posted 12-15-2007 10:26 AM               

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76:11:01 Aldrin (on-board): Yes, there's a big mother over here, too.

76:11:07 Collins (on-board): Come on now, Buzz, don't refer to them as big mothers; give them some scientific name.

76:11:17 Aldrin (on-board): It sure looks like a lot of them have slumped down.

76:11:20 Collins (on-board): A slumping big mother. Well, you see those every once in a while.

76:11:26 Aldrin (on-board): Most of them are slumping. The bigger they are, the more they slump - that's a truism, isn't it?

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Collins reflects:

quote:

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This conversation is taking a turn for the worse, and it will only be another few minutes until the earth pops up over the moon's rugged rim, so I drop the subject and start talking about camera and gimbal angles, as we all wait for our old friend to reappear. Still... the possibilities of weightlessness are there for the ingenious to exploit. No need to carry bras into space, that's for sure. Imagine a spacecraft of the future, with a crew of a thousand ladies, off with Alpha Centauri, with two thousand breasts bobbing beautifully and quivering delightfully in response to their every weightless movement... and I am the commander of the craft, and it is Saturday morning and time for inspection, naturally...

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I've owned this book for several years now, yet it hadn't yet process in my reading pipeline (I haven't gotten to First Man either), even though I knew it to be a superior astronaut autobiography. Indeed it is.

Such fantasies have had to come across the mind of most spacefaring people, yet this is the first first-hand account I ever come across. Any others?