The Earthbound Astronaut Project
earth·bound
/ˈərTHˌbound/
1. attached or restricted to the earth.
The lone astronaut studies the empty horizon, their fingers grazing the latches on their helmet. Everything is secure. The air outside would kill them in seconds, but inside, their own breath is steady. For now.
Many of us are familiar with these kinds of stories. In Andy Weir’s novel The Martian (and its film adaptation), a stranded astronaut fights to stay alive on Mars. In Interstellar, explorers travel so far from Earth that time itself warps—while mere hours pass for them, decades unfold back home.
At first glance, these tales of survival, isolation, and time dilation seem like science fiction. But in a way, they’re also deeply familiar. Because for as much as humanity has evolved to belong here, modern life has a way of making us feel like visitors on our own planet.
Sure, some people reject materialism and embrace a nomadic lifestyle, choosing to live more in sync with nature. But for many of us—for me, and perhaps for you—our experience on Earth, as beautiful and rich as it is, often feels more like an astronaut’s mission than a sense of belonging in our true home.
We isolate in our habitats, traverse great distances in our rovers and spend much of our time fixated on screens, where we connect with friends and loved ones and monitor our vital signs. In the same way that astronauts prepare for a spacewalk or a lunar stroll, we too prepare ourselves before venturing out. That comparison isn’t just metaphorical. In many ways, it’s literal.
Whether it’s bundling up for extreme heat or cold, putting on sunscreen and sunglasses for a personal atmospheric buffer, every trip outside our capsule in some way feels like a calculated mission. Even our reliance on infrastructure for clean air, water, and habitable temperature feels akin to the careful balance maintained on a space station or rocket capsule.
Consider how marveling at a bear or deer alongside the highway mirrors how we might imagine first contact with an alien species. Wonder. Fear. Fascination. In moments like those, we’re reminded that we already share a planet with species we still don’t fully understand.
We’ve even seen how the passage of time has felt dilated during our experience with the pandemic. Days blurred together as we waited for the right moment—a return to normal that always seemed beyond reach. Weekdays and weekends, work, and home life lost meaning. And then, one morning, I saw it: grey hairs appearing in my beard. It was as if time had passed in the background, unnoticed, while we were frozen in place, waiting for something that arrived much later than we expected. The experience mirrored what we often see in sci-fi, where time warps, slips away unnoticed, or leaves people stranded in the past.
Of course life wasn’t meant to be lived this way—so isolated, so structured, so disconnected from the world around us. But for a lot of us, that’s just the reality. We have responsibilities, routines, and a world that doesn’t always make it easy to slow down and be present. Instead of fighting it, I’ve tried to lean into it. If my life already feels like a mission in space, then I might as well be the astronaut.
Looking back, I think this perspective has been with me for as long as I can remember.
As a ten-year-old obsessed with technology, space, and gadgets I fell in love with computer games—especially ones set on faraway worlds. One of my favourites was Commander Keen, a series about a kid my age, Billy Blaze, who builds a spaceship in his backyard, dons a football helmet, and takes off to explore the galaxy as his alter ego. While his parents think he’s just a regular kid, Billy is off pogo-sticking across Mars, blasting alien vegetables with a homemade raygun, and saving the galaxy.
Low-res, high imagination
Something about that really resonated with me. The idea that, with the right tools and a vivid imagination, you could slip away from the ordinary and step into something much bigger and adventurous.
I didn’t realize just how much that mindset had shaped me until years later, when I found myself navigating another kind of unfamiliar world—one I couldn’t just imagine my way out of.
When the pandemic hit, I felt optimistic that being a very independent person would make me uniquely suited to ride out the successive waves of lockdowns and increasing isolation.
But I’ll be honest, there were a LOT of challenging moments—the kind of “we don’t have the capacity” energy you felt deep in your bones.
The doom scrolling, the fear mongering, the changes in social behavior that turned the cereal aisle into a one-way street. During this period, my anxiety spiked, and it was difficult to find meaning or momentum as the months dragged on.
With the help of some space-themed journals, I began chronicling my mood, my physical activities and documenting the places I explored when I wasn’t hunched over the kitchen table doing my day-job from home. Even though, for a period, many of us saw places like the grocery stores as a germ-laden, floor-is-lava experience—I realized I needed to recalibrate what an inhospitable environment actually felt like.
I became that person who made ice-cold showers a daily habit. The freezing water was a shock to the system, like stepping into the thin, unbreathable air of an alien world. And you know what? It actually helped. My anxiety dropped, and I felt more focused.
On my daily walks, runs and adventures I began making a conscious effort to log and research my surroundings. What type of trees, flowers and plants were these? Were they native to this environment or are they an alien species that’s taken hold?
In the hours spent watching the sky, I learned about the types of clouds and the atmospheric conditions that combine to make certain sunsets pop—the recipe for cotton candy skies Albertans know and love. It turns out, you don’t have to leave the planet to become an explorer. Sometimes, you just have to look at the world like you’ve landed on it for the first time.
An ordinary sky, doing extraordinary things.
This period of isolation forced me to see the world differently, to shift my focus from what had been lost to what was still there. I’d explored this idea before—the way time stretched and compressed, how the familiar could feel alien—but this time it wasn’t just about holding on.
It was about adapting, recalibrating my perspective to find meaning in what remained. And maybe that’s all any of us are really doing. Adjusting, finding new ways to move forward, even when the path ahead isn’t clear.
I get that not everyone sees life this way, though! Maybe you see yourself moving through the world as seekers, dreamers, wanderers, or even warriors. In our own way though, we’re all navigating the unknown and on a mission of sorts. Whether it’s getting through a challenging period in our career, grief, personal development, or simply the day-to-day work of being human, we all chart our own course—even without a star map.
Some missions feel grand and adventurous, while others are quiet and internal, but they all require resilience, adaptation, and a willingness to move forward—even if the path ahead is unclear.
Surviving is one thing. But learning how to stay, how to ground yourself in this place instead of floating through it?
That’s the real challenge.
The author, exactly one pogo stick and raygun away from quitting his corporate job and saving the galaxy.
✨
Thanks for coming on this little spacewalk with me.
If you enjoyed it, feel free to beam this transmission to a friend.
