The lost astronaut, p.5
The Lost Astronaut, page 5
The four boys filed into the room and began calling dibs on bunkbeds. Jag and Ben gravitated toward the right side of the room and set their luggage down.
“Well, I guess we’ll be bunkmates,” Jag said.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to take the bottom bunk, as I have to get up sometimes in the night to go to the bathroom,” Ben said.
“Don’t mind at all. I actually prefer the upper bunk,” Jag said as he jumped onto it. He noticed several straps that ran across the bed and a small sign on the wall that read “To prevent injury, please wear straps while sleeping.”
“What do you think the straps are for?” Jag asked.
“They keep us from falling out of bed in the event the station loses gravity during the night,” Sasha said, overhearing the conversation. “You’d start to float away, only to be in for a rude awakening when the gravity came back on.”
“That’d be a bummer,” Ben replied.
“Especially for me,” Jag said. “I’d have farther to fall after the gravity came back on!”
“Yeah, but you’d land on me,” Ben said, and they all laughed.
Each student had plenty of storage with cubbyholes surrounding the bed. A small monitor near the pillow displayed the current time, and several buttons with lit icons were next to the clock. Jag pressed one of the buttons, and a light shone down from the ceiling.
“Ah, a reading light,” Jag said. After turning the light on, he noticed an air vent above his bed connected the Galileo room with the Kepler room next door, as he could faintly hear voices from the next room. After examining all the compartments and features around his bed, he jumped down and unpacked his clothes. On top of the dresser was an empty shelf on which students could place family photos and other personal items. Ben had placed a picture of his mother and father on the dresser. Jag commented that they were a nice-looking couple. Then he retrieved a photo of his grandparents and another one of Grissom and Payton.
“Who’s that?” Ben asked.
“That’s my grandparents and my dogs, Grissom and Payton. They raised me from when I was little.”
“Who, the dogs?” Ben asked with a grin.
Jag smiled. “Very funny.”
After Jag unpacked all his clothing and belongings, he found the cup of scripture verses that his grandmother had packed and placed it on the dresser in front of his grandparents’ photo.
“What are those?” Ben asked, nodding toward the dresser.
“Daily Bible verses that my grandma packed for me. Does it bother you for me to have them up there?”
“Not at all,” Ben said.
Just then, Dr. Stevenson stuck her head in the door. “Hurry up and finish unpacking your belongings so I can show you the most important thing of all: the cafeteria! I also want to give you a tour of the classroom, library, and gymnasium.”
Once everyone gathered in the hallway, Dr. Stevenson led the students to the cafeteria to experience their first processed space meal. The small cafeteria had only five tables that sat four people per table. The atmosphere was youthful and fun with cool tables and tall stools. Mounted on the wall was a television that played news stories continuously from around Earth.
Along the back wall stood eight vending machines containing everything from snacks to full entrées and desserts. The entrée selection had sixteen types of meat and vegetarian dishes. Jag, Sasha, Raj, and Ben stared at the options, waiting for someone else to make the first selection. After a period of indecisiveness, Jag pressed a button beside a photo of Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy. A robotic arm lifted a pouch, and then a giant needle jabbed into the top of the pouch and injected steaming hot water to rehydrate the contents. Then the needle retracted, and the arm lowered the pouch into a bin. A small sign flashed “Contents Hot!” as a small glass door slid open.
“Wow, that is hot!” Jag said, blowing on his fingertips after picking up the pouch.
Each student selected a different entrée. Ben selected fish and rice, Sasha beef stew, and Raj ordered a vegetarian biryani rice dish. They sat near some of the older students. Jag pulled back a tab that read “Pull,” and the pouch opened, making a bowl. Piping hot steam billowed out as Jag picked up his fork. After smelling the dish, he took a cautious bite. His roommates waited for him to be the Guinea pig and, to their consternation, Jag acted as if he was choking. Then he smiled. “Not bad. It’s not Grandma’s but not bad.”
The others dove into their pouches, and soon everyone was eating, telling stories, and laughing about their experiences.
After supper, the students toured the rest of the facilities, starting with the classroom and then the recreation room, where they all played video games, foosball, ping pong, and some type of 3D space billiards game with holographic balls on different dimensions. After about an hour, the students returned to their dorm rooms, where, in each closet, they found fitted pajamas with a Unity logo on the chest. After brushing his teeth and putting on his pajamas, Jag climbed into bed. The lights dimmed automatically to a soft glow.
Jag rolled over onto his elbows with his hands holding his head up as he gazed out the small window. The stars seemed so much larger and vibrant in space. He thought about the incredible day and couldn’t believe he had made it into space. All his young life he had dreamed of being an astronaut. Every book he read, every subject studied had led to this incredible moment.
“Isn’t it unbelievable?” Ben asked as he looked out the window from his bed.
“It sure is,” Jag said.
“My dad used to take me camping, and we would lie beneath the stars,” Sasha said as his feet dangled from the top bunk. “This view is so much better.”
Jag yawned, rolled over in his bed, pulled up his blanket, and followed the instructions for strapping himself in.
The next morning, at exactly 5 a.m., the lights brightened as an alarm beeped several times. Raj yawned and then rolled over and pulled his blanket over his head. The small screen on the wall beside each student flashed and beeped. “You’ve got a message!” appeared on the screen. When Jag touched the screen, it read: “Rise and shine! It’s time for exercise! Put on your gym clothes, and meet me in the gym in twenty minutes.” It was signed “Professor P.”
The students arrived at the gymnasium yawning and barely awake. The gym was windowless, and the floor, walls, and ceiling were lined with a thick, heavy padding that felt like walking on a giant sponge. On both ends of the gym were basketball goals that had to be nearly two times taller than a normal basketball goal. Several basketballs sat on the floor. Raj went over, picked one up, and shot it with all his might toward the goal. It went up about halfway and fell to the floor. Several students laughed.
“Let me try!” Sasha said. His shot went higher but still nowhere near the backboard. It hit the wall and rolled over in front of Ben. Walking toward Ben and Jag were Edgard and Lars, who had the unfortunate nickname of “Tank” due to his enormous size.
“Bonjour à tous,” Edgard said.
“Good morning,” Ben replied as he picked up the basketball.
“Let me try shooting,” Tank said as he ripped the ball from Ben’s hands. Then he hurled the ball at the goal. It bounced off the rim and ricocheted about forty feet into the gym. Embarrassed, Tank shoved Ben as he walked by. “At least mine hit the rim.”
“What type of gymnasium is this?” Mario asked.
“It’s a gravity-regulated exercise room,” Professor Polanski said as he entered. Then he pressed a button on a remote attached to his wrist, and all the students, not to mention the professor and the basketballs, began floating.
“Hey, look at me,” Raj said as he performed a back flip in midair.
As soon as Mo saw Raj complete the backflip, he started performing a series of backflips, laughing as he flew gently across the room.
“As you can see, we are able to control the force of gravity in this room and simulate the gravitational environment on any planet or moon. This is an ideal environment for training for moonwalks and testing equipment, but most importantly, for playing space basketball! Right now, gravity is set to one-tenth of what it is on Earth. Feel free to bounce around,” Polanski said as the students began jumping, flipping, bouncing, and bounding around the room. He nodded at Raj. “Now take a shot.”
Raj grabbed the ball beside him and shot it, sending it nearly forty feet high. Throughout the gym, students began jumping and springing themselves up as high as the basketball rim. Jag grabbed a ball and, leaping thirty feet in the air, dunked the ball into the basket.
“Hey, let me try!” said Ben, who was the smallest of all the students. Jag threw him the ball, and he took several steps before leaping with all his might toward the goal, only to have the ball hit the rim and bounce off as he fell backwards, landing on the soft floor. Determined, Ben attempted two more times before dunking the ball.
The class split into two teams of six players, divided equally by age. They played space basketball for an hour, working up a sweat. After the game was over, Polanski informed them that the activity was about more than just having fun. In space, muscle deterioration can occur due to lack of gravity, and they had to exercise twice a day to offset the effects. Then he increased the gravity to three times that of Earth.
“This is now the same gravity level as Venus. We use this for strength conditioning. For the next five minutes, each of us will perform calisthenics to strengthen our bones and muscles.”
They followed the exercise regimen twice a day, and it became their favorite time of day. For Jag, nothing was more fun than dunking a basketball on a thirty-foot basketball hoop.
Then the students returned to their rooms to shower and clean up for class. After getting dressed, Jag selected one of Bible verses sitting atop the dresser. After reading the verse to himself and committing it to memory, he placed it back in the cup.
“What did it say?” Ben asked.
“Uh,” Jag said, not knowing anyone was watching him. “It was Proverbs 3:5: ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.’”
“I know that verse,” Ben said. “Can I read one?”
“Sure,” Jag said, holding out the cup of cards.
Ben read his card to himself while Sasha and Raj watched from across the room.
“What did yours say?” Sasha asked.
“For there are three things that endure: Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.”
“Cool,” Sasha said. “Can I have one, too?” He selected a card and read it. “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘Plans to prosper you and give you a hope and future.’ Awesome! I got a good one. Everything good is going to happen to me!”
“I’m not sure that’s what it means,” Jag said.
“My turn,” Raj replied. He took his card and read aloud: “‘He who overlooks an offense promotes love; but he who repeats a matter separates best friends.’ Aw, man, I got a bad one.”
“I don’t think any of them are bad. They just might apply at different times in our lives,” Jag said. Ben started to hand his card back to Jag, but Jag told them all that they could keep their card or, if they liked, pick a different one.
After breakfast, each student reported for class. Like everything on board the Unity, the classroom was technically advanced. Each student’s desktop was a touchable computer screen linked to an intranet, where students could comb through mountains of research, studies, and reports. At the front of the classroom, a large screen that extended from the floor to the ceiling was used for video-conferencing adjunct professors. Web cameras mounted throughout the classroom allowed students to interact with the professors as well as students following from Earth.
Professor Polanski welcomed the students to their new classroom and then gave a brief overview of the space station’s history. Then they reviewed their syllabus, their daily schedules, and project plans. Every day they had two classroom sessions, with Polanski typically teaching the first class while the afternoon classes were taught remotely by adjunct professors on everything from physics to rocket engineering.
After the morning class, they visited the laboratory, which was still under construction. Their first project would be a group assignment to build a long-range satellite to explore deep space and collect planetary information for possible future explorations. Polanski explained how each class from that point forward would mark the start of their school by sending out satellites in different directions to find other habitable planets or, better yet, intelligent life.
Of all the professors to speak, Professor Polanski was Jag’s favorite. He brought such excitement and wonder to his subjects. He was so vibrant and funny. While his jokes didn’t always translate well into English, his humor and passion for life were contagious. Jag loved his stories about his trip to Mars, building the Unity station, and of previous scientists and astronauts. Frequently, Professor P would start out telling one story, only to launch into another before completing the first, but nonetheless his stories were what made the subject matter come alive.
After their first week on the station, each student was given a weekly timeslot to place a video call home. Jag was scheduled after Niklas but before Percy. The calls were made from a video conference room near Mission Control. The conference room was small with a full-height video screen mounted on one wall and a bench on the opposite side.
As Jag sat waiting for his turn, he noticed that it was nearly impossible to avoid listening in on Niklas speaking with his father, because only a thin black curtain separated the two rooms. However, they were speaking Swedish, so Jag couldn’t understand anything said. A few minutes later, Niklas slid the curtain back.
“It’s your turn.”
“Thanks,” Jag replied as he entered the video booth and pulled the curtain closed. He took his badge and swiped the reader. Immediately, a message appeared on the screen: “Welcome, Joseph Gabriel. You have ten minutes of video conferencing available.” Below the message was a contact menu showing an image of his grandparents. He tapped their image, and the system attempted to contact them as the words “Connecting, please wait . . .” flashed on the screen. After the message disappeared, a video image of his grandparents appeared.
“Hi Grandma and Grandpa!” Jag said.
“Hello, can you hear us?” Grandma asked as Grandpa fidgeted with the camera.
“Yes, loud and clear.”
“Good. I wasn’t sure that I got this contraption setup correctly,” Grandpa replied.
“So how is your school going?” Grandma asked.
“It’s awesome. We’ve had three different professors just this week. I’m learning so much. Astrophysics is my favorite class, and that’s taught by Professor Polanski. He’s so funny!”
“That fantastic,” Grandma said. “Do you guys have any time for recreation?”
“Do we ever! We exercise twice a day to prevent muscle atrophy by playing space basketball!”
“Space basketball?” Grandpa asked. Jag explained how the game was played.
“How’s the food?” Grandma asked.
“It okay, but it’s nothing like yours. Everything is packaged in these little containers that inject water to rehydrate the food. The food is bland, and the water is nasty. It tastes like chlorine.” From the waiting room, Jag heard Percy chuckle at this comment.
“Are you sleeping alright?” Grandpa asked.
“It’s different sleeping in space. We have to strap ourselves in at night, or we could float away if the gravity fails.”
Grandpa chuckled and shook his head. Then they talked about the farm and how everyone was doing. On the upper right of the video display, a countdown clock showed twenty-eight seconds remained.
“I have to go,” Jag said. “The video will stop in a few seconds. Tell Jack hello for me and that I miss him.”
“Will do, son,” Grandma said. “He has a girlfriend now. Her name is Rachel, and she’s real cute. We love you, son,” she said, tearing up. “Stay safe.”
“Will do,” Jag replied.
“We’re proud of you, son,” Grandpa said again. He was also a bit choked up.
“I love you, too,” Jag said as a message flashed that communication had been terminated.
As Jag left the room, Percy was waiting to enter the video booth. “Your parents sound nice,” Percy said.
“Thanks. They’re my grandparents, and they’re the nicest people I know.”
“Well, you sound close to them.”
“I am. They raised me. You seem close to your dad, too.”
“Hmph. Yeah, we’re real close, especially when there’s a camera around,” Percy said sarcastically as he stepped into the video booth.
Makalo Zuma arrived early for his scheduled call as Jag was collecting his bag and other items. Since Jag hadn’t had a chance to speak with him yet, he sat down and introduced himself. From the video room, they heard the audio start piping in.
“Ms. Walker, how many times must I tell you that I’m not to be interrupted when I’m in a meeting?” Mr. Blackwell said to his secretary.
“Yes, sir. But it’s your son calling from the space station.”
“I don’t care if it’s the pope himself. When I’m in conference with a customer, I am not to be disturbed!”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Hi, Dad,” Percy said softly.
“Percy, I’m meeting with the prime minister of Russia. Is there something you need?”
