I was reading in the news that the NASA Shuttle crew is preparing for a space walk. By the time you read this, they will hopefully have completed their walk and settled back down on the couch with some sandwiches. Their feet will be resting shoeless on the coffee table, and a remote control will be in their hands as they start channel surfing on their flat screen TV.

This brings to mind the idea of walking. Is a “space walk” really a “walk”? I don’t think it is. It’s like saying that if you lie down on the floor on your stomach and stick your hands out in front of you you are flying. Not to take anything away from the phenomenon, but when astronauts step out into space, their feet aren’t touching the ground. When your feet are not on the ground, it’s not walking. I can’t make this any clearer. But I’ll try.

Let’s say you are in an airplane flying at 150mph at about 10,000 feet. You open the door and jump out and move your legs around. Is this walking? No. In this case it’s falling while wiggling your legs. Second example. You’re in a swimming pool in the deep end. You are floating a foot off the floor of the pool. You move your legs around AS IF you are walking. Again, you are not really walking, are you?

In space there is no gravity. You float. I am humbly submitting that this whole thing should be called the SPACE FLOAT, not the space walk. In fact, I think space float has a nicer ring to it. It sounds original, like nothing you’ve ever seen, giving you that same kind of feeling when you first saw the scene in Something About Mary wherein Ben Stiller got his privates stuck in his zipper. There is something to say about originality, and I think Space Floating fits that bill.

I can hear it now:

HOUSTON SPACE CENTER: You ready, 10-4. Copy. Bravo company?
ASTRONAUT: Ready Houston. Hatch open. Bob and I are looking out into the abyss of space. My heavens! It’s lovely; magnificent. The earth is a shiny little blue ball. I want to pick it up and put it in my mouth. I can see my house from here.
HOUSTON SPACE CENTER: Really? Over.
ASTRONAUT: (snickering heard in the background) Just pullin your appendage, Houston. Bob and I are outside now. We’ll adjust the camera so you can see.
HOUSTON SPACE CENTER: We see you crisp as a new dollar bill. Over.
ASTRONAUT: Wow. This is absolutely amazing. Bob and I are space floating.
HOUSTON SPACE CENTER: (great cheers and popping of champagne corks) Space float accomplished! Well done. Well done. How’s it feel to float? Over.
ASTRONAUT: It’s really different than walking.

Walking and floating. Night and day. You never hear a guy at a restaurant say to the waiter, “Excuse me, but there’s something walking in my glass.”

Ghosts float. They don’t walk. Sometimes they even hover. But they don’t walk. Senior citizens walk around the mall. People walk for charity, but they don’t float. One day, though, I predict there will be a big charity float in space. And on that day everybody will know the difference, because it will be quite obvious that there is no sidewalk; some of the participants may even drift off toward Pluto. Space floating. Think about it. Write your legislator. Push for this in a letter to your local editor. Send NASA the suggestion. Space floating is cool.

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