이번주 강의 ― The Last Lecture (10)

[조국현]

The Last Lecture는
미국 펜실베니아주 피츠버그에 있는 Carnegie Mellon 대학의 Randy Pausch 교수가
젊은 나이에 췌장암으로 시한부 인생을 남겨둔 상황에서
어린 세 자녀를 위해 남긴 기록입니다.

따라서  이 책은 '죽음'의 기록이 아니라 '삶'의 올바른 방향을 제시하는,
인생의 통찰을 줄 수 있을 만한 책인 것 같습니다.

뉴욕 타임즈의 베스트셀러에도 선정되었고요.
훌륭한 책을 토대로 영어도 배우고 인생도 배워보시죠.

The Last Lecture (10)

Chapter II : REALLY ACHIEVING YOUR CHILDHOOD DREAMS

6 : Getting to Zero G

IT’S IMPORTANT to have specific dreams.

When I was in grade school, a lot of kids wanted to become astronauts. I was aware, from an early age, that NASA wouldn’t want me. I had heard that astronauts couldn’t have glasses. I was OK with that. I didn’t really want the whole astronaut gig. I just wanted the floating.

Turns out that NASA has a plane it uses to help astronauts acclimate to zero gravity. Everyone calls it “the Vomit Comet,” even though NASA refers to it as “The Weightless Wonder,” a public-relations gesture aimed at distracting attention from the obvious.

Whatever the plane is called, it’s a sensational piece of machinery. It does parabolic arcs, and at the top of each arc, you get about twenty-five seconds when you experience the rough equivalent of weightlessness. As the plane dives, you feel like you’re on a runaway roller coaster, but you’re suspended, flying around.

My dream became a possibility when I learned that NASA had a program in which college students could submit proposals for experiments on the plane. In 2001, our team of Carnegie Mellon students proposed a project using virtual reality.

Being weightless is a sensation hard to fathom when you’ve been an Earthling all your life. In zero gravity, the inner ear, which controls balance, isn’t quite in synch with what your eyes are telling you. Nausea is often the result. Could virtual reality dry-runs on the ground help? That was the question in our proposal, and it was a winner. We were invited to Johnson Space Center in Houston to ride the plane.

I was probably more excited than any of my students. Floating! But late in the process, I got bad news. NASA made it very clear that under no circumstances could faculty advisors fly with their students.

I was heartbroken, but I was not deterred. I would find a way around this brick wall. I decided to carefully read all the literature about the program, looking for loopholes. And I found one: NASA, always eager for good publicity, would allow a journalist from the students’ hometown to come along for the ride.

I called an official at NASA to ask for his fax number. “What are you going to fax us?” he asked. I explained: my resignation as the faculty advisor and my application as the journalist.

“I’ll be accompanying my students in my new role as a member of the media,” I said.

And he said, “That’s a little transparent, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” I said, but I also promised him that I’d get information about our experiment onto news Web sites, and send film of our virtual reality efforts to more mainstream journalists. I knew I could pull that off, and it was win-win for everyone. He gave me his fax number.

As an aside, there’s a lesson here: Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.

My experience in zero G was spectacular (and no, I didn’t throw up, thank you). I did get banged up a bit, though, because at the end of the magical twenty-five seconds, when gravity returns to the plane, it’s actually as if you’ve become twice your weight. You can slam down pretty hard. That’s why we were repeatedly told: “Feet down!” You don’t want to crash land on your neck.

But I did manage to get on that plane, almost four decades after floating became one of my life goals. It just proves that if you can find an opening, you can probably find a way to float through it.