There are a number of oddities inherent to space missions. Some are obvious and predictable: communication delays and dependence upon spacesuits, for example. Others are a little more…unexpected.

One of the unexpected twists on being in simulated space comes from this very blog. It turns out that when you when you go to space, or simulated

When we finally get to Mars, where will we live?

That seems like a pretty obvious question. We’ve all seen the movies, read the books. In the future, we live where I live now: in white domes on the surface of forbidding planets,

This post should really be titled, “MAD MAD MAD” respect.

Respect for what, you may ask? For life-long astronauts? For scientists and support-staff who over-winter in Antarctica? For servicepeople aboard submarines and ships who do this isolation thing all the time?

Absolutely, but I’ve respected the heck out of those folks for years. This is BRAND NEW respect we’re

This is it: the last of the lettuce. If I’m lucky, I’ll see a fresh vegetable of some kind again in 4 weeks.

I looked at it there in the bowl, and thought for the first time that lettuce is kind of amazing. First, it’s actually pretty

You know those moments where you can almost hear god laughing? This is one of them.

 As a child in sunny Los Angeles, I snickered at my cousins’ back-east tales of being wrestled into snowsuits. According to them, winter meant drowning in sweat under layers of nylon and

When all the experts assure you that something is absolutely, positively going to go a certain way, start making a backup plan.

It’s mission day 5. By now, according to folks in the know, the media should have forgotten about the six simulated astronauts in