Artemis I Has A Stowaway - Day 16
December 1st, 2022
Good news, bad news. The good news is that the radiation storm ended. It started trending down at 04:38 UTC and by 11:00 UTC it was over. I used the head, ate three Skor bars, and thanked god for turning off the microwave oven.
Bad news, NASA had absolutely done the math on radiation levels and by 11:30 UTC Mark got on the radio to give me the results.
“There’s no easy way to say this Alex, but our health sciences division is telling me you got enough radiation that there’s a 43% chance you’ll develop cancer because of it. That’s a lifetime risk mind. We’re not talking about today or tomorrow or next year even. But you’re going to need to keep a close eye on your health and if it happens, catch it as early as you can.”
I went to space and all I got was this lousy tumor. They had probably been giving this a few days of thought, because if you could tell me one thing that might have made that news go down a bit easier, it was what Mark said next.
“One day we really are going to have science-fiction worthy starships, but it’s going to cost hundreds, maybe even thousands, of lives for us to learn the lessons we need to learn to build them. No matter how careful, there’s always trial and error Alex. Thanks to you, we know we have to do more for radiation protection. That’s a lesson we were going to learn the hard way sooner or later, and you just saved a whole crew from being in the same position as you are right now. You’ve helped humanity get a step closer to the future we all want.”
43%. Not a bad trade for helping all of humanity, is it? You know the funny thing? We judge ourselves based on outcomes. If I actually get cancer I’m probably going to look back on this and think it was pretty stupid. If I don’t then this is clearly the coolest thing I ever did. If the rocket blew up on launch - stupid. If aliens docked with Orion and I got to make first contact - brilliant.
There’s a formula: If [something outside of my control] happens, then [my actions] are [good / bad]. How does that equation make sense? Does that mean there are people sitting at home right now who are every bit as amazing and smart and insightful as Elon Musk, but random chance delivered them failure, and that’s how they see themselves? Failures? For want of luck?
Mark noticed the long pause. NASA did their absolute best to keep me too busy to dwell on things for the rest of the day. They even sent me a book and had a suggestion for the evening that sounded pretty fun to me.
***
“This is Alex Whelm, and for the next hour we’ll be spinning classic hits that just keep hitting and taking your calls from the moon.” Nasa’s the switchboard, and this broadcast is going out live, world-wide.
Space disk jockey! I love it.
NASA even got permission from Adele (did you hear that we’ve all been pronouncing her name wrong? It’s Uh - Dale not ah - Dell), and CCR (my dad’s favorite) for us to play some of their songs between questions. And so, in compliance with NASA’s contractual license obligations, I’d like to thank Adele and CCR for their generous support of space exploration and discovery. I wonder if I’m going to be shilling for Skor when I get back to Earth? As long as I don’t have to eat another one.
“Artemis, this is Mike from Denver. How are you feeling up there?”
“Hey Mike from Denver. I’m alright. Glowing in the dark a little, but with advances in modern medicine I could live another fifty, maybe even sixty, minutes. Seriously though I’m ok. Just a lot of doctors trips in the future so if anything happens we catch it early. I snuck into the unknown and that means taking some chances, right?”
“Artemis, this is Sarah from Long Beach. Have you talked to Jess since you’ve been up there? Any chance you’ll patch things up?”
“Hey Sarah. If your grill’s uncovered you should watch out, I see some weather moving in on you!” I click off the radio and take a breath. You’re allowed to do that you know. Pause, think about things, no one’s ever going to penalize you for taking five seconds to think, unless you’re on Jeopardy.
“You ever go out for New Years Eve to some big party? That’s a lot like a relationship. Everyone thinks of the countdown, the fireworks, the kiss, and honestly you could pretty well take any two random people, stick them together, and imagine them having a dang good time for the big five minutes. But when you actually do go out for New Years Eve it’s totally different. It’s hours figuring out your plans for the night, getting dressed to go out, driving to the party, finding parking which is both hard and expensive. Then there’s hours and hours waiting around before midnight. When you head home it’s fighting a traffic jam. You’re tired, and everyone’s driving badly around you.”
“All that other stuff - that’s life. You really, really, really, need to fit together with a person if you’re going to enjoy being stuck in traffic with them, or searching for parking, or waiting in line for an over-priced drink. If you’ve still got stuff to talk with them about, laugh with them about, joke about, after all the cliched new years stuff has been said. Jess didn’t think we clicked that way, and honestly I was so swept up in how much fun I had with her for the countdown, that I wasn’t thinking about how compatible we really were once the fireworks stopped. But if we weren’t clicking for her, then by definition we weren’t clicking. It sucks, but… yeah.”
“Artemis this is Brad from Kansas. I hear you’re reading science fiction up there. Any recommendations?”
“I surely do Brad. NASA was kind enough to send me a new release. Just out today. Woe to the Victor. You can probably guess I’m a hard sci-fi fan and this has been scratching that itch!”
Did you know Tom Clancy got his start because Ronald Reagan was reading the Hunt for Red October and got asked for a book recommendation? Anyways, I hope Nathan H. Green appreciates the free global publicity. I should get a cut, I’m unemployed after all.
“Artemis, this is Cathy from Sarasota. But you really loved Jess. Everyone’s saying how sweet your love letters to her are, and the launch was so delayed you only tried to stow away after the break up. I think it’s super romantic you were trying to win her back by doing this huge thing.”
Excuse me? Jess released the letters I wrote her? The fuck.
“Sarah from Long Beach, this is Artemis. I didn’t know those letters were out in the world.”
“Artemis, this is Sam from Palm Springs. After your Oprah interview a British tabloid published a bunch of your letters and cards to Jess. She’s saying it was her room mate who sold them. I’m wondering what it felt like to have to fly the Orion yourself. You had no idea what you were doing?”
There’s no good way to be angry in outer space. You can’t pace. You really shouldn’t punch anything. I’m also pretty sure complaining on the radio to the whole world isn’t a good idea.
‘Alex Whelm goes on profanity filled rant,’ isn’t a good headline for NASA. ‘Alex Whelm threatens Tabloid Boss,’ isn’t great either. And, by the way, thanks NASA!
“Hey Sam. Thanks for that. I didn’t know. Let me answer your questions first though.” Better to give myself a few seconds to cool.
“I had absolutely zero idea how to fly Orion myself. I mean there are joysticks that look like they are flight controls, but you’d have exactly as good an idea of how to do it as me. So, it felt crazy dangerous.”
“On the letters… I guess I should think about Jess in this. I’m the one who went and did something crazy, and I should probably accept whatever media stuff is going to come from it. I can’t really complain right? But Jess doesn’t deserve any of that, and if Katie really did sell those letters, I’m sure Jess is feeling really betrayed and hurt.”
“Artemis, Rasham from Tampa. You really think you shouldn’t go to jail yo? My bud Max snuck into an old power plant, and he got ten years. You like, stole a spaceship.”
Wow, I really pissed off someone in NASA PR.
“Hey, Rasham. Well, it isn’t up to me right. There’s going to be a judge who ends up deciding what should happen to me just like everyone else. But I also think that almost everyone can think of many, many, times when something happens with the courts that just doesn’t seem fair, or right, and that’s a big problem. Things should be fair, and I think most of us don’t think they are, or at least, worry that maybe they aren’t.”
“Anyways folks we’re going to take a break for some music, and then I’ll be back to answer more of your questions!”
You can think about the human brain in two ways. If you’re a Star Trek optimist, then you can think about it like Microsoft Word. It’s a tool that can be used for an infinite variety of tasks, but it still has some order and form that can influence how it works, and how efficiently, or inefficiently, it handles different things.
If you’re a Black Mirror pessimist, the human mind is much more like the computer at an auto-repair shop. It is so specialized for the tasks of gathering berries and hunting elk, that you’re always having to find work-arounds to handle anything even slightly non-standard and if someone came into the shop and said “hey can you use this computer to help manage an intergalactic treaty negotiation?” The shop would just have to say no, sorry, this software can’t do that.
So, which is true? I’m super, super, super pissed off and just want to cuss everyone out. But I also know that would be wrong to do and that I shouldn’t. Am I MS Word and I can just write a few more nice sentences, even though for some reason it keeps trying to autocorrect “NASA” to “those assholes”. Or am I the auto-repair shop computer system and we’re just going to have to live with the fact the customer name’s been changed from ‘NASA’ to ‘Asshole’ and the system won’t let us change it back.
“Alex,” Mark’s voice cuts in over the radio. “The broadcast’s on music, we’re off the air. I’m so sorry about that. Those questions never should have gotten up to you. You did a great job dealing with it though.”
I exhale. Other people can do a lot to make it easier to be MS Word.
*******
I’m Nathan H. Green, a science-fiction writer with a degree in aerospace engineering, and I’m going to be doing daily semi-fictional stories tracking the Artemis I mission. You can follow along through my reddit (u/authornathanhgreen).
Artemis I Has A Stowaway is a work of semi-fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue and sentiments (which are not part of the mission’s official history), are entirely fictional. Where real historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, sentiments, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events, personality, disposition, or attitudes of the real person, nor to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Save the above, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© 2022 Nathan H. Green
Good news, bad news. The good news is that the radiation storm ended. It started trending down at 04:38 UTC and by 11:00 UTC it was over. I used the head, ate three Skor bars, and thanked god for turning off the microwave oven.
Bad news, NASA had absolutely done the math on radiation levels and by 11:30 UTC Mark got on the radio to give me the results.
“There’s no easy way to say this Alex, but our health sciences division is telling me you got enough radiation that there’s a 43% chance you’ll develop cancer because of it. That’s a lifetime risk mind. We’re not talking about today or tomorrow or next year even. But you’re going to need to keep a close eye on your health and if it happens, catch it as early as you can.”
I went to space and all I got was this lousy tumor. They had probably been giving this a few days of thought, because if you could tell me one thing that might have made that news go down a bit easier, it was what Mark said next.
“One day we really are going to have science-fiction worthy starships, but it’s going to cost hundreds, maybe even thousands, of lives for us to learn the lessons we need to learn to build them. No matter how careful, there’s always trial and error Alex. Thanks to you, we know we have to do more for radiation protection. That’s a lesson we were going to learn the hard way sooner or later, and you just saved a whole crew from being in the same position as you are right now. You’ve helped humanity get a step closer to the future we all want.”
43%. Not a bad trade for helping all of humanity, is it? You know the funny thing? We judge ourselves based on outcomes. If I actually get cancer I’m probably going to look back on this and think it was pretty stupid. If I don’t then this is clearly the coolest thing I ever did. If the rocket blew up on launch - stupid. If aliens docked with Orion and I got to make first contact - brilliant.
There’s a formula: If [something outside of my control] happens, then [my actions] are [good / bad]. How does that equation make sense? Does that mean there are people sitting at home right now who are every bit as amazing and smart and insightful as Elon Musk, but random chance delivered them failure, and that’s how they see themselves? Failures? For want of luck?
Mark noticed the long pause. NASA did their absolute best to keep me too busy to dwell on things for the rest of the day. They even sent me a book and had a suggestion for the evening that sounded pretty fun to me.
***
“This is Alex Whelm, and for the next hour we’ll be spinning classic hits that just keep hitting and taking your calls from the moon.” Nasa’s the switchboard, and this broadcast is going out live, world-wide.
Space disk jockey! I love it.
NASA even got permission from Adele (did you hear that we’ve all been pronouncing her name wrong? It’s Uh - Dale not ah - Dell), and CCR (my dad’s favorite) for us to play some of their songs between questions. And so, in compliance with NASA’s contractual license obligations, I’d like to thank Adele and CCR for their generous support of space exploration and discovery. I wonder if I’m going to be shilling for Skor when I get back to Earth? As long as I don’t have to eat another one.
“Artemis, this is Mike from Denver. How are you feeling up there?”
“Hey Mike from Denver. I’m alright. Glowing in the dark a little, but with advances in modern medicine I could live another fifty, maybe even sixty, minutes. Seriously though I’m ok. Just a lot of doctors trips in the future so if anything happens we catch it early. I snuck into the unknown and that means taking some chances, right?”
“Artemis, this is Sarah from Long Beach. Have you talked to Jess since you’ve been up there? Any chance you’ll patch things up?”
“Hey Sarah. If your grill’s uncovered you should watch out, I see some weather moving in on you!” I click off the radio and take a breath. You’re allowed to do that you know. Pause, think about things, no one’s ever going to penalize you for taking five seconds to think, unless you’re on Jeopardy.
“You ever go out for New Years Eve to some big party? That’s a lot like a relationship. Everyone thinks of the countdown, the fireworks, the kiss, and honestly you could pretty well take any two random people, stick them together, and imagine them having a dang good time for the big five minutes. But when you actually do go out for New Years Eve it’s totally different. It’s hours figuring out your plans for the night, getting dressed to go out, driving to the party, finding parking which is both hard and expensive. Then there’s hours and hours waiting around before midnight. When you head home it’s fighting a traffic jam. You’re tired, and everyone’s driving badly around you.”
“All that other stuff - that’s life. You really, really, really, need to fit together with a person if you’re going to enjoy being stuck in traffic with them, or searching for parking, or waiting in line for an over-priced drink. If you’ve still got stuff to talk with them about, laugh with them about, joke about, after all the cliched new years stuff has been said. Jess didn’t think we clicked that way, and honestly I was so swept up in how much fun I had with her for the countdown, that I wasn’t thinking about how compatible we really were once the fireworks stopped. But if we weren’t clicking for her, then by definition we weren’t clicking. It sucks, but… yeah.”
“Artemis this is Brad from Kansas. I hear you’re reading science fiction up there. Any recommendations?”
“I surely do Brad. NASA was kind enough to send me a new release. Just out today. Woe to the Victor. You can probably guess I’m a hard sci-fi fan and this has been scratching that itch!”
Did you know Tom Clancy got his start because Ronald Reagan was reading the Hunt for Red October and got asked for a book recommendation? Anyways, I hope Nathan H. Green appreciates the free global publicity. I should get a cut, I’m unemployed after all.
“Artemis, this is Cathy from Sarasota. But you really loved Jess. Everyone’s saying how sweet your love letters to her are, and the launch was so delayed you only tried to stow away after the break up. I think it’s super romantic you were trying to win her back by doing this huge thing.”
Excuse me? Jess released the letters I wrote her? The fuck.
“Sarah from Long Beach, this is Artemis. I didn’t know those letters were out in the world.”
“Artemis, this is Sam from Palm Springs. After your Oprah interview a British tabloid published a bunch of your letters and cards to Jess. She’s saying it was her room mate who sold them. I’m wondering what it felt like to have to fly the Orion yourself. You had no idea what you were doing?”
There’s no good way to be angry in outer space. You can’t pace. You really shouldn’t punch anything. I’m also pretty sure complaining on the radio to the whole world isn’t a good idea.
‘Alex Whelm goes on profanity filled rant,’ isn’t a good headline for NASA. ‘Alex Whelm threatens Tabloid Boss,’ isn’t great either. And, by the way, thanks NASA!
“Hey Sam. Thanks for that. I didn’t know. Let me answer your questions first though.” Better to give myself a few seconds to cool.
“I had absolutely zero idea how to fly Orion myself. I mean there are joysticks that look like they are flight controls, but you’d have exactly as good an idea of how to do it as me. So, it felt crazy dangerous.”
“On the letters… I guess I should think about Jess in this. I’m the one who went and did something crazy, and I should probably accept whatever media stuff is going to come from it. I can’t really complain right? But Jess doesn’t deserve any of that, and if Katie really did sell those letters, I’m sure Jess is feeling really betrayed and hurt.”
“Artemis, Rasham from Tampa. You really think you shouldn’t go to jail yo? My bud Max snuck into an old power plant, and he got ten years. You like, stole a spaceship.”
Wow, I really pissed off someone in NASA PR.
“Hey, Rasham. Well, it isn’t up to me right. There’s going to be a judge who ends up deciding what should happen to me just like everyone else. But I also think that almost everyone can think of many, many, times when something happens with the courts that just doesn’t seem fair, or right, and that’s a big problem. Things should be fair, and I think most of us don’t think they are, or at least, worry that maybe they aren’t.”
“Anyways folks we’re going to take a break for some music, and then I’ll be back to answer more of your questions!”
You can think about the human brain in two ways. If you’re a Star Trek optimist, then you can think about it like Microsoft Word. It’s a tool that can be used for an infinite variety of tasks, but it still has some order and form that can influence how it works, and how efficiently, or inefficiently, it handles different things.
If you’re a Black Mirror pessimist, the human mind is much more like the computer at an auto-repair shop. It is so specialized for the tasks of gathering berries and hunting elk, that you’re always having to find work-arounds to handle anything even slightly non-standard and if someone came into the shop and said “hey can you use this computer to help manage an intergalactic treaty negotiation?” The shop would just have to say no, sorry, this software can’t do that.
So, which is true? I’m super, super, super pissed off and just want to cuss everyone out. But I also know that would be wrong to do and that I shouldn’t. Am I MS Word and I can just write a few more nice sentences, even though for some reason it keeps trying to autocorrect “NASA” to “those assholes”. Or am I the auto-repair shop computer system and we’re just going to have to live with the fact the customer name’s been changed from ‘NASA’ to ‘Asshole’ and the system won’t let us change it back.
“Alex,” Mark’s voice cuts in over the radio. “The broadcast’s on music, we’re off the air. I’m so sorry about that. Those questions never should have gotten up to you. You did a great job dealing with it though.”
I exhale. Other people can do a lot to make it easier to be MS Word.
*******
I’m Nathan H. Green, a science-fiction writer with a degree in aerospace engineering, and I’m going to be doing daily semi-fictional stories tracking the Artemis I mission. You can follow along through my reddit (u/authornathanhgreen).
Artemis I Has A Stowaway is a work of semi-fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue and sentiments (which are not part of the mission’s official history), are entirely fictional. Where real historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, sentiments, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events, personality, disposition, or attitudes of the real person, nor to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Save the above, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© 2022 Nathan H. Green
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