THE RIGHT STUFF (a.k.a. Rocket Men)
Fifty years ago, when all the psychological test
results were finally in, the scientific intelligentsia
pontificated: man will never— can never--
travel the measureless emptiness…
survive the stark loneliness of
the big-bang to the stars, so hopelessly
social is his nature, so utterly dependent
is he upon human warmth, upon real contact
with his village
with his tribe
But today, a generation of innerspace-astronaut
sons and daughters and nieces and nephews
with uncanny hand-eye-mouse coordination,
self-strapped into the consoles of wireless
suspended animation in their space-capsule
bedrooms, have launched their cargo-lives on
drifting trajectories through the days, months and
years of cyber-space… utterly alone… but chatting
endlessly in virtual chat rooms in virtual bliss,
resolving virtual conflicts with virtual combat,
developing virtual relationships, leading
steamy virtual sex lives, and leaving us
behind… their baby-boomer elders…
tethered back here on terra firma
by our own virtual umbilicals…
