Space travel is never easy. Anyone who says different is a liar. The hyper sleep is the worst of it once you get past the fact that all friends and family you left behind will expire before you reach your destination due to time distortion at light travel speed. It always begged the question, are we monsters for accepting the mission with that knowledge thrown to the way side? Or can we hide behind the noble ideology of taking these “giant strides for humankind”. I believe the others are like myself in the regard that encased in whatever logic we try to fill that voided question with one truth remains larger than any, we are all trying to escape something.
The nausea is intense for a few hrs after leaving the sleep chambers. I don’t think it is something you ever get used to. Which makes sense considering how unnatural even the idea of being cryogenically frozen and comatose is. Close inspection into any part of what we’re doing unveils a great disturbing insanity looming just underneath the surface. Why are we out here? How was this considered a good idea? I suppose that every civilization has its human trials, but still, why have I decided to subject myself to it.
Aside from the nausea the head aches are crippling. The chiming of instrumentation and onboard computer programming is a brutal assault on the senses. What is more fun than disorientation and vomiting while shrill noises drive ice picks into the stem of your brain?
I shake and sip metallic tasting recycled water while I wait for it to pass. It is my turn for rounds and to report via transmission back home. A home that by the time this transmission reaches may not even exist. I will be awake for three days before returning back to my pod and hyper sleep. This is my third rotation of the journey, and I have 213 left on the thousand year voyage to a planet that may not even support the life we bring to it.
If any of you ever read this, I implore you to make better choices than we have. There is no nobility in abandoning your life for a frozen thousand year coma, no matter the outcome.
Hugs,
Big Jay
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