Astronaught

Chapter 2 : Ignition

Im sitting atop a three hundred foot rocket whose destination is the moon, we have 3 minutes until lift off.

You can train for all eventualities. You can spend countless hours doing simulated launches. You can have your body put through G-forces in the centtrifuge. You can read books, watch films or even speak to the other people that have done it.

Nothing...NOTHING, prepares you for how you will feel when its actually you sat there with 3 minutes until five and a half million pounds of fuel is ignited and propels you at 25,000 miles per hour towards a destination 238,000 miles away.

I have ice in my veins. Its part of the reason why I was selected for this. I'm calm, in control of my thoughts and emotions. Some people even say I'm a little robotic. I cant remember the last time I panicked. I cant remember the last time I felt nervous. I have ice in my veins...or so I thought.

Sitting in the cockpit, waiting. Listening to different sections of mission control chatter, waiting. 3 minutes has never taken so long. I can feel my body physically heating up. I can feel beads of sweat rolling down my face, running off my chin and dripping into my collar bone. I feel two hundred degrees, my hands sweat so much that if I were not wearing gloves they would slip off the control panel.
Waiting. 2 minutes. Tension, anticipation, suspense all flood through me in waves. Adrenaline rushing through my veins pushes my heart rate further and further up. I can feel it pounding in my chest as though trying to crack open my ribs and burst through my chest.

1 minute. Waiting. On a project of this magnitude and scale even the tiniest miscalculation or manufacturing error, one screw lose, one percent of error...and we're dead. We will explode and my atoms will be sprayed and scattered into the atmosphere. I cant stop thoughts of Apollo 1, Apollo 13 or the challenger shuttle.

30 seconds.
30 seconds! Those were the fastest 30 of my life. There's a low rumbling slowly building louder and louder as everything begins to prepare for ignition. I've never felt nerves like this. I can only describe it as sheer panic, even that does not come close to an accurate description. By this point I have to put all my effort into staying focussed.
10...9...8...7... did I make the right choice this? or am I 3 seconds from death? 2...1...
IGNITION.

The primary boosters ignite and the entire cockpit shakes with such frequency and magnitude that it feels like my skeleton rattles inside my skin and I start to worry if it will shake the craft to pieces. All of a sudden we have lift off and I feel 1G pulling me toward the earth which I am rapidly leaving.

"Everybody ok?" I ask turning my head to the left. Ellen, my second in command, nods her head uneasily.

"Pegasus, this is control, you are clear of the tower." the radio announces.

"Yee-haw," Freddie, the third member of our crew, mocks in his thickest cowboy accent.

"Confirmed control. We are clear of tower." I respond. "Ascending on orbital course." Speaking helps relax me a little, and I feel my faculties being fully returned to me.

"Pegasus you are approaching primary booster ejection point." the radio advises.

"Roger control...3...2...1. Primary booster ejected."

"Engage secondary booster and proceed on course." it continues.

"Confirmed. Engaging secondary boosters and proceeding on course. " I say flipping a switch. The secondary booster fires propelling us into a high earth orbit. " In just under a days timewe will be the 25th, 6th, and 7th people to set foot on the moon." I say to my crew. "Once we are in a geo-stationary orbit we can all stretch our legs a bit before we fire up for a lunar approach."

Once we are safely in orbit we unbuckle and enjoy the unfamiliar feeling of weightlessness. Gracefully spinning and spiralling in the cockpit. The cockpit for the pegasus is much larger than in any previous missions. I float over to the window panel which looks out on the earth. On the other side of the planet lies the moon. Not yet visible but we can each feel its strange magnetic pull enticing us closer. A place that only 24 other people have ever walked. A place we will soon see first hand. I can help humming 'the blue danube waltz' as I float and twirl around, Freddie and Ellen laugh quietly.
"When I was younger," Freddie begins "I went to Los Angeles to visit my dad." He pauses for contemplation and looks out the window at the earth. "It was hard to comprehend or believe that I'd been so far from home when I recounted the memory years later." he pauses again. "And trying my hardest now not to sound cliche, this is amazing. My mind really is struggling to accept what my eyes present it."

I can tell he says this with genuine sinceretiy. Freddie turns to face me and Ellen.

" So whats next then?" he asks.

" Well we spend some time in orbit utilising it to help us enter the moons orbit, thats why we dont set off straight away." I reply.

"O.k so each of us has skills and a specific job or role here. And now that we are up here, we can discuss it right?" He asks.

"I dont suppose theres any harm in it now. Secrecy is irrelevant up here." I agree.

" O.k its fair to assume you're the pilot and commander since thats what you've done so far. I know I'm the missions mechanical and electrical engineer. That makes you...science officer?" he says while pointing at Ellen.

"Almost. Science and medical." she responds.

"Your training just military?" he asks me curiously.

" Mostly but I have some background and training in physics too."

"So the crossover point for our collective skillsets then is physics."

"And the point?" I press.

"There isnt one really, just general curiosity." He answers.

"How many space missions you been on?" Ellen asks.

"One...including this one." I reply. Freddie says the same.

"Mine too." She says "Our first mission is one that only 24 other people have successfully completed." she adds.

"You think thats strange?" Freddie replies.

"A little. Why did they pick each of us instead of active and experienced astronaughts?"

"From what I know, which admittedly isnt much, the controls, system, trajectory...everything basically is different to how they have launched and operated a lunar mission previously. They felt it was easier to train a blank slate than untrain and re-train an experienced astronaught. " I advise

" You're saying that it was easier to train us, with no knowledge, than an astronaught who 85% of it already?" She asked sceptically.

"Well...yes. You know why its easier to train a child to be bi-lingual than an adult? "
She shakes her head. "Because they dont apply all the rules they learned for english to the new language." I say. She seems unconvinced.
"Or to put it another way. You can only paint a new picture on a blank canvas." I continue.

"The moon." Freddie interrupts. We all move to the window to watch the moon rise behind the earth.