One of the purposes of space travel is to collect information about the outer space and the heavenly bodies that revolve through it. The scientists working on the problems of space travel are primarily motivated by curiosity – the desire to know what kind of life, if any, exists on the moon or planets like Mars or Venus. We are not concerned, for the present, with this scientific or practical aspect of space travel, important as it is. We are concerned with the romance of space travel.
What is romance? The essence of romance is strangeness, remoteness from the dull routine of daily existence. Adventure, love and war are usually called romantic because they are uncommon, strange, removed from the drab daily life. Science, which is commonly regarded as mechanical and prosaic, has opened up new romantic vistas. Its latest gift to the romantic spirit of man is the exploration of space.
How romantic and exciting it is to soar in a space-ship into regions undreamt of by Shelley’s skylark I Man feels light, weightless in outer space, as though he had shuffled off his mortal coil and become a pure spirit. Uri Gagarin, the first Russian cosmonaut to circle round the earth in a spaceship, has described the experience of weightlessness in space; “What happened to me during this time? I left my seat and hung in the air between the ceiling and the floor of the cabin. I felt wonderful when the pull of gravity began to disappear. It seemed as though my hands, legs and my whole body did not belong to me.
They did not weigh anything. You neither sit nor lie down, but just keep floating in the cabin. In the same way all the loose objects, the map-case, the pencil, the note-pad float in the air, and you watch them as in a dream. For a moment forgetting where and in what position I was, I put the pencil down beside me, and it sailed away.”
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Again, what can be more romantic than the extraordinary courage and spirit of adventure the cosmonauts display while hurtling through space? It is true that they are equipped with everything they need like oxygen and are aided at every step by computers. Yet the slightest miscalculation will prove disastrous, and .unforeseen difficulties may arise. Space travel does demand high degree of courage and heroism, though they have to be combined with coolness and presence of mind.
The pale moon is considered to be highly romantic and is frequently described in poetry. Think of the thrill and excitement felt by the American astronauts who later landed on the moon, walked on its surface for a while, and brought back to the earth specimens of moon-rock. Their experience seems to be the last word in romance. A time may soon come when the newlywed will honeymoon on the moon.