watching aliens [1986] directed by james cameron & starring sigourney weaver reprising her role as bad-ass survivor ripley.  ripley is rescued after drifting in deep space for 57 years.  she wakes in a hospital bed on gateway station [i've never known that fact until now when i rewound the movie to hear the nurse call it that] in low earth orbit.  later, ripley is in her flat on gateway station.  burke, the company man, is doing his persuasive best to get ripley to accompany a squad of marines because the alien creature that had killed off one by one ripley's crew 57 years earlier on the interstellar freighter nostromo is now doing its killing on a group of colonists there to terraform an alien planet.  ripley has not been on planet earth for well over 60 years by now.  she lives & works on gateway station.  burke & a marine lieutenant pays a visit to ripley in her flat to try, again, to help the marines know what kind of creature[s] they will confront & battle by going with the troops to the far space colony.  ripley rebuffs the men & tells them she is late for her job as a warehouse/dock worker on gateway station.  i wonder what it would be like, feel like, to live & work in space, even if it be low earth orbit.  would you miss the rays of the sun on your naked face?  the wind & rain & snow?  the changing temperatures?  the revolving seasons?  the shadows cast by the sun?  would you miss them even if you never knew them?  if you were born & raised in low earth orbit?  would earth become an alien planet to you?  or would our genes, our dna, our brain structures, our internal software, always miss the earth.  a world we might have never known?  because never does ripley say, to anyone, fuck you all, i'm going back home to earth.  never in the world of ripley, when interstellar travel is not only possible but common, does she ever say, i miss the earth.  she might not even have been born on earth.  i know i'd miss the earth.  & all the things she gives us in abundance.  but then, i was born on this planet.  i will die on this planet.  this earth is the only home i'll ever know.  & yet, i am looking at ripley's small flat, its size & shape very much like a NYC or SF studio apartment, in low earth orbit.  with wonder & rage.