 Why does Mickey decide not to go into space?
Spacemen Die at Home By EDWARD W. LUDWIG Illustrated by THORNE One man's retreat is another's prison ... and it takes a heap of flying to make a hulk a home! For it was June in this year of 1995, and we were the graduating class of the U. S. Academy of Interplanetary Flight. Mickey Cameron, sitting next to me, dug an elbow into my ribs. My parents had died in a strato-jet crash when I was four, so I hadn't needed many of those "You are cordially invited" cards. He was a veteran of Everson's first trip to the Moon nearly twenty-five years ago, and he was still at it. I remembered how, as a kid, I'd pestered him in the Long Island Spaceport, tagging after him like a puppy, and how he'd grown to like me until he became father, mother, and buddy all in one to me. Usually Mickey was the same whether in a furnace-hot engine room or a garden party, smiling, accepting whatever the world offered. They expect us to make a new kind of civilization and a better place out of Earth. You and Mickey looked strangely at Charlie, and I realized that old Stardust was not a cadet's notion of the ideal spaceman. A moment later Mickey said, frowning, "What was he talking about, Ben? That's what most of you want, isn't it? Then your last words came back and jabbed me: "That's what Mickey used to want."
 Mickey thinks that if he goes into space he'll only live another five to ten years. Space travel is dangerous.
 Mickey was offered a job as Chief Jetman on the Lunar Lady.  Mickey was offered a job at the Academy teaching astrogation.  Mickey thinks that if he goes into space he'll only live another five to ten years. Space travel is dangerous.  Mickey was offered a job as Chief Jetman on the White Sands.