bodies are “way too humanoid”, and that “it’s very unlikely that an intelligent species that evolved on another planet would look like us”.

Cox has never flat-out denied the possibility of alien life existing somewhere, but has suggested that he thinks the chances of advanced species akin to our own emerging are slim.

Still, science fiction has stoked the imagination and curiosity of the masses for generations, and a good proportion of the planet’s population (including reportedly almost two thirds of Americans) believe it is likely that somewhere, intelligent alien life does indeed exist.

I for one remain sceptical, but the universe is a very big place, and I would be among those who would be delighted for any proof of extraterrestrial life to one day come to the fore. As long as we’re not talking some sort of Independence Day scenario, of course...

Our future in the stars

With NASA’s Artemis programme looking to put boots back on The Moon by 2025, and India having recently achieved the historic landing of an unmanned craft on the lunar south pole, it’s an exciting time in terms of humanity’s reach for the stars. With the overriding objective of Artemis being to pave the way for manned missions to Mars, and with the likes of Jeff Bezos determined in the long term to help find a new home for our species, in recent months more and more conversations have turned to the possibility of the human race’s future away from Earth.

For me (again, a die-hard sci-fi fan), it’s incredibly exciting that these conversations are happening with any degree of seriousness, and that the question now seems to be less of ‘if’, and more of ‘when’.

Still, it’s not for stargazers like me to get ahead of ourselves – it’s going to be a while yet, and as Tim Peake also recently stated: “If we look after Earth we’ve got another billion years to go. There’s life left in the old girl yet.”

I’d be among the first to jump aboard the Ark to Mars if given the chance, and if I were to do so I’d definitely be taking more than a decent playlist and a multi-pack of Doritos.

For now though, me and millions like me will just have to be content with looking to the night sky and dreaming of humanity’s next big adventure.

Watch this space.