 What is the Terran opinion of spacemen?
SEA LEGS By FRANK QUATTROCCHI Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction November 1951. Rootless and footloose, a man in space can't help but dream of coming home. But something nobody should do is bet on the validity of a homesick dream! Flight Officer Robert Craig surrendered the tube containing his service record tapes and stood waiting while the bored process clerk examined the seal. He felt anxiety as the much-handled card refused for a time to match the instrument's metal contact points. "Grav 1—Terra," fumbled Craig. "Los Angeles." "Los Angeles, eh? "No specific destination," supplied the man as he punched a key on a small instrument, "Air-lock ahead and to your right. Any metal?" "Metal?" asked Craig. "You know, metal ." He cursed the grudging attitude of the headquarters satellite personnel and felt the impotence of a spaceman who had long forgotten the bureaucracy of a rear area base. "Place your clothing in the receptacle provided and assume a stationary position on the raised podium in the center of the lock." Craig obeyed the robot voice and began reluctantly to remove his flight jacket. It was impossible to hate a robot, but one could certainly hate those who set it into operation. The Schtann flight jacket was actually there, looking like new, its space-blue unfaded and as wonderfully pliant as before. "Insert your right arm into the instrument on the central table," commanded the same voice he had heard before. "Well, what's next?" asked Craig somewhat more belligerently than he had intended. "By 'home' you mean Terra. "No, but my father—" "Your parents left Terra during the Second Colonization of Cassiopeia II, didn't they?" He was uncomfortable; Wyandotte seemed to know all about him. "I was entered as a spaceman when I was 16," Craig said. "Oh, I've landed a few times, even walked around for a while...." Short of Gravitational conditioning, there is nothing to stop you from going to Terra." You have spent eleven years in space. Your body is conditioned to a normal state of free fall, or at best to a state of acceleration." "You were ill, couldn't keep your balance, felt dizzy. That is why all spacemen carry PON, paraoxylnebutal, with them. It helps suppress certain physiological reactions to an entirely new set of conditions.
 Spacemen are more like aliens than humans.
 Spacemen are more like aliens than humans.  Spacemen are like sailors.  Spacemen are hicks.  Spacemen are of lower intelligence.