Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

You see, once you start observing the night sky, you begin to orient yourself in time and space.

But I think it is also the relief I feel that those stars are immovable. Nothing you or I could do will ever alter them. They are so much bigger than us. And they will not change within our lifetime. We can succeed or fail, get it right or get it wrong, love and lose the ones we love, and still the Summer Triangle will point south. And in that way, I know everything will be some type of okay—as impossible as that can seem sometimes.

Her boss—the flight director of Orion Flight, Jack Katowski—is

The human body—intelligent as it is—was formed in response to the atmosphere of Earth.

Human intelligence and curiosity, our persistence and resilience, our capacity for long-term planning, and our ability to collaborate have led the human race here.

Vanessa Ford

“I am Antonio Lima, the director of flight at the Astronaut Office,”

if you got to know Vanessa Ford during your time here at JSC, but she was in the same interview group with you. She also made the cut and has accepted. You two are the only finalists to make it through from that session.”

Though four years younger, Barbara snuck out to her first party before Joan,

A few years later, when Joan was pursuing her PhD at Caltech

When their parents were upset that Barbara was single, pregnant, and dropping out of college, Barbara called on Joan to defend her.

Frances was born that May,

Joan corrected her: “Astronomer.”

“An astrophysicist studies the physics of space, whereas my focus is on space itself, the sun in particular. Then again, you can’t study space without studying the physics of space. And time. Or math. Or anthropology and the history of humans’ understanding of the stars. Or mythology and theology, for that matter. It’s all connected.”

Astronomy was history. Because space was time. And that was the thing she loved most about the universe itself. When you look at the red star Antares in the southern sky, you are looking over thirty-three hundred trillion miles away. But you are also looking more than five hundred and fifty years into the past. Antares is so far away that its light takes five hundred and fifty years to reach your eye on Earth. Five hundred and fifty light-years away. So when you look out at the sky, the farther you can see, the further back you are looking in time. The space between you and the star is time.

To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.

Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.”

December 29, 1984

With the hand that’s not pressed to Griff’s suit, Vanessa bangs on the side of the airlock, trying to get someone’s attention and wake them up. The force of it pushes her backward. She rights herself.

“Houston, this is Navigator. Astronauts Steve Hagen and Hank Redmond are dead. John Griffin has suffered potentially critical internal injuries but is breathing. Do you read?”

“Houston, I can confirm Lydia Danes is alive,” Vanessa says. “Copy that, Navigator,” Joan says. And then, her tone almost breathless: “Thank you.”

But today, she keeps forgetting that this is real. Steve and Hank are dead. Griff and Lydia might not make it. At least Vanessa is safe right now.

“I’m…” Vanessa says. “I’m grateful you’re the one in that chair today, Goodwin. I’m glad it’s you.”

She closes her eyes and begs the unfolding cosmos: Please. Please don’t take Vanessa.

“You’re an astronaut who doesn’t recognize most of the stars,”

“I’m a pilot who applied to NASA because I want to fly out of the atmosphere,” she said. “And I’m willing to learn anything I have to in order to do it.”

Being human was such a lonely endeavor. We alone have consciousness; we are the only intelligent life force that we know of in the galaxy. We have no one but one another.

because I’m an aeronautical engineer. But that’s my day job. The real me is a pilot. That’s who I am. And they won’t let me fly the shuttle.”

I signed up as a mission specialist.

Hank, Teddy, Duke, and Jimmy were training to fly chase—to be the pilots who guided the shuttle to the landing site once it reentered the atmosphere. Vanessa and Griff were spending a lot of time in the dunk tank, experimenting with what was possible on spacewalks. Lydia and Harrison had been added to the team working on the thermal protection system—the shuttle’s complex protective skin of tiles and blankets—which meant they had the most hands-on time with the spacecraft itself. And Donna, Marty, and Joan had been assigned to Spacelab, an orbital science laboratory designed by NASA’s European counterparts.

“You’re the only one she’s halfway nice to.” “I’m the only one who tries with her.”

“Because people never fall in love with who they should. This whole world is full of stories of people falling in love with exactly who they weren’t supposed to.”

You absolute child, she thinks. He was hit with shrapnel from an explosion two hundred miles above Earth, and you thought he’d survive?

Hank is gone. Steve is gone. Now Griff is gone, too.

She was the most beautiful person Joan had ever seen in her life.

All she could think about was how grateful she was that the Earth was ninety-three million miles away from the sun today, far enough to be warm but not too hot, just the right distance for life on this planet.

But to love Frances was to be always saying goodbye to the girl Frances used to be and falling in love again with the girl Frances was becoming.

“We are assigning you to STS-LR7. Your commander will be John Donahue, who I know you’ve spent some time with during training.”

“This will be his second mission, so you’ll be in good hands. And your pilot will be Greg Menkin. The mission specialists will be you, Mark Simons, and Harrison Moreau. You’ll be flying on Discovery, slated for launch November of ’84, which gives you more than a year to train.”

This was a stupid thing to do. To come here. But I…want to be a part of your life in every way I can.”

“I can wake up every single day and choose you, over and over and over again. If you’re in bed next to me, I will take your hand. If you are not, I will go find you. I will spend the rest of my life, if I get that lucky, seeking you out. Not because I promised you or because you’re there. But because I will want to. I will want to be beside you. Every day. Forever.”

“STS-LR9. Steve’s my commander. It’s him, Hank, Griff, Lydia, and me. Right after Christmas ’84, six weeks after you.”

Hadn’t she been an associate astrophysics professor, teaching freshmen about Copernicus, just yesterday?

The atmosphere was so delicate, nearly inconsequential. But it was the very thing keeping everyone she loved alive. Intelligent life was her meaning. People were her meaning. Frances and Vanessa.

“Listen to me,” Joan said. “I was circling two hundred miles above the Earth, and all I wanted was to get home and see you. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don’t care how big or small this world is, that you are the center of mine? Do you understand that, to someone, you are everything that matters on this entire planet?”

“You make my life worth something. And I can promise you with my entire body that you will never be alone. Every day, you can wake up and go to bed knowing there is someone whose heart is bursting, barely able to contain how much they love you. I know you’re my niece, Frances. But you have always, too, been mine.”

“Well, then why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” Vanessa said. “Instead of avoiding me?” Because I do not know how to live my life without you. Because I don’t even recognize the person I was before I loved you. “Because…” Joan said. But she had no words.

“But you might lose everything you dreamed of.” “Then I’ll lose it,” Vanessa said. “Let them take it. Just don’t let them take you.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Vanessa said. “But if it’s you or the space shuttle…fuck the space shuttle.”

“I cannot leave Lydia to die,” Vanessa says. “I know,” Joan says in a whisper. “I know.”