Authors: Berit Ellingsen
In the reception and in the restaurant at dinner they encountered only a few other guests, two middle-aged couples traveling together, a small group of senior citizens on tour with a guide, and a cluster of visitors from the western continent who talked loudly and laughed even louder, and left the next morning in two minibuses. Other than them the hotel was cold and empty and seemed to be waiting quietly for warmer weather and busier times.
ON THE SECOND DAY AT THE ASTRONAUT TRAINING center he was prepared for more mathematical, perception, attention, and intelligence tests, but when the candidates were gathered in the small foyer in the morning, the representative informed them that the time would be used for medical and psychological tests. Some in the group exchanged glances.
As the previous day, the representative led them past the hallway with the mezzanine and spectrum of banners, through the narrow corridors, to the room with the desks and the monitors. There she presented them with the tasks at hand:
“Today we will be asking you questions about your past and present health, and also the health of your closest family members in order to rule out certain hereditary diseases. These questions may feel uncomfortable and you are not obliged to fill out the form, but unless we know a little bit about you and your family’s medical history, it will be very difficult to assess you.”
“You may refuse to answer the questions, but it’ll cost you the spot in the program,” one candidate muttered.
“These tests are not timed so you may leave for small breaks or lunch whenever you wish,” the representative continued. “I recommend that you save your progress in the tests so you don’t
lose any data during the break. Good luck, everyone, and feel free to ask if you have any questions.”
The first document was a medical questionnaire where he filled out his name, address, phone number, email address, and birth date. He then ticked boxes to answer whether he had undergone recent surgery and for what illness or injury, if he had any chronic diseases or allergies and describe them, whether he had had any serious illnesses such as cancer, stroke, or heart problems as a teenager or as an adult, and what infectious and other diseases and health issues he had experienced as a child. He typed, “broken fingers, right hand,” for recent surgery, and ticked off none for chronic diseases, as well as chickenpox, influenza, middle ear infection, and colds under childhood ailments, and colds for adult infectious diseases. The questionnaire reminded him of those he had filled out for his military service and health insurance, but were more exhaustive and took longer to complete.
“Let’s hope this test stays with the space organization,” one of the candidates behind him murmured.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” the person next to her replied.
The second questionnaire was even more detailed and invasive. It contained almost the same categories and questions as the first test, but this time pertaining to his immediate family: parents, siblings, and children. Even grandparents were included in the list.
“Are they really allowed to ask about our families’ health?” one candidate said so loudly everyone could hear it. The representative had left them to the tests. “It’s not like we’re inbred or anything.”
“This is not just about present diseases,” another candidate replied. “Common health issues like diabetes and certain cancers
also have a large hereditary component to them, and they want to know how likely we are to develop those in the future.”
“I’m not going to tell them anything,” a third person said. “I have no right to give out detailed information about other people’s health.” Several candidates expressed their agreement.
He started to fill out the form, slowly and hesitantly, and not only because he wasn’t certain what diseases his brother had had when they were small, and even less so his parents, but whether he really ought to report on the health of his family without their consent. If he lied, or pretended that he didn’t know or remember what diseases the members of his family had contracted in the past, would the space organization track down the correct information from medical records anyway?
He simply didn’t know, so he filled out the form for his family’s medical history as correctly, but also as vaguely, as he could. Sprained thumb, chickenpox, mumps, influenza, and cold he ticked off for his younger brother. As far as he knew and could remember none of his immediate family had suffered any serious diseases or injuries when they grew up, and if they currently did, they hadn’t told him about it. For his parents he could only fill out influenza and cold as he assumed they had experienced that as children, but he didn’t know of anything more. He was even less familiar with the health status of his grandparents in the past, but ticked high blood pressure for his maternal grandfather and type two diabetes for his paternal grandmother.
After that followed detailed questionnaires about his mental health and that of his family. These documents listed a host of mental illnesses, from depression to schizophrenia, including phobias he’d never heard of, and he didn’t tick any of them. Finally, he started on a series of psychological examinations. The first test mapped the five main components of personality: extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness,
agreeableness, and neuroticism. Since he had been through a similar psychological evaluation in the military, he assumed there would also be interviews with psychologists, probably for those who passed the current round of tests. He answered the personality questionnaire as truthfully, but also as favorably, as he could.
The second questionnaire reminded him of certain personality tests he had taken online for fun, but it contained more questions, many of them repeated or rephrased, and seemed to go into much more detail than the simple tests found on the internet. He assumed the space organization wanted to know as much as possible about the candidates’ personality types and psychological profiles. His responses to those kinds of personality tests hadn’t changed much since he first started taking them for fun online, and now he gave the same answers as he always did.
The last portion he also recognized from personality tests online, but again it was a more advanced and detailed version. This test mapped possible personality disorders or other psychological issues. As with the mental health questionnaire, it contained a long list of phobias, this time accompanied by a short explanation. Was he afraid of heights, confined spaces, the sight of blood, going to the dentist, going to the doctor, spiders, insects, hair, water, or fire? Did he feel the need to check whether he had locked the door, switched off the stove, or pulled out the electrical cords twice or more in a row? Was he compelled to wash his hands for more than five minutes, to shower or bathe more than twice a day, to not step on cracks on the sidewalk, or count things repeatedly? How often did he drink, smoke, gamble, take illegal drugs, or purchase sex (including the use of pornography) per week?
Thinking it might look odd if he didn’t tick any of the phobias, he checked spiders. There would probably be few arachnids
in space, except for lab specimens. For the addictions he typed in numbers befitting a monk or someone who lived alone in the mountains.
ON THE THIRD DAY OF TESTING THE CANDIDATES were called out of the meeting room in groups of three for a medical examination. While the others waited their turn, they continued to fill out any unfinished forms from the previous day.
A few doors down the hallway from the meeting room, a team of three doctors, two men and a woman in white coats, were waiting in a large space with three desks, three examination benches, and three exercise bikes wired to a rack of monitors. The winter sun blazed in through wide arched windows, the intense illumination barely dampened by translucent curtains. The room smelled faintly of disinfectant and soap.
He and the other candidates started by signing a form which allowed the doctors to perform various medical and dental tests and that they consented to not being informed of the general results, unless the analyses indicated actual disease. He signed the document thinking that if he didn’t pass the current round of selection, he’d at least had a free and thorough health check. The doctor he had been assigned took his pulse and blood pressure, examined his heart and lungs with a stethoscope, looked inside his eyes, ears, mouth, and throat, measured and noted his
height, weight, and percentage of body fat, and examined his spine and shoulders. Then followed several blood tests taken from his arm in small plastic tubes, and a urine sample, which he had to obtain in the bathroom next door and hand to the doctor in a small, closed cup. In the adjacent room, a general x-ray was taken of his chest and abdomen and another of his head and neck. Back in the large room, the doctor glued electrodes to his chest and neck and wrists and told him to lie down on the nearest examination bench to measure his heart function and rate at rest. After that he had to put on a nose clip and a breathing mask, which sent signals to the rack of monitors and consoles in the corner, and mount one of the exercise bikes to measure lung capacity and heart output during moderate exercise and at full load. He was very glad he had been training the entire fall, and was relieved when it took a while for his pulse to reach maximum rate during the final test. Finally, he had to go two doors down the hallway for a full x-ray of his mouth and teeth, and check-up with a dentist.
He had expected even more invasive medical tests, but they were probably more costly and might therefore not happen until the final round of selection. When the candidates returned to the hotel it was almost dark. That close to the sea the dusk turned blue before it fell to black, and large, wet flakes of sleet wafted down into the slowly beating waves.
At dinner the atmosphere was quiet and subdued, despite most of the fifty candidates being present and filling nearly all of the small white-clothed tables in the hotel’s restaurant. It was as if their chatter and laughter dissipated into a vacuum beneath the high, molded ceiling and the mint-green walls decorated with naturalist drawings of local plant species. In the draft from the tall, narrow windows the meticulously prepared dishes cooled too quickly, and the light from the multi-colored blown-glass chandeliers from the southern parts of the continent seemed
much too bright. The sound of the waves that hissed ashore slowed their hearts and stilled their thoughts. For a while the only noises in the room were the clink of silverware against porcelain, the scraping of chairs as someone sat down by a table or left one, and the waiters’ footsteps on the shiny, lacquered floor.
“Seems it’s getting colder tonight,” one candidate said, breaking the chilled silence.
“That’s the problem with January,” another candidate replied. “After Christmas and New Year’s there’s nothing to look forward to except spring, and that never arrives fast enough.” There was a flurry of laughter in agreement, then nothing but cutlery against plates was heard for a good while.
He attributed the silence to people being hungry and sleepy after three days of testing, and in particular, the exercise load of the medical examination. His own legs were sore after the biking, because he hadn’t dared take the time to warm up before going on the bike, or stretch properly when it was done. He had wanted to, but it had seemed so self-important and delaying, especially since neither of the other two candidates testing at the same time had warmed up or stretched. Now feeling the minor but definite pain in his thighs and calves, he regretted not having asked for the time after all.
“I wonder what they’re going to put us through tomorrow,” someone muttered.
“I’d rather like to know which of us are going to the next round,” another replied.
“You think they’ve already made their choices?” a third said.
“Yes, of course, don’t be naive.”
“Isn’t it always so? There may be ten suitable applicants for a position, but the leadership has already decided, even if the position is advertised publicly.”
“And if not, then there’s always one or two who stand out right from the start and the others haven’t really got a chance.”
The candidates glanced around, some more openly than
others, to find out who might be familiar to the space organization already, or had distinguished themselves during the tests, but since, with the exception of the medical examinations, all the testing had been done electronically and without adjudicators, no one had any facts to base their considerations on, and consisted only of impressions and guesses.
He wondered too, but shifted his focus back on the sole of halibut in morel and sweet wine sauce on his plate, cutting it deliberately, and chewing even more slowly.
“You can’t mean that,” one candidate finally said. “They wouldn’t have invited all of us here and paid for the tests and the hotel if just a handful of us were proper astronaut material.”
“Take it easy,” another replied. “This isn’t a talent show on TV. They will have to analyze and compare the tests first; it’ll take them weeks at least, or even months.”
“No, the representative told me herself this morning who would be called in for the next round of tests.”
Silence, then laughter, incredulous, yet a little nervous.
“That’s rubbish.”
More laughter around the tables.
Cut, skewer, swish, chew. Fingers getting cold and thighs aching on the seat of the chair. Draft from the windows chilled the back of his neck.
“I suppose you’re right. It will take them weeks to sort through the data. But think about it, each of us might be looking at their crew mates to the moon, or even to Mars!”
They looked at one another.
Someone snickered, high and thin, but quickly fell silent.
AFTER THE SUBDUED DINNER HE EXPECTED A mass retreat to the rooms, but instead most of the candidates gathered in the hotel bar, clearly seeking the warmth of human company and friendly conversation from the deep leather chairs around the crackling fireplace, while the heads of several unfortunate ungulates glared at them from the hunting lodge decor on the walls. The rest of the applicants huddled on the roof-covered steps at the main entrance, sending the stench of cigarettes and snippets of talk into the foyer every time someone moved too close to the doors and made them slide open.