"One centimetre."

"I have a half."

"Spot on up here.""Forward eight."

"Left two now."

"Back four."

"Eighty-three on the gantry ... eighty four ... eighty-five ... mark!"

"Need four degrees left."

.......The cockpit moves .......

"All go?"

"Alignment set."

"Right. All back! All still, don't move!"

.......There's a loud Ker-klunk with a metallic droning - lights dim and green laser beams prance around. Navigational crosshairs are projected from a lens out of sight and reflect in the shiny overhead console.
You notice yet another interrogation of your dog-tag chip.
Now starts the loud raw buzzing from beneath, followed by a massive structure visible in the right corner of your eye swinging out and quickly disappearing far below. The lights come back up.
On a screen hanging from the ceiling coloured columns of numbers scroll too fast to see. The wandering lasers converge up above.
Suddenly the noises cease. There's celestial silence, punctuated by an occasional firing of a navigation motor somewhere off to the left.

"Cabin crew, doors to manual."

"Mind the gap."

........Now, if your crew went through this procedure with such precision and discipline you'd expect one thing, wouldn't you?
Same as me.
That's right - we're lifting off the launch pad for Saturn!

What a disappointment then, when after a few minutes of warp 3.8 through the stars you hear, "OK, all done. See you tomorrow."
"What? Did the sat-nav fail again? Where's Scotty?"
All that's left to do is to take the earthly tarmac back home and try again the next day - unless it's Friday when you wait until Monday. Astronaut flight-crews don't work weekends, but I never noticed that in Star Trek. Something else you can't believe!

The space traveller here was brave enough to video his journey and shove it on youtube, all nicely speeded up to compress the boring bits. But I see his flight failed to launch too - not like the good old days when they shot men off to the moon three at a time, no trouble!
Maybe bad weather cancelled his take-off.
So that's the routine for a while now, with not much to report on adventure motorcycling, on the road or in space.

Notwithstanding that, here's another excuse for a youtube link.

I'm toying with the idea of taking a spaceflight over to Ireland, in November. So it depends on the outcome of my present crop of spaceflights.

I've always wanted to visit The South Pole.

It was opened and run by Tom Crean, who took part in more Antarctic expeditions and marched more miles on the continent than almost any other explorer of his times. So he truly learned something about adventure.

One of his best known rescue adventures was the 800-mile voyage that he undertook with Shackleton, in an open boat across the South Atlantic from Elephant Island to South Georgia. It features in the Kenneth Branagh film Shackleton, Tom Crean played by Mark McGann.
The actual open boat used in that rescue, the James Caird, is on permanent view at Dulwich College.

Well, years ago a young Irish actor and playwright heard about Tom Crean's life and was inspired to write a one-man play all about it. Now Aidan Dooley has been performing his homage to Crean all over the world for more than ten years.
He's just announced a new tour of the play in November, around Ireland, including Killarney, a snowball's throw from The South Pole Inn.
I've seen this play twice now, and very atmospheric and realistic it is too. Especially in small lecture theatres where the audience numbers about 80 and are all seated close around Aidan Dooley's imaginative set.
So another viewing will do no harm I think, particularly being close to Tom Crean's pub.

I decided that going by air would be more commodious than by road. Which means, I suppose, RyanAir.
You can get a flight for fifty pea! (At that price, strictly through the air, not into space).

I've flown with them before, they're ok-ish I find, and a friend recently pointed me to this youtube video for a very Irish review of Ireland's best-known airline.
Stansted to Tralee. Maybe I'll go by sea, after all!
For those who haven't seen it - enjoy!
But don't mock - one day, far, far in the future, they'll take you to Saturn. It'll be the planet they land on when you want to go to Jupiter.