Space Case

Admit it: Like just about everyone else, you aspired to outer-space travel when you were nine years old. Some of us never shake that out-of-this-world daydream to become an astronaut; we still secretly harbor that yearning to zap through meteor showers and past Saturn, seeking to go, yes, where no person has gone before. Well, get a grip, Captain Kirk: Those dreams leave out a lot of the actual astronaut training process, such as learning to eat or bathe upside down in the NASA zero gravity simulator (otherwise known as the "Vomit Comet") or to walk in space wearing an unwieldy monster suit, with only a tether to keep you from floating off into infinity.

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More About

• Obi-Wan Kenobi
• Ewan McGregor
• James T. Kirk
• Space Technology
• Science and Technology

For an entertaining blow-by-blow description of what it's really like to travel in space without actually having to do it yourself, get a ticket for Astronaut, a new show following the digitally animated trials of astronaut-in-training Chad and featuring narration by Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan McGregor. And, hey, when you sit back and look to the simulated heavens, you can still pretend.

Astronaut shows daily in Gates Planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Boulevard, through June 20; for showtimes and reservations, go to www.dmns.org or call 303-322-7009.
June 1-20, 2005