A group of enterprising visionaries is looking for volunteers to be the first people to orbit the planet Mars.   They are considering having a small team of people spend over 500 days locked into a space roughly the size of a living room during the trip, and reports are that they consider a middle-aged married couple to be a one of the more optimal team configurations.

Let me be the first to say this:  Aw hell no!

Y’all, I love my wife.  I would gladly give my own life or take someone else’s in order to protect her.   She is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank my maker that she lowered her standards far enough to consider me  for the job of life-mate.  But I’m not going to spend almost two years locked into a tin can with her. 

And if I love her that much, and want to spend the rest of my life with her, you can imagine what I think about spending all that time cooped up with someone else, in whatever combination they come up with.  Heck, I have a hard time some days working an office with other people, and I can at least step outside and have a breath of fresh air.

Seriously, you eventually run out of stuff to do and just need to get away.  Those of you who’ve been in the military, please think back to some field problem or deployment.  After a few weeks, you get tired of saying and hearing the same stories.  You get to the point where you can tell who has the queen in hearts and who cheats at poker.  The books all get passed around at least once, and the movies get watched often enough that you’re reciting lines back to the screen.

Now imagine the longest field problem you’ve ever imagined, without even the option of “Hey, I think I’ll go for a jog around the latrine for an hour or so.” 

I guess the closest thing we have to this is the Antarctic stations, or maybe missile subs that spend weeks at a time under the ocean.  But in these situations, you have a job other than to be cargo.  A couple of people on a space craft like this would be there to fix things that break, react to emergencies, and be props in the publicity stunt that the mission really is.  At best, you’d be a lab animal so that they could figure out what the radiation and lack of gravity are doing to your body and mind.   Boredom would be even worse when you realize that you have nothing meaningful to do that day, or tomorrow, or the day after that. 

So, I’m regretfully going to have to pass on this one, and I can’t imagine how strong a marriage or friendship you would have to have in order to do it and not have something horrible happen amongst the crew during the trip.  I’ll just stay here, safely able to step out of the house when Irish Woman and I aren’t getting along, and wish whomever they get to do this the best of luck.

What say you all?  Could you spend two years locked up in a small space with your spouse or a few of your best friends?