I clench every part of me that I know how to clench. It gives me a feeling of control. I’m doing something by aggressively doing nothing.
One big bonus: e-mail! Just like the days back on Hermes, I get data dumps. Of course, they relay e-mail from friends and family, but NASA also sends along choice messages from the public. I’ve gotten e-mail from rock stars, athletes, actors and actresses, and even the President. One of them was from my alma mater, the University of Chicago. They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially “colonized” it. So technically, I colonized Mars. In your face, Neil Armstrong!
Fun fact: This is exactly how the Apollo 1 crew died. Wish me luck!
I can see it now: me holding a map, scratching my head, trying to figure out how I ended up on Venus.
Just once I’d like something to go as planned, ya know?
Now I’m in a rougher neighborhood. The kind of neighborhood where you keep your rover doors locked and never come to a complete stop at intersections.
When European mariners first came across Asian mariners, no one was surprised they both used sails.
I’m smart enough now to know I’m stupid. That’s progress.
Deadline-induced quality issues: a problem all over the galaxy.
Sheesh – you almost ruin a mission one time and all of a sudden you have an alien-enforced bedtime.
Yes. There’ll be wars. Fought for the same reason most wars in ancient times were fought for: food. They’d use religion or glory or whatever as an excuse, but it was always about food. Farmlands and people to work that land.
My terrifying struggle to stay alive became somehow routine. Get up in the morning, eat breakfast, tend my crops, fix broken stuff, eat lunch, answer e-mail, watch TV, eat dinner, go to bed. The life of a modern farmer. Then I was a trucker, doing a long haul across the world. And finally, a construction worker, rebuilding a ship in ways no one ever considered before this.
I did, however, glue my hand to the helmet. Stop laughing.
Everyone would die but me,” she said. “They’d all take pills and die. They’ll do it right away so they don’t use up any food. Commander Lewis picked me to be the survivor. She told me about it yesterday. I don’t think NASA knows about it.
All life needs is a chemical reaction that results in copies of the original catalyst.
Yeah, I definitely pulled something in my back. I woke up in agony. So I took a break from rover planning. Instead, I spent the day taking drugs and playing with radiation.
Software engineers are sneaky bastards when it comes to data management.
For some reason, a high concentration of O2 will kill most headaches. Don’t know why. Don’t care. The important thing is I don’t have to suffer.
I’m on a suicide mission. John, Paul, George, and Ringo get to go home, but my long and winding road ends here.
The city shined in the sunlight like a bunch of metallic boobs. What? I’m not a poet. They look like boobs.