While Dr. Sato and Tom were standing there, one of the men’s vital signs suddenly flatlined, and there was nothing anyone could do. With one dead, all of the men feared that there would be no chance to say goodbye to their families or anyone else. It looked like the other three men would die very soon.
Tom was sick to his stomach. Tom left with Dr. Sato and told her in private, “Please let their families know that their dads and husbands will be missed greatly. They are all welcome to travel with the spaceship if they desire or stay on Earth. When they feel better, I would like to meet with them. All of their burial expenses will be covered, and they will receive compensation for the deaths. Please extend my deepest condolences even though I know that it is just not enough to say that.”
Chemical deaths were truly horrible.
As he left the hospital, all Tom could see was his dad’s face when he died. It was so tragic.
Chapter 14 – Elected
Tom Burns, Aurora, CO
The barrage of presidential Tweets against the interstellar mission started three years after the fatal accident that had taken the lives of some members of Tom’s crew. Despite the fact that all the men who had been exposed to the deadly fuel had been buried respectfully, with their privacy intact and sacrifice well-noted, news of the accident hadn’t spread.
The presidential Tweets over the next few years had begun to bring negative attention to the mission despite the fact that Trump was reelected in 2020 and didn’t initially seem to matter to anyone. He was taking his threats to discredit the mission seriously and in the run-up to the 2024 election, it began heated for Tom and his crew.
Yet, as the years turned into months, and people began to take notice of the spaceship, either participating in the funding or learning more about the mission itself, Tom’s team of social media experts weren’t the only ones defending against the president’s efforts to stall or prevent their mission.
Soon, there were major networks of support for what Dr. Tom Burns was trying to achieve. Sure, there was criticism, but a vast number of people had wondered if space was the final frontier and whether it would be necessary someday, just as Sam and Tom had found and pursued. Of course, there needed to be a first and it needed to be well-documented, supported and studied. Most people who learned bits and pieces about their effort understood it was taking years to pursue the mission. And although his sons and daughter had no idea Tom was involved in it, he sometimes overheard them talking about a mission into space that the president was attacking but that was backfiring. As more people considered the prospect of space travel, it sounded like a great step for humankind. Trump had stepped into his own leadership gap. He knew little about what captivated people positively rather than promoting their worst fears with absolutely no sense of how adventure and exploration were written into our very core.
Tom and all the commanders couldn’t have been happier when they heard the 2024 election results in the United States and Russia. John Stevens was elected President of the United States. He was a Democrat. One of the significant issues the campaign focused on was cleaning up the environment and recommitting to the Paris Agreement.
Tom decided not to contact the new president about his work. He felt that no matter what Stevens did to help the climate, it would be too little and too late, not to mention all the politicians who might not be supportive of his ideas.
It was also interesting that in the last few months of 2024, Donald Trump had asked for a wall to be built on the shoreline near his Florida property in Palm Beach. He wanted to stop the ocean from flooding his property and demanded that they construct a high wall around it. He claimed it was only for privacy and protection, but Tom knew the real reason behind it and so did many other people.
In Russia, Putin finally stepped down from leading Russia. He was succeeded by Boris Ivanov who had a similar approach as Putin. He was an oligarch with a lot of money seeking a lot of power. Tom was wary of his plans for the Russian spaceship but could only wait to see what would happen. Russia seemed to move into every country that Trump was at odds with to advance its bid to rule the world.
The ship’s crew was making an immense amount of progress. Planning and development continued without any major mishaps from 2024 to 2027. Keeping politics at bay had become touchy at moments, but Tom and his crew were undeterrable. Finally, Trump had to be wishing he hadn’t picked this fight or headed the effort to let oligarchs and money root themselves into everyone’s future like a pirate ship. People preferred the much more hopeful future Tom and his crew, and hopefully President Stevens through his own efforts, were heading toward.
Cautionary or not, playing politics with the wrong ammo had finally restarted efforts to care and fix things to set a better course for everyone, despite it all.
Part II
2027–2029
Unlocking Our Potential
Chapter 15 – Sleepless in 2027
Sam Burns, Glenwood Springs, CO
I was a bit disappointed when we had moved to Glenwood Springs from Aurora when I was a freshman so I could go to a private high school that had a great reputation. Then, Dad told me that both Sally and Jose were going to the same school as I would be going to. The fact that I wasn’t going to be leaving them behind made me feel better. Their parents worked with my dad on some kind of airplane sustainability projects. Luckily, our dads had all gotten transferred so we could go to the best high school and they could work on projects nearby rather than make the long drive home every few days like they were doing for a couple of years. We were still going to be the three amigos.
Now, we were all about to graduate from Goddard High School today. I wanted to get rest for graduation, but I couldn’t sleep. All night my head kept spinning around stuff in the world. Like eight years ago when my dad came home and told me that parts of the Amazon rainforest had been burning for weeks. He told me no major news outlet put it on their front page at first until there was public outcry. Instead, it turned out that the Brazilian government was doing nothing and blaming non-governmental organizations for setting them on fire. The politicians laying the blame got the most news at first. Then, follow-up news clarified that it was actually farmers that had been emboldened to organize “fire days” to take advantage of weak burn control enforcement. The Brazilian government was keen to open up the area where the world’s biggest rainforest grows to increase economic activity. These were the kinds of problems us new graduates were going to have to deal with someday.
I felt nervous.
What sort of world gives us these kinds of people to look up to? I preferred thinking about my vintage poster of astronaut Edgar Mitchell on my wall. Edgar Mitchell got to be the sixth man on the moon. He started out with a childhood dream of wanting to fly and put surface experiments together on the surface of the moon. My vintage poster of him doing it in 1971 kept me up as I thought about what I would do with my life. I’ve dreamt about wanting to fly like him after high school. Now, I was thinking I’d be helping solve our world’s problems. I got good grades, and I figured that I have what it takes.
And, instead of heading into space like Edgar Mitchell, I figured it was more likely I’ll be building the next generation of drones. I love the technology. That would be cool. Dad would like that too. Then, I could dump entire ready-made forests into areas of the world that are experiencing desertification where there’s little access to biodiversity. Sometimes I wonder if Edgar Mitchell had the same kind of reasons to pursue his dreams in his time? I’d have to ask my dad or look it up myself.