Artemis I Has A Stowaway - Day 22
December 7th, 2022
You ever think about quantum physics? I love thinking about quantum physics. First of all, I don’t care what you say: it’s magic. Its rules are so non-intuitive and untethered from comparison or analogy that you have to simply brute force learn it. Secondly, I’m an aerospace engineer and I eat differential equations for breakfast, but quantum physics has some screwed up mathematical symbols. Looks like runes more than math.
Third, and this is the part that’s relevant to me right now, it’s all about possibilities and probabilities. And kind of like geometry contains hidden truths, there’s these truths to quantum physics as well. Today I’m two things at once. I’m the Alex Whelm who saved four members of Dragon Sovereign, and I’m the Alex Whelm who screwed up and let them die. I’m both, I’m neither, I’m a probability function that collapses into one of two states tomorrow once we observe what happens.
Even if my chances of doing this are one in a hundred, I could be the one-in-a-hundred guy that pulled it off. I don’t have to be the loser who can’t handle the guilt of failing. But right now, I’m both, and neither. Once we observe what happens that other Alex, the Alex who could have been, is going to be a distant memory, a hypothetical like when you imagine how your life might have been different had you won the lottery.
By the way, for those interested, 97%, 99%, 97%, 98%, 94%, 96%, 98%, 99%, 96%, 99%, 96%, 96%, 96%, 96%, 99%. Instead of pausing simulations we’re doing a long-winded thrust by thrust debrief after each one now.
We’ve also started to get real serious about tomorrow’s schedule.
Here’s how it breaks down:
06:00 - Alex Whelm wakes up eats breakfast and uses the head - lesson learned.
06:10 - Alex Whelm gets back to frantically practicing.
09:00 - The Dragon crew start putting on their space suits.
10:32 - The Dragon crew switch to internal suit air and exit their craft starting their count-down to suffocation.
10:47:14 - Dragon crew kick off, using up essentially every drop of their suits’ thruster fuel.
13:34 - Alex Whelm gets his flight suit on and wraps up his legs - and toes individually this time - in duct tape. When he’s ready, he slowly depressurize Orion, and pops the outer and inner airlocks open.
14:12:52 - Artemis I does a computer-controlled entry burn into Earth’s orbit
14:15 - Rescue operations begin.
14:36 - Rescue operations end.
15:00 - cocktail reception.
That step at 13:34 has NASA in knots. When the computer froze and NASA told me to do an EVA, it was pretty simple for them: the only way to fix the issue was an EVA, and they only had so many characters in the message they could send me. Since the details were for me to figure out, no one at NASA had to sign off on them. Now someone down there has to put their personal stamp of approval on my duct tape leg wrapping work.
Even better, the air feed that plugs into the flight suit’s thigh is only long enough to reach the inner airlock door. To open the outer door, I’ll have to disconnect it, depressurize, open the door, and reconnect my air feed.
Why not just use the auxiliary air tank when doing that? Because I’d still have to disconnect and reconnect in vacuum. I can’t use that auxiliary tank for the whole intercept. Plus, it would be nice to have that actually connected to the emergency systems so the ship can be repressurized quickly.
Anyways, I’m going to have to make do with the residual air in my suit for about thirty seconds, and NASA loathes the idea. The entire mission, and the lives of five people, turns on connecting a valve in vacuum and I’ve only got a few seconds to do it.
Also, NASA screwed up. Makes sense I guess, they were busy with a bunch of things. So, when Captain Sarah Covington sent down her goodbye messages, someone groundside forwarded the one addressed to me, probably thinking it was just coordinating for tomorrow.
“Alex, if you’re seeing this it means the intercept didn’t work.” She was floating in the Dragon Sovereign capsule. Her hair was pulled back into a mid-length braid, just loose enough that it had the right kind of volume. I’ve got short hair but even I’ve got space hair at this point - every strand wants to just point straight away from my head. I’ll tell you something though, bald is going to be THE fashion choice in space.
She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but that was a good look on her, made her look a little nerdier, a little more real than the perfection of a headshot.
I stopped the video and sent a message to NASA. If they sent the other videos out by accident that could be a problem for Sarah. Now look, I know I’m not supposed to watch this… But am I seriously not going to watch this?
Two Alex’s in quantum state, one who does the right thing and respects Sarah’s privacy, and the other… Sorry good Alex, you get to be erased from existence with the click of the play button.
“I saw your interview,” she went on. “You get it, and how you feel about space, it’s the same as how I feel about it. How we all feel about it. This is something that’s worth dying to do and we knew that when we first signed up, when we strapped in. This is how we wanted to spend our lives, and the only difference you’ve made is that over the last week is that we’ve had hope.”
Her eyes looked swollen, I’m probably the last one of these that she recorded.
“This intercept, I’ve been over it a hundred times with my pilot and ground crew, this would really push a trained pilot with thousands of hours of experience. It would have been nice if we’d pulled it off, but this was always a long shot and everyone knew it was asking way too much of you. No one blames you, Alex. No one. If there’s a heaven, then I want to see you there in another fifty or sixty years, and I’ll buy you a drink and give you that hug I owe you.”
“Don’t blame yourself. I hope you live a good life Alex. Seriously. That’s the only thing I want for you, ok?”
That’s the message.
Great, she’s magnanimous too. If I think of my virtues and vices and weigh them against one another then Captain Sarah Covington would need to…. I don’t know… murder puppies in her spare time, if she was going to have the same bad/good ratio as me. Probably the entire crew of the Dragon Sovereign is the same. Accomplished, wonderful, dedicated, just amazing people who devoted their lives to doing an amazing thing. And who the hell am I? The asshole who stowed away.
Mark was wrong. If I don’t pull this off, I’m going to be having nightmares about it for the rest of my life no matter what I keep my eyes on.
*******
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
You ever think about quantum physics? I love thinking about quantum physics. First of all, I don’t care what you say: it’s magic. Its rules are so non-intuitive and untethered from comparison or analogy that you have to simply brute force learn it. Secondly, I’m an aerospace engineer and I eat differential equations for breakfast, but quantum physics has some screwed up mathematical symbols. Looks like runes more than math.
Third, and this is the part that’s relevant to me right now, it’s all about possibilities and probabilities. And kind of like geometry contains hidden truths, there’s these truths to quantum physics as well. Today I’m two things at once. I’m the Alex Whelm who saved four members of Dragon Sovereign, and I’m the Alex Whelm who screwed up and let them die. I’m both, I’m neither, I’m a probability function that collapses into one of two states tomorrow once we observe what happens.
Even if my chances of doing this are one in a hundred, I could be the one-in-a-hundred guy that pulled it off. I don’t have to be the loser who can’t handle the guilt of failing. But right now, I’m both, and neither. Once we observe what happens that other Alex, the Alex who could have been, is going to be a distant memory, a hypothetical like when you imagine how your life might have been different had you won the lottery.
By the way, for those interested, 97%, 99%, 97%, 98%, 94%, 96%, 98%, 99%, 96%, 99%, 96%, 96%, 96%, 96%, 99%. Instead of pausing simulations we’re doing a long-winded thrust by thrust debrief after each one now.
We’ve also started to get real serious about tomorrow’s schedule.
Here’s how it breaks down:
06:00 - Alex Whelm wakes up eats breakfast and uses the head - lesson learned.
06:10 - Alex Whelm gets back to frantically practicing.
09:00 - The Dragon crew start putting on their space suits.
10:32 - The Dragon crew switch to internal suit air and exit their craft starting their count-down to suffocation.
10:47:14 - Dragon crew kick off, using up essentially every drop of their suits’ thruster fuel.
13:34 - Alex Whelm gets his flight suit on and wraps up his legs - and toes individually this time - in duct tape. When he’s ready, he slowly depressurize Orion, and pops the outer and inner airlocks open.
14:12:52 - Artemis I does a computer-controlled entry burn into Earth’s orbit
14:15 - Rescue operations begin.
14:36 - Rescue operations end.
15:00 - cocktail reception.
That step at 13:34 has NASA in knots. When the computer froze and NASA told me to do an EVA, it was pretty simple for them: the only way to fix the issue was an EVA, and they only had so many characters in the message they could send me. Since the details were for me to figure out, no one at NASA had to sign off on them. Now someone down there has to put their personal stamp of approval on my duct tape leg wrapping work.
Even better, the air feed that plugs into the flight suit’s thigh is only long enough to reach the inner airlock door. To open the outer door, I’ll have to disconnect it, depressurize, open the door, and reconnect my air feed.
Why not just use the auxiliary air tank when doing that? Because I’d still have to disconnect and reconnect in vacuum. I can’t use that auxiliary tank for the whole intercept. Plus, it would be nice to have that actually connected to the emergency systems so the ship can be repressurized quickly.
Anyways, I’m going to have to make do with the residual air in my suit for about thirty seconds, and NASA loathes the idea. The entire mission, and the lives of five people, turns on connecting a valve in vacuum and I’ve only got a few seconds to do it.
Also, NASA screwed up. Makes sense I guess, they were busy with a bunch of things. So, when Captain Sarah Covington sent down her goodbye messages, someone groundside forwarded the one addressed to me, probably thinking it was just coordinating for tomorrow.
“Alex, if you’re seeing this it means the intercept didn’t work.” She was floating in the Dragon Sovereign capsule. Her hair was pulled back into a mid-length braid, just loose enough that it had the right kind of volume. I’ve got short hair but even I’ve got space hair at this point - every strand wants to just point straight away from my head. I’ll tell you something though, bald is going to be THE fashion choice in space.
She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but that was a good look on her, made her look a little nerdier, a little more real than the perfection of a headshot.
I stopped the video and sent a message to NASA. If they sent the other videos out by accident that could be a problem for Sarah. Now look, I know I’m not supposed to watch this… But am I seriously not going to watch this?
Two Alex’s in quantum state, one who does the right thing and respects Sarah’s privacy, and the other… Sorry good Alex, you get to be erased from existence with the click of the play button.
“I saw your interview,” she went on. “You get it, and how you feel about space, it’s the same as how I feel about it. How we all feel about it. This is something that’s worth dying to do and we knew that when we first signed up, when we strapped in. This is how we wanted to spend our lives, and the only difference you’ve made is that over the last week is that we’ve had hope.”
Her eyes looked swollen, I’m probably the last one of these that she recorded.
“This intercept, I’ve been over it a hundred times with my pilot and ground crew, this would really push a trained pilot with thousands of hours of experience. It would have been nice if we’d pulled it off, but this was always a long shot and everyone knew it was asking way too much of you. No one blames you, Alex. No one. If there’s a heaven, then I want to see you there in another fifty or sixty years, and I’ll buy you a drink and give you that hug I owe you.”
“Don’t blame yourself. I hope you live a good life Alex. Seriously. That’s the only thing I want for you, ok?”
That’s the message.
Great, she’s magnanimous too. If I think of my virtues and vices and weigh them against one another then Captain Sarah Covington would need to…. I don’t know… murder puppies in her spare time, if she was going to have the same bad/good ratio as me. Probably the entire crew of the Dragon Sovereign is the same. Accomplished, wonderful, dedicated, just amazing people who devoted their lives to doing an amazing thing. And who the hell am I? The asshole who stowed away.
Mark was wrong. If I don’t pull this off, I’m going to be having nightmares about it for the rest of my life no matter what I keep my eyes on.
*******
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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