OMNI Magazine Story - Fly in Astronaut's Helmet

I would like to find an old story from c.1975 OMNI Magazine, with a very good lesson about keeping an open mind and a cool head.

The story is about an astronaut launched into space on a training exercise, but he doesn't know it is only a "virtual" trip. He gets up into space in his small ship, and as he is communicating back to mission control, he becomes aware of a tiny hitchhiker: a fly is along with him, inside his helmet.

He doesn't freak out but attends to it as if it were a fellow voyager up from Earth, and only a minor inconvenience. When he completes the exercise and comes out of his space ship, he meets his teachers who tell him he passed the "fly test". A fellow astronaut who took the same test is being led away, to be treated for the extreme mental trauma caused by the same ordeal – but he had dealt with it differently. He freaked out.

Anybody out there remember this story?

Comments

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