Orphans of Apollo - S1 E14
September 2055
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From the ashes of forgotten space dreams, a new era of exploration begins.
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Previously: after a surreal drive the Meyer family arrives at the Foundation and is greeted by Christian Larsson. Lana and Logan then learn they are to leave college and start full-time astronaut training. The culmination of this will be an analogue mission in Antarctica, the first of which Lana will command.
The corridors of the FASS headquarters hummed with an unusual amount of energy. It had taken three days for all the students to arrive, slowly dribbling in from all over the world. There were approximately one hundred, aged from ten up to Lana’s cohort, in their early twenties. The normally spacious building now felt a little cramped. There were even some family members sleeping on the hangar floor. A building which usually functioned efficiently now had people and belongings tucked away in almost every available space.
After a couple of nights of Glenn sleeping on Logan’s floor and Ayako on Lana’s, Glenn had decided they were going to head home. Christian Larsson had made an emotional and rousing speech in the overcrowded hangar the previous night, but now it was time to get on with life.
“I won’t let them dictate how we live our lives. We are so proud of you. You will be safe here, but we must get on with our own lives,” Glenn had told the children in a calm but defiant voice. Ayako had agreed, but could not hold back the floods of tears when it came time to go.
The knock at the door broke Lana’s daydream. For a moment, she was unsure how long she had been sitting on her bed. Back to the wall, knees pulled up under her chin, staring into space and replaying the last few days’ events. She glanced at the clock across the small room on her desk. It was 14:16.
There was another gentle knock. Lana got up and went to her door. She opened it to find Aiden holding two cans of soft drink and a bag of chips.
“Hi, Commander.”
Lana rolled her eyes. “Don’t start with that. I suppose you are going to salute me as well.”
“Well, I can if you like.”
“Please don’t. I’ve had enough of that from Logan already.”
“So, are you going to ask me in?”
“Well, that depends on why you are here,” she said playfully.
He held up the snacks. “Didn’t see you at lunch,”
“We had lunch with my parents. Before they headed off.”
“That figures. Anyway, I just wanted to see how you’re doing. I’ve hardly seen you the last few days.”
Lana shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I’ve been processing a lot.”
“We all have.”
She leant against the door, swinging gently.
“So are we going to do this out in the hall or…”
Lana smiled and motioned for Aiden to come in. He set the snacks down on the desk and sat down in the chair. Lana perched herself on the edge of the bed.
“Girls’ rooms always smell better than boys,” he said, looking around. “No dirty clothes on the floor, no empty food containers under the bed.”
Lana shook her head mockingly.
“Seriously though. Are you ok? We’ve all been through a lot the last few days.”
Lana leaned herself back against the wall. “I think the younger students are handling it better. They are not old enough to full comprehend what is happening. Not that we really know, anyway.”
Aiden opened the bag and offered her a chip, but Lana shook her head.
“You still haven’t answered the question.”
“I don’t know…I just don’t know…It’s…”
Aiden put the chips down and moved to sit next to her on the bed. Their shoulders pressed gently against each other. Lana felt her stomach begin to tie itself into knots. She was acutely aware of the contact between their bodies.
“You know it’s ok to feel the way you are. It’s perfectly normal. We all feel the same.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Overwhelmed. Unsure. Lost. Angry, and a little scared.”
Lana looked at Aiden. “He chose the wrong person. You’re the one that should be commanding the first analogue. Not me. I don’t know why they chose me.”
Aiden tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips. “It’s kind of cute when you do this.”
“Do what?”
“Try to convince people you can’t do something.”
She screwed her face up.
“Come on Lana. It’s about the only thing you are bad at. You are one of the most talented people in this programme. We all know it. You know it, you just won’t admit it to yourself.”
Aiden turned towards her.
“Ok, some tough love coming up.” He took a deep breath, meeting Lana’s eyes with a steady gaze. “I’m good at organising things, making sure everything is in place and solving problems. You are good at these things too. But there are some subtle differences between us.”
Lana opened her mouth to protest, but Aiden held up a hand. “People look up to you. They feel comfortable talking to you. You can relate to almost anyone. They trust you.”
Lana blinked several times, taken aback by the conviction in his voice.
“I’ve seen it. Many times. You are not the best at everything. But most importantly, you are pretty good at most things.”
“I just don’t know that I’m ready. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. We were supposed to finish college. Then we would start our astronaut training.”
“I don’t think anyone wanted it this way—”
“Except Logan!” Lana cut in.
Aiden smiled “Except Logan.”
“He is insufferable right now because he’s so pleased he doesn’t have to finish college.”
“Look, by the time we get there, you will be ready.”
“Maybe. But I just worry about people like Pieter. He’s not going to listen to me. He thinks everyone should do what he says.”
“Lana, leadership is earned. You don’t become an effective leader just by telling people what to do. We are not like an army from hundreds of years ago where you became an officer because of the family you were born into. You could be the most inept soldier, but your conscripts would be forced to follow your orders.”
“I know that.”
“Well, you will lead because people will choose to follow you. Besides, we all know what to do. It’s a peer leadership model. Nobody is asking you to be a General Patton or—”
“I can’t see that working with people like Pieter.”
“Don’t worry about Pieter. I’ll be there to support you.”
“You see, this is why you should be in this position.” Lana’s shoulders sank despondently.
“Good leaders have good people to help them. That’s me.” Aiden smiled. “Anyway, we’re going to be heading to Antarctica to practise being astronauts! Then we get to be astronauts. How cool is that? Let’s enjoy it for what it is.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Aiden picked up a can from the desk, its sides wet with condensation. He handed it to Lana. As she grasped it, it slipped. They both reacted to catch it. Aiden grabbing Lana’s hand by mistake. His grip on her hand was firm, but gentle. They looked at each other. For a moment, neither of them moved, caught off-guard by the unexpected intimacy of the touch. Looking into his eyes, Lana saw something in them she hadn’t noticed before, something that mirrored the yearning she felt inside. It excited her, but at the same time, she was unsure.
After what seemed like an eternity, he pulled his hand back. “You probably shouldn’t open that one now.” He placed it on the desk and handed her the other one.
The air in the room felt heavy, charged. After taking a sip, Lana cleared her throat. “So, astronaut Woods,” she began, forcing a lightness into her tone, “as you’re going to be in charge of base operations, what’s top of your list of issues we need to go through?”
Aiden’s smile faded slightly, replaced by a look of disappointment that he quickly masked. He took a deep breath and stretched his back. “Right,” he said, his voice a touch flat.
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Thank you for taking the time to read the latest episode of “Orphans of Apollo”, I hope you enjoyed it. The biggest news this week for those of you with similar interests to me has to be SpaceX capturing their Super Heavy booster on the first attempt. Many have said online this is a truly momentous occasion in human exploration and I have to say I agree.
I don’t want to get into the polarising issue of whether or not you like Elon Musk as a person. Let’s just look beyond that and take him on his achievements, as I think this is a far more constructive way to approach things.
I first became aware of SpaceX when I was a university student studying Aeronautical Engineering in the early 2000s. Every so often there would be a short piece in the news section of one of the journals I read about this startup company called SpaceX. I didn’t really take much notice. The news updates then progressed on to reporting failed launch after failed launch. Eventually, they had a successful launch of their Falcon 1. But who was this guy Elon Musk who had made it to orbit by the skin of his teeth? Plus, he had the audacity to challenge a market sector dominated by industry heavyweights such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics? I have to admit I did not take SpaceX seriously.
This changed though after successful resupply missions to the ISS. Then when Musk started talking about landing and reusing boosters, I really thought he had gone off on some crazy tangent. If this was feasible, then why had nobody else done it already? I didn’t take the idea seriously. But then they did it, and again, and again. At that point I realised you cannot discount him and he really does know what he is talking about when it comes to designing rockets and space exploration. Sure, his timelines are always optimistic, but he gets there in the end. SpaceX are rapidly making NASA’s SLS completely irrelevant.
My generation missed out on witnessing the monumental leaps forward in space exploration of the Apollo era. Instead, we got the Space Shuttle. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Shuttle, it’s cool, a real spacecraft which flies back to a runway. Fundamentally it was flawed though, and it didn’t go anywhere. With SpaceX and the companies and nations giving chase, we really are opening the door on a new era of space exploration.
Thanks for reading,
Alex