Well, maybe you're just not in the right frame of mind. Maybe there are psychological or neurophysical barriers that you're not aware of keeping you from the voyage of your lifetime -- a trip to outer space.

The World Space Center is here to help. The Raleigh-based center launched its inaugural event Monday at Exploris, with such notables as actor Walter Koenig (Mr. Chekov on "Star Trek" and Bester on "Babylon 5") and Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to set foot on the moon.

The group announced its plans for a magazine and led people to its Web site, www.worldspacecenter.org.

Someday soon, maybe beginning this summer, David Beaver, the center's creative director, hopes to bring space home to us Earthlings with simulations of what life in space is actually like.

WORLD SPACE CENTER'S GOAL: To hype space travel as private companies around the world work on their own plans to take real people, not just astronauts, out of this world.

SO WHO WANTS TO GO? Ron and Ann Franzel, a retired Raleigh couple, were among the about 75 people who attended Monday's event. But they are happy to stay here on Earth. "We're Earthbound," Ann Franzel said. "We'll pray for those who go up there."

However, Amanda Gibbons of Wake Forest, a 13-year-old home-school student, wants to go."Just going out there and knowing you could go farther than the Earth is cool," she said.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.