This isn't new information. The ability to coexist for days on end with several other people in a tiny space with virtually no privacy has always been a major qualification for astronauts, but unless you're the kind of space nerd who watches ISS videos (where there's some privacy but still a small space and also it's potentially months on end), you probably have a more Hollywood idea of astronauts. Mavericks! Daredevils! Space cowboys!

But now we had a moon mission with a livestream, and I hope people now realize that their space heroes aren't John Wayne. Yes, they're competent, intelligent, cool under pressure, and courageous. But they also keep mission control updated on the pretty sunrises, and they tear up and hug each other, and they smuggle their zero-gravity indicator out of the capsule because they got attached to it. They talk about how much they love Earth and how much they missed their families while they were away.

"Copy. Moon joy."

"I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."

"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."

“If you’ve ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up.”

"To all of you down there on Earth... we love you, from the moon."

"We just went sci fi."

"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."

"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."

There's a LOT of social interactions between human beings whose purpose really boils down to being like that thing dogs do where they go "omg YOU'RE a dog??? I'M a dog!!!!!" And that's not a bad thing. Highly ritualized "meaningless" displays of human connection like friendly greetings and talking about things like weather actually do serve a purpose which is like idk ritualized displays birds do. YOU'RE a human? Omg I'M a human!!!! Wow!!!

I kind of loved mimicking it. It let me interact with my birds in a whole new way that meant a lot to them, and it turned out to be incredibly helpful when my (completely unrecall trained, fully flighted bird) got startled in a bad gust of wind on the way between aviary and house and ended up circling in the bad weather, totally disoriented... And calling for us. It let her figure out how to get back down to come home.

Gradually I realised that lots of animals do this, actually. Cat activation noise is a contact call. Dogs do it in some kinds of whines. Social birds have big repertoires of them. It's just a ritual to keep in contact.

Then... I realised that's what a lot of those small rituals of smalltalk actually are. They are the act of petting an anxious or excited dog to soothe it, or letting each other know you're still in the room together. Humans have a huge variety in the way they use these, but I stopped finding a lot of them so annoying when I realised what the rituals were actually for.

fitted sheet: nothing :)))))))

me, prying open its twisted jaws: na-ah!!! give it to me RIGHT now!!