THERE used to be a comedy sketch about a celebrity cocktail party. The host
greets the first arrival: 鈥淣ice to see you, Harry. Would you like a drink?鈥�
鈥淣ice to see you: TOO. Yes, I鈥檇 love ONE.鈥� It鈥檚 the fellow on the radio who
reads out the football results on television every Saturday. The next arrival is
an astronaut.鈥滳rrrrrrrr . . . that鈥檚 . . . crrrrr . . . an affirmative . . .
crrrrrr . . . Dave (beep!)鈥�
I don鈥檛 know much about sports announcers, but the astronaut sounds spot-on.
All the spacefolk I鈥檝e ever met talked like that. An aristocratic colleague and
I once tried to interview Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon. We鈥檇
collared him at a space-flight conference. Of course, what we really wanted to
find out was the truth of an anecdote then doing the rounds that Neil
Armstrong鈥檚 first words on the Moon were not the famous 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one small step . . . 鈥�
but a muttered 鈥淕ood luck, Mr Gorsky.鈥� We didn鈥檛 have the nerve. Instead,
I asked about the space station Mir, then the pride of the Soviet Union (this
was in the mid-1980s).
Aldrin鈥檚 reply was a staccato crackle of three-letter acronyms interspersed
with words like 鈥減erigee鈥� and 鈥減arameter鈥�. 鈥淢ost interesting, sir. Much obliged
to you,鈥� my patrician colleague said. And, as soon as the great man was out of
earshot: 鈥淒idn鈥檛 understand a damned word.鈥� Let鈥檚 face it, Apollo astronauts
weren鈥檛 chosen for their public-relations skills. Aldrin was so media-innocent
that he forgot to take a photograph of Neil Armstrong on the Moon鈥檚 surface.
Advertisement
That鈥檚 what comes of hiring test pilots for the job. Their main
communications qualification is the ability to transform terrifying experience
into prosaic understatement. Jim Lovell reported the Apollo 13 explosion as 鈥渁
main B bus undervolt鈥�. I wouldn鈥檛 want to knock anyone who remains calm under
stress鈥攖he only time I had to send an SOS call, my voice went up two
octaves and I forgot my name. But these days, when the medium is not only the
message but the sole purpose of most human endeavour, we might expect better
language skills from those we send out into the cosmos.
Sadly, it looks as if the next generation of astronauts will come from a
profession even more taciturn than test pilots. They鈥檙e going to be farmers. It
has occurred to NASA that, if humans are to colonise the Moon or fly to Mars,
they鈥檒l have to grow their own food. Current thinking is that only about 15 per
cent of calories will come from Earth-made foods. The rest will come from
hydroponic crops fertilised with astronaut manure. NASA is even funding studies
at Cornell University on suitable space recipes. 鈥淥ur goal is to develop a
database of food-processing information and a menu of at least 100 primarily
vegetarian recipes of familiar and new menu items based on crops raised in a
bioregenerative life-support system,鈥� says the head of the project team. Menu
suggestions so far include basil pesto with soya nuts, tofu cheesecake and
tempeh sloppy Joes.
It鈥檚 all a far cry from the corned-beef sandwich smuggled onto an early
Gemini mission (it disintegrated, distributing crumbs and greasy bits throughout
the capsule). But if life on Mars sounds like one long session in a north London
health-food restaurant, there鈥檚 going to be a lot of dirty work behind the
scenes. Someone will have to put on green wellies and get the crops in. So all
you youngsters with ambitions to travel to Mars should study agriculture rather
than rocket science.
On second thoughts, don鈥檛 bother. There are few grimmer prospects than a
farmer in space, griping to Houston about the Martian weather and the
shortcomings of the government. And we all know what would be the first words
spoken to an extraterrestrial civilisation: 鈥淕et off my land!鈥�
As for the Armstrong anecdote: when he was 10 years old, he overheard his
elderly neighbours arguing. 鈥淥ral sex?鈥� screamed Mrs Gorsky, 鈥淚鈥檒l give you oral
sex when that kid next door walks on the Moon!鈥�