Conclusion

I believe that the quality of life for space travelers will be enriched once poetry, dance, painting and other forms of creative expression are fully integrated into space missions. Fine art has always been created in confluence with scientific experimentation because humans, I believe, are naturally inclined to satisfy the myriad needs of our souls in addition to the callings of our intellects. We ascend and descend between our conscious and unconscious minds, weaving influences from by both hemispheres of the brain.

Counterbalance in art, as with all of life, is implicitly woven into our daily experience. I believe that all of our social, political, biological, linguistic and cultural structures have literal physical foundations built upon quantum forces that find some kind of cohesive harmony in counterpoint. I believe that the neuroanatomical lateralization of human brain functioning simply mirrors, on the corporeal level, this underlying symphony of atomic forces. As with the crystal, the exterior surfaces of many things reflect the underlying atomic structure. If physical systems mirror their underlying structures, as crystals do their atomic arrangement, then, it would appear to me that our existence is one based upon a unification of both analog and digital counterpoint, mirroring the nature of subatomic particle forces. (Recent experiments in the synthetic reconstruction of brain neurons in computer chips indicate that each neuron incorporates analog as well as digital processes.)

This is why I believe that the stimulation of asymmetrical brain functioning in astronauts can foster greater harmony and personal satisfaction. Non-analytic processes such as art in space will decrease stress, increase relaxation and reduce boredom. The quality of life will improve for astronauts when art is used as a refreshing vacation from the analytical world of science. I know from my own experience that if I attend only to the requirements of the structured, linear prompting of my mind that I come to feel as though a significant part of me begins to die. I rejuvenate myself through conscious diversification of my activities [32].

When I am engaged in a creative process, I lose my sense of time and place, then venture back to my realization of the present moment, rejuvenated for analytic assessment of my experience. My sense of time while painting in weightlessness was of it passing in a flash. I believe that clues within this sensation of time can be found and used to improve space travel that further investigation should be conducted.

If human space flight is to proceed successfully, it is imperative for the arts to be harmoniously integrated into scientific space exploration. I believe that our souls require as much attention as do our physical bodies and creativity is a required natural food for our consumption as we travel through space and time. Engineers can keep the human body alive in outer space through aerospace technologies; I believe that sane human beings can return from extended space missions if space scientists employ the fine arts to keep the human spirit alive.

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