Episode 6: I Feel Like A Million Dollars

April 18, 2018·31 min·2 clips

Astronaut Ed White begged Mission Control for just a few more minutes during humanity's first spacewalk in 1965, saying he felt like a million dollars — but they told him to get back in.

The episode opens with Christiana describing what she misses most: walking outside in sunlight. The dome sits on a large Hawaiian volcano with an extraordinary lava landscape, but even outside, the crew is sealed inside heavy imitation spacesuits that are hot, noisy, and visually distorted. Before each EVA, the crew stands in a small room for five mandatory minutes of fake decompression — meaningless on Earth, but required to keep the simulation intact. Once outside, the suits make the experience miserable: fans roar beside the ears, visors are warped from wear, the body bakes in heat, and sweat soaks every surface. Communication by radio is unreliable. Crew members joke about the consequences of farting inside a sealed suit. Despite all this, Cyprian and Christiana in particular love exploring the lava tubes — underground caves of extraordinary color, from tomato-red floors to salt-crystal-white walls, some possibly never entered by a human before. The episode weaves in a historical parallel: the 1965 Ed White spacewalk, where White floated above Earth during humanity's first American EVA, saw his birthplace San Antonio below him, called it 'like a million dollars,' and begged Mission Control for a few more minutes before being ordered back in. The narrator notes that on Mars, no Mission Control can make that order in real time. A major crew conflict emerges when Shay falls into a lava tube and injures her knee. Tristan believes Shay subsequently tried to restrict the crew's EVA range, citing safety concerns. Shay says she simply wanted justification from mission support for risky destinations. The two positions represent a deeper philosophical split: Tristan argues pioneering requires accepting risk; Shay argues that without proper medical equipment, a serious injury would end the isolation study. Shay and Anjay largely stop taking long EVAs, while Tristan, Carmel, Cyprian, and Christiana continue exploring. The narrator closes by questioning the official justifications for sending humans to Mars — technology, sustainability, global unity — and dismisses them as unconvincing compared to the simple truth: it's cool, and curious humans will go.

As heard by us

A small room, a larger silence, and a very human case for open air.

The Habitat uses a tiny dome on a volcano to ask a plain, unsettling question: what do people miss first when Earth is no longer close? Christiana's answer, walking, sun, birds, and strangers passing by, gives the piece its weight.

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Why you'd press play

You want Mars history that starts with missing a walk outside.

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