The date I reported to the USS Taylor FFG-50, in my artificial and symbolic memory, was almost arbitrary. It did not depend on any other events, such as finishing boot camp. I had a period of time in my artificial memory where I had some kind of unimportant assignment and then one day I got orders for the Taylor.
Back in 1965, no one had any real idea about the effects on a human after a month in space, let alone over 17 months in space, traveling a space ship that used nuclear explosions for propulsion. I assume that ship actually had a lot of radiation shielding that would not have been possible with a chemical rocket propulsion. I read that for the Project Orion space ships, the extra weight actually made that ship more efficient. But no one probably really understood whether a person could even survive for more than a month in weightlessness. I find myself thinking a lot that I would really hate being in space because of the weightlessness.
Thoughts have occured to me that when I see my wife again, it will be as though I had never consciously forgotten who she was. It has happened with a lot of other stuff so I understand how it will happen. I guess I will know somehow when it will happen. I feel that I will somehow suddenly understand where I am supposed to go. I like to think of it as I will suddenly rememember where I parked my car and in the car, I will discover where is my house. I have had that recurring dream so many times the past 9 years about suddenly discovering I still owned that house at Country Club Estates and then I would be there in the house and I was glad to be home.
