Space Family Garriot
The son also rises
by G B Leatherwood
Some folks are never satisfied. Not with paddling down the Amazon, tracking gorillas in Rwanda, diving to the Titanic, or hunting for meteorites in the frozen Antarctic.
Richard Garriott, like one of the characters in one of the several interactive adventure computer games he has invented, has done all those things. Now he has emerged from the depths of the ocean and skipped from the frozen South Pole to above the Earth on a trip to the International Space Station
. “Like father, like son,” or so the saying goes, as Richard is the son of former astronaut Owen Garriott and is the first second-generation astronaut.
Garriott successfully launched today aboard a Soyuz spacecraft and is currently heading toward the International Space Station.
But as we see from the web site detailing his adventures, Garriott will be doing far more than looking out the windows and taking pictures. One of the more intriguing experiments he will be conducting (how much more do we need to know about the sleeping and waking effects of weightlessness on the human body?) will be observing ecologically significant spots on the Earth and comparing them with the same spots observed and photographed by his father a generation ago. He’ll also be testing a “Spring Drive Spacewalk” watch.
Speaking of never being satisfied, it is wonderful to see that we humans are forever seeking the next frontier whether it be the deep ocean, the rain forests, the frozen wastelands—or space.
Richard Garriott, like one of the characters in one of the several interactive adventure computer games he has invented, has done all those things. Now he has emerged from the depths of the ocean and skipped from the frozen South Pole to above the Earth on a trip to the International Space Station
. “Like father, like son,” or so the saying goes, as Richard is the son of former astronaut Owen Garriott and is the first second-generation astronaut. Garriott successfully launched today aboard a Soyuz spacecraft and is currently heading toward the International Space Station
. But as we see from the web site detailing his adventures, Garriott will be doing far more than looking out the windows and taking pictures. One of the more intriguing experiments he will be conducting (how much more do we need to know about the sleeping and waking effects of weightlessness on the human body?) will be observing ecologically significant spots on the Earth and comparing them with the same spots observed and photographed by his father a generation ago. He’ll also be testing a “Spring Drive Spacewalk” watch.
Speaking of never being satisfied, it is wonderful to see that we humans are forever seeking the next frontier whether it be the deep ocean, the rain forests, the frozen wastelands—or space.
