Most science fiction subgenres have explored the concept of being stranded in space. A prominent example is Andy Weir's novel, The Martian, which exemplifies the 'stranded' narrative style. This scenario parallels the experience of being shipwrecked on a small island in the vast Pacific Ocean. The themes of isolation, fear, limited physical space, and scarcity of food and clean water can profoundly affect individuals, potentially leading even the most hardened criminals to reform. Until recently, this particular notion was largely overlooked, but it may represent a significant aspect of our future, especially considering that we currently have a duo stranded in space—not that they are criminals—though it might feel a bit like prison to them.
Cue the theme music for the 1960s sci-fi adventure-themed Swiss Family Robinson TV show, “Lost In Space”. Except now we can call it “Trapped in Space”. Instead of the hokey albeit sinister Dr. Smith causing problems for the shipwrecked spacefarers, insert the CEO and board of Boeing, whose hair-brained and super expensive attempt to get in on the tech billionaire space race lodged astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore in orbit with no immediate way to get home.
Say what you want about the prospect of commercial rocket racing—and here I will say that I’m not a fan, especially because I don’t trust billionaires with phallic-shaped ships and overt cases of rocket envy, to have the best interest at heart for anyone or anything except their bottom lines. And yet, these companies have had some stunning successes. Like a glimpse from a Ray Bradbury story made real, I recently watched two rockets land successfully using retro boosters.
Even so, commercial spaceflight feels dangerous and, after this summer, I hope everyone will think twice about going anywhere near a tech-billionaire’s rocket, no matter how cool it undoubtedly looks. Their programs do not seem to have the scientific rigor of a government organization like NASA or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to back up their launches and trials.
For several months—most of the summer, in fact—tension built as media speculation put the two space sojourners in a sentence with a question mark at the end of it. Despite making it to the ISS, Boeing had no means to return them to Earth when their Starliner platform failed as a safe way to get them home. Now, it looks as if EV tycoon-turned Bond villain, Elon Musk will have the opportunity to rescue the astronauts in February of 2025 using one of his SpaceX rockets.
The entire catastrophe began when NASA awarded two billion-dollar contracts to tech companies to carry their astronauts to the ISS. Boeing Starliner received about 4.2 billion for their transit rockets, whereas Musk's SpaceX only got 2.6 billion. While that was probably quite a slap to Elon’s pride, he has now been tapped to be the hero, which will suit him.
NASA astronauts undergo rigorous training and are usually picked from a group of extremely tough-minded, smart and physically strong individuals. Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore are, if nothing else, well-prepared for this horrible situation. Both have done long-duration space missions previously and were aware that their current contingency was one of many possible eventualities due to a ship that had been fraught with technical and mechanical issues. In other words, that the Starliner platform failed was not a total surprise. Boeing's rocket platform was beset with problems from the outset. Even unmanned missions fizzled. If it were me, trained NASA astronaut or not, I wouldn’t have gone in the first place.
Although never clinically diagnosed, the thought of a tight space makes me a little giddy. Being pinned in a small area, even aboard the ISS, the prospect of being stuck for another six months might send me over the edge, no matter how much training I had. The circumstances, like the Starliner vessel, remain far from the intended outcomes. The marooned astronauts just have to make this work. While they waited to hear what solutions the frantic Boeing and NASA scientists could jot up on their whiteboards, I'm sure there were some long looks and serious contemplation about whether or not this trip had been a terrible mistake.
Willams and Wilmore are not villains or even criminals, of course, but it is fascinating to think about how effective their situation would be as a means to detain the world's worst evildoers. It might be fitting to think that a genocidal maniac or mad techno-genius could be locked away in a silent bubble far from the support of henchmen and in a situation that is impossible to escape from, except to plummet into orbit and be incinerated in the atmosphere. It does seem like a fitting punishment for the world’s worst bad guys, to me. It might be cruel and unusual, but at least it uses technology to promote planetary safety. I have a list of prospective prisoners handy, in case anyone wants to take on my billion-dollar idea. So long as I get credit and royalties.
Devil's Island, which ran the gamut of human horrors as a prison cannot hold a candle to the idea of the orbital penitentiary our astronauts are currently in. Dostoevsky’s Siberian wastes and Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago only compare in the immediacy of their nightmare systems. A prisoner absorbed into these cruel mechanisms might die of malaria or dysentery or from hard labor or from being tortured to death long before their eyeballs go to jelly due to a prolonged lack of gravitational pull. Just the strain of being away from clocks and Earth time and the dysphoria of not feeling the pull of circadian rhythms would push one’s cheese from their cracker long before their sentence was up. Please send me to Siberia or French Guiyana or a Federal Supermax prison in Oklahoma. I don’t want to rust in space for my crimes.
Eight months in low gravity is a trial on the body far beyond anything the evil minds that thought up solitary confinement concocted. Within three months, muscular atrophy is unavoidable. Longer than that and special exercises are required just so a person can walk when they eventually get back to terra firma. By the time the SpaceX Crew Dragon rocket heads toward the stranded pair, they will have been in orbit for long enough to need walkers and leg braces when they finally land. Once here, their stretched spines will contract in our gravitational pull, which might cause long-term nerve pain in the extremities and squashed discs and sore joints.
Fortunately, the ISS has food aboard and unmanned missions can bring them more necessities. Williams and Wilmore will be able to eat packets of specially designed high-protein food. NASA has been designing nutritional comestibles in zero-gravity containers since John Glenn first slurped a toothpaste tube of roast beef and potatoes as he orbited the planet for a mere three days in his tiny tin can.
I find the question of whether we ought to put the world's worst criminals into a tiny floating prison in orbit to be quite fascinating until we consider that hundreds of people are wrongly incarcerated each year. This particular “clink” would have to be only for those tried and sentenced as genocidal maniacs or—far worse—those who threaten the peaceful transition of power in a democracy.
While I am hopeful that Musk can eventually rescue Williams and Wilmore, I am less confident that I love living in a world where companies like Boeing and SpaceX and mad, would-be Bond Villains like Musk are awarded the rights to lead humanity into space. Corporate interests being what they are—and forgiving the humor—it feels scientifically cheap.
So far, I have been unimpressed with billionaires, generally, and Musk and others have proven to be dangerously supportive of the worst ideologies imaginable. If this is the future of space science, then I would be very relieved if we could unplug the dangerous billionaire evil masterminds from any future cosmic forays.
But, as you read this, the SpaceX rocket Polaris Dawn is set to launch (or was) in late August, except for—you guessed it—setbacks caused by unforeseen helium leaks and other technical failures quite similar to those plaguing Boeing Starliner. Polaris Dawn was going to break the records set by the NASA Apollo missions and bring humanity even farther into the black sea of space than ever before. I hope whichever SpaceX rocket launches to rescue Williams and Wilmore is more prepared than this SpaceX mission. If not, who will rescue the rescuers?
With all the goodwill in the world (and in orbit) my thoughts go out to the pair of astronauts on the ISS for a safe return and the secret wish that, if the world is ever threatened by the worst of us, there’s a hint of how to deal with them in this situation. Just so long as I get the credit for the idea.
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