We place an inordinate amount of faith in the machine, in the fuselage as an infallible body: one that guarantees immunity from the dispassionate forces of space. We think that we can master the bio-logic of human physiology that can sometimes mistake its self for a foreign substance. But anything that is corporeal must experience autoimmunity, for its metaphorical purpose is to find ways to be spared from its own logic.
The harsh expanse of space is already cold, tired, and lonely. That’s why our stories about them are often the opposite. What use is there to continue on thinking of space travel, the future, and our species as a burden, or worse an obligation? We must imagine an experience of space travel that we could be comfortable in. We must learn how to love our doomed astronauts in the same way we love the terminally ill: by knowing in advance that they can’t be saved.