Ten Things that Make you Queasy at the Astronaut Hall of Fame and Kennedy Space Centre.

1. Multi Access Trainer. Strapped into a chair on a spinning machine on three axes. You are twisted this way and that for what seemed like eternity. It was a long time to giggle loudly through nervousness and sheer ick-ability.
2. Climbing Wall. Queasiness comes twofold on this apparatus. Firstly, you have to tell them how much you weigh. I felt really ill about that. I still feel ill thinking about it. You are strapped into a harness and counter balanced by your self in weights. When you then climb a frame, you can bounce up and down using your own weight to make you feel a little weightless. The harness digging into my nether regions was enough to make me feel ill. Maybe I got my weight wrong, said too much. That makes me feel netter. It was the worst ride of the day.
3. Mixing chemicals on the mid-deck of the Space Shuttle. The actual chemicals were not nauseating in themselves, but the pressure to stick to the script, say your lines well and complete your tasks was. Mission specialist four and I did execute and achieve our goals though, well before time, and spent the rest of the voyage giggling at everyone else, and so, airsick bags did not need to be deployed.
4. G-Force Spinner. I did feel quite shaky at the end of this one. It was a centrifugal type spinner with added tilting. Inside a small box, (that I was surprised did not smell of vomit), you seem to be at the controls of a jet fighter that gets into trouble mid-air. It’s partly the footage, partly the spinning that results in a queasiness that is greater than the sum of its partlys.
5. The Shuttle Launch Experience. I took valuable and possibly very sensible advise and did not board this ride at Kennedy Space Centre which emulates travelling at twelve and a half thousand miles an hour. We were driving the next day, a long way. On inadequate sleep; the son of someone in a queue somewhere had to take the rest of the year off after riding it. I have regrets.
6. Vanilla Latte from the Orbit Cafe. I don’t learn a lesson with the words ‘vanilla latte’. I always think it sounds so yummy. It never is. It’s the reason I can’t abide the smell of Gloria Jeans. I am not sure what more I can do to convince myself.
7. Losing a camera. This didn’t happen, but sighting it sitting under a bench from across the room is still enough to churn a tummy. Especially when it has my darling Bodhi, so sweet and stroppy, on it. Disaster averted.
8. Dots. In a convex dome. You stand on an unstable platform and stare into this dome and it makes you feel odd. It was there, beyond that I have no idea why you would so please don’t bother asking.
9. Bowel control. All pooh talk is a bit queasifying, but, apparently, NASA monitors astronaut trainees’ bowel movements to ensure their control is such that their breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks end up traversing the small window required, in a gravity free environment, for all other astronauts to avoid sharing the moment.
10. Launch Cancellations. At t-minus nine minutes and counting no less. It drops your tum like a lead balloon. It doesn’t help that you then have to wait with bad filter coffee for the exiting masses to leave so you can avoid the disappointing exodus from the centre.