Space, as we all know by now, is the final frontier. Hence, billion-dollar programs built to go and see and, perhaps one day, conquer. So what do the rest of us do when we want to help, to make some kind of impact on professional exploration thereof, but don't quite have the means or education to work at NASA? Most of us write, I suppose, or stargaze or watch lots of episodes of NOVA.

What we don't do is plan and save for twenty years, and then sail away to the South Seas with a cute first mate to study the effects of a thousand-day manned mission with no land in sight, in the hopes of offering constructive insight on the concerns of a mission to Mars. This is, of course, because we aren't all Reid Stowe, who (as Wired reports in what is either the feel-good story of the week or the story that will break your back under the crushing weight of jealousy) is doing exactly that.

All right, first of all: can someone please tell me how one gets to become a "professional adventurer," and does being, if not a sailor oneself, at least the daughter of a sailor count for anything?

It probably has something to do with Stowe's previous experience: Stowe's legend tells of Antarctic voyages, trips down the Amazon in a catamaran, and a year in the South Pacific. Still, even with all this experience under the belt, it hardly seems preparation enough for such a heavy undertaking as he as now embarked on. The vow not to touch dry land until 2010, communicating with civilization solely via satellite phone (and satellite-uploaded blog, natch), seems almost abstract in its vastness.

The good ship Anne has been sea bound since April, and is already dispensing with a lot of insight into the possible hardships and undertakings of space travel.

Interestingly enough, space enthusiasts -- and, more importantly, experts and professionals -- have actually been following the project, and are reacting quite favorably to the whole endeavor. In fact, Stowe may be light years ahead of NASA in his mission training. The organization (who claims not to be following the 1,000 Days project), with the help of some contemporaries, recently ran a four-month crew isolation study -- the current leading expectations of future Mars missions, however, are said to place a timeline at closer to 900 days. In addition, as elucidated by Robert Zubrin (president and founder of the Mars Society) prolonged isolation isn't exactly the only (or even most important) factor in space travel.

Building an efficient, cooperative team has certainly been a priority for Stowe, and has packed it all into a two-man crew, which is good thinking on several parts. For one thing, space flight crews are necessarily quite small, and cooperation and compromise between such a crew is paramount; for another, it can't help but amplify morale if you have an agreeable cohort on your mission. On that note, if space geeks don't get all the girls, then space geek "adventurers" surely must pick up the slack.

I want to high-five Stowe for his deft move in securing a Trillian for his crazy-awesome space pirate adventurer voyage, but really, the advantage clearly goes to Ahmad here. Today is the last day of summer, and so far she has spent it sailing the high seas. She has already seen countless wondrous sights of nature and has befriended a wild parrot for a pet, and she still has two more crazy summers ahead of her. What have you done lately?


_DictionaryGirl_ wants to be a professional adventurer.