Astronaut Training


In A Crack in Creation, her book on the gene editing tool, CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna mentions the time she found a tattered copy of James Watson’s The Double Helix on her bed:
“My dad would occasionally pick up books for me at used bookstores to see if they sparked an interest.”

My 6 year-old daughter likes to be read this book titled The Big Book of How. The first few points to the question, “HOW do astronauts train?”, were quite boring (for her). The next point was on training in zero gravity, so I decided to spice it up. It’s done by going on a plane that dives (like a free fall), I said. A falling plane? Now she was interested. So I drove home the advantage:
Me: “You know the funny feeling in your tummy when you’re on a roller coaster?”
She: “Yes”
Me: “This is like that. But much worse. People even throw up.”
She (all excited): “Really? They puke?”
Me: “Yes. That’s why they call the plane the Vomit Comet.”
Like all kids her age, she finds anything gross very attractive.

Later, I showed her a YouTube of a Vomit Comet video. It was the first time she saw weightlessness in action: people were floating around, some even did cartwheels. She found it awesome. I decided to pile on the gross factor:
Me: “You see how everything floats in zero gravity?”
She: “Yes”
Me: “That’s why astronauts need to learn to do potty and to pee differently in space. Else it will just fly around.”
She (gleefully): “Wouldn’t it be fun if it flew and hit someone on their face?”
She continued in this vein, finding ways to increase the grossness quotient at every step… but I’ll spare you the details.

Doudna’s dad got to leave books on her bed to stoke his daughter’s interest, I have to make things gross… Then again, if Doudna went on to become the co-inventor of CRISPR, maybe my daughter will become an astronaut. That would be so much cooler than the boring professions all around us…

When she is older, if she comes to know of the astronaut ambition I once had for her, I wouldn’t be too surprised if we have a conversation like this:
Like Calvin’s dad, I hope to have the last word in such a conversation. Or maybe she’ll become an astronaut. I win either way.

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