Essayists From The United States

"I was surprised and fascinated to experience the absolute lack of physical attraction, in terms of physical mass, in z-g."

"Experiencing that in general was curiously amazing."

"Sure, the sheer animal aspect of our physicality is an intrinsic component of what we are."

"Any time a body goes outside the environmental conditions for which it developed it has to acclimate."

"Earth gravity and a line of horizon is how we, as Earth humans, are accustomed to gauging spatial orientation."

"It's an amazing and exhilarating thing to experience gravity lift away from around the body."

"In lunar gravity, it was easy to do one-handed push ups and somersault effortlessly."

"A spaceship rhymes with all the dreams, nascent wonder, and hope of a humanity looking up in awe at an excruciatingly beautiful Cosmos, with"

"Dreams are the food of human progress. Poetry, like all physics, ultimately quantifies the unquantifiable that is beyond all form."

"In z-g, fluids redistribute to the upper body."

"Sex is as personally unique to individuals as it is universal."

"Earth is in space, too, so really sex in space isn't anything new."

"Poetry achieves its pinnacle when it is the perfection and mastery of expression (creation, perception) as Art (arrangement)."

"It’s of note that the word 'cosmetic' has its roots in the word 'cosmos.'"

"Pythagoras was the first person to call the universe Cosmos, describing it a kosmos. The Greek word means an equal presence of order and beauty."

"Poetry is a transfusion of the ephemeral blood that sustains the universal heartbeat within human society."

"To the degree it is efficient, a spaceship is elegant and beautiful."

"The social value of a poem is proved not by marketing or reviews but by enduring resonance, a process that occurs as a response over time by humanity."

"Eventually space environments could be created to provide the best of both worlds, such as, for one example, settlements or habitats designed to create their own gravity, with chambers where reduced gravity or weightlessness can also be experienced optionally."

"All of life and the cosmos can be seen as concinnous (harmoniously congruous, neat, elegant) wholes with a whole, unless in chaos; and, even then, chaos occurs (or is avoided) within systems (whether minute or vast) that are themselves balanced, or concinnous."

"Everything poetic exists as a subset of a whole, and within the authoritative system of Nature."

"We call interconnected order beautiful. When interrupted, we call it chaos."

"These elements — rhythm, rhyme, harmony and concinnity — can inevitably be identified within whatever is proclaimed 'poetry.'"

"Poetry emulates the Cosmos perhaps because the Cosmos itself is the grandest conceivable example of rhythm, rhyme, harmony and concinnity."

"It is interesting to note that poetry, a literary device whose very construct involves the use of words, is itself the word of choice by persons grasping to describe something so beautiful, it is marvelously ineffable."

"A phoneme, an utterance, could be said to be the beginning of poetry's evolutionary chain."

"Poetry is a subset of a Cosmos, which in itself, is a poem."

"It’s vital as we postulate and work toward exploration and human settlement beyond Earth. I like to think of the possibilities of sustaining humanity’s continuum, with preserved recorded history way beyond the life of our Sun."

"Human migration beyond Earth is our destiny, not as in something preordained, but in the sense of it being inevitable and necessary. The lot of humanity seems to be that of expanding consciousness into new territory."

"People have been making love and having sex in space over the thousands of years that our ancestors lived and traveled in small hunting-and-gathering bands. Earth is in Space."

"It is indisputable that evolved thinking recognizes the universality of Life."

"For literary purposes, the art of writing poetry can be simply defined as: A creative act using language as a medium refined to an art."

"Space settlements would also contain biospheres replicating Earth conditions and atmosphere.""

"If form follows function, as we know it does in this Universe, then consciousness will adapt to whatever form it requires in order to function. Hopefully, it will also develop its fundamental function; what that is may be debatable within many schools of thought, but it is indisputable that evolved thinking recognizes the universality of Life."

"Sex in space is not about going somewhere else to have sex; it's ultimately about expanding beyond our immediate neighborhood, into a Universe to which we belong."

"Having personally kissed in zero gravity, I was initially amazed by the unexpected lack of attraction, from the sheer perspective of the mass magnetism."

"As our faces and bodies drew nearer, gravity was not helping us at all. It took minor struggle to come together, and we had to hold on in an effort to keep our lips aligned."

"On Earth, much of the wrenching discomfort of emesis, apart from the sensation of nausea itself, is from the coordination of many muscles it takes to counter gravity."

"To paraphrase the great poet Dante, the heavens swirl above us and our eyes are still cast to the ground."

"Romantically speaking, the idea of lovers experiencing the ultimate orgasmic rapture while floating in zero gravity is a metaphor."

"The 2suit is a utilitarian garment that functions by itself as a flight suit, and can unzip or attach with velcro and attach to a partner's suit with very lightweight fabric inside that can expand."

"One impression I had was how zero zero gravity is."

"Some animals on Earth regurgitate as opposed to vomit, i.e., stomach contents flow up into the esophagus without any forceful abdominal contractions. What I experienced in zero gravity was similar to this, expulsion without the heaves."

"We are progeny of not just the Earth, but of the cosmos. And as its progeny it is our duty use the best of our ability and continue that."

"Everybody's got soul. It's a matter of what condition it's in."

"You are not going to find yourself anywhere except right where you are."

"What I saw was the hoax: Immortals questioning mortality when they should have asked eternity."

"Because I had goodwill for all, / I thought all were my friends. / And then I learned of treachery, / that some preferred my end. / It wasn't the goodwill I felt / that made someone a friend. / What handy day, the one I learned / the meaning of the word. / How good to know my enemies /(though their reasons are absurd!)"

"Human forms are perpetuated through sex, and sex also perpetuates human consciousness."

"Once someone I was working with said, 'You know, Vanna, some people think about what they're having for lunch tomorrow and you're thinking hundreds of years into the future.'"