Twenty-four Hours in the Life of an Astronaut

Twenty-four Hours in the Life of an Astronaut

She always wakes up first. Maybe that’s part of her programming. I feel her stirring under my hands that keep her on my chest. She bristles, and wiggles up towards my neck. I keep my hand on her so she doesn’t float away. She gives me a few licks on my chin. I smile. I can’t help it. She is big company. I named her Taffy.

She is classified as a space dog. When we were preparing for the mission I declined to hear how she was altered. I didn’t want to know she was built to love me.

Waking up happy, traveling in space. I love my job.

“Good Morning, Mark. All components of our ship are functioning normally. It is day 435. While you slept we traveled 16,435 miles.” says FRED. That’s my second wake up call. No licks from FRED, not even a brief touch. FRED is the AI. He is the ship. Every component large and small— drones, sensors, engines, and so on, including myself, and the dog, are monitored constantly by FRED. You get used to it.

FRED and I spend about 30% of my time doing maintenance. Most of the time it is planned changes like swapping out worn parts, reusing the material of the swapped out parts to build new ones, discussing anomalous readings (you’d be surprised at how many readings are sometimes anomalous), and sharing information with mission control on Earth. Everything is done with meticulous care, because, as I remind FRED daily, there is no backup plan. We are by ourselves. Except for the millions and millions of people back home listening, and watching.

We are in our second year of our ten year mission traveling to Europa and back, searching for evidence of life. It’s an exploration for the beginnings of life, an experiment in the human response of space travel, an exploration into long distance space travel, and a growing list of experiments submitted by universities, countries, and people.Sometimes I think the experiments are designed to keep me busy and entertain people back home. Experiments include sleeping under different conditions, measuring aspects of my autonomous system as we creep further from Earth, and growing various plants.

These growing experiments occupy 50% of my waking day, and the ship is a jumble of green, purple, and blue vines with various bulbous growths. All the plants are edible and part of the experiment is my experience of eating them. I’m not a fan of eating unknown plants. I did not think I would care, but some are terrible. Especially the ones with tiny thorns that you are suppose to scrape off but some thorns always seem to remain. Oh and anything light pale green tastes awful. (FRED reports that our best rated videos is my eating something I know I will not like. Sigh, what about true science?)

And we spend about 30% of my time maintaining the ship. Just the regular maintenance issues that go along with sailing through the galaxy, plus a few scary moments of component failure, such as oxygen loss, antenna malfunction, mold in the food.

The remaining 20% is my downtime. I spent most of my time communicating home and exercising.

I let go of Taffy and give her a gentle shove. She begins to propel herself to the kitchen. She knows where her next food will be coming from.

“Good Morning, FRED. What do you have planned for us today?”

“We have a lot of video today. A classroom from Mozambique sent a presentation, and questions.”

I drifted towards the kitchen. I am heading towards a glorious cup of coffee.

“Not another classroom visit. Our last classroom video did not rank well. Maybe we should take a break?”

FRED does not reply. I know FRED’s hesitance is calculated. Every word that he says takes compute cycles to generate. I try to see him as human, it makes what I am doing seem normal.

“Never mind you are probably waiting for me to drink my coffee.” I am more optimistic after coffee.

On the ship there is enough coffee packed for ten years of mornings. That was my one request. I even get a little bit of milk in it. Today I fill the kitchen with a hiking video. (I think this is a Mozambique video paired with the questions I will be answering later today. I am recorded while drinking my morning coffee.) I am surrounded with trees, and birds. There is something that looks like a snake up high in a tree, I look elsewhere. The trees filter the sunlight. If I try I can almost feel the heat of the sun. The coffee smells wonderful. I pick up my no-spill mug.

“FRED, is this two cups?” I smile and hold out a treat for Taffy.

“Yes, just a change in pace.”

‘I love the change.” Taffy snuggles into my chest and I hold her to me with one hand. I sip my coffee and lazily follow the path of a tiny blue butterfly.

“Mark, can we talk?”

“Of course. Listen I’ll do the class this morning. These class videos, experiment requests, and Q&As are a lot of work, and if no-one wants to see them .…”

“ESL likes them.”

“Yes, it always come back to what they want. I know they want to make money off of us. I get it. But if we listen to what they do, and not what they say, it seems like they are more interested in the money than our mission.”

FRED sighed. Lots more calculations. “This is the third time in the last fourteen days you have said that.”

I did not know what to reply. FRED was created and owned by ESL. I should have just said nothing, and be like Taffy — happy and empty headed.

“Sorry FRED.”

“Mark, we have an emergency.”

“What? Where?”

“A potential breach of the outer haul, or a missing sensor. I sent out a drone, and now it’s missing.”

“I touched the kitchen table, and scrolled to the outside status. “I see FRED, we are blind on the port side. I’ll get suited up.”

And for the viewers I say, “FRED I’m very concerned we lost a drone, I think we have three left now.”

FRED replies without hesitation. “”Yes, when our sensors fail, they are our eyes and ears outside.”

This is called a catastrophic event or an anomalous event. (In other words, it’s like cancer or a pimple.) They don’t happen often, but they are good for ratings and very bad for my blood pressure and heart.

I watch my magnetic boots shuffle as I lurch towards the port bow. “FRED we really should have two doors in this ship.”

“I’ll report your recommendation. Slow and steady. Don’t look up, you know how you get vertigo.”

“You don’t have to tell me not to look up.” And, then I looked up. I didn’t mean too.” I expected a breath taking sea of stars, and a lot of panic. Seeing nothing is scary. I saw the rim of a large red planet. The sun beginning to shine at one edge.

Suddenly the sun rays hit the haul and lit up my path to the bow. Suddenly all the troubling little questions fell into place.

We’re not traveling to Europa, we orbiting Venus. I’m on a fake mission. I’m part of a scam, and I am being scammed. I left my home, my friends for the trip of a life time. And here I am stuck to the outer haul of a ship orbiting Mars.

Is FRED part of this scam? He must be.

What is FRED going to do if he figures out I know?

“Mark? Are you all right?”

“Yes, just a moment of vertigo. I’m ok, I didn’t look up.” I moved my arms and sway my suited body. Might as well create some dramatic video. “I got a little disoriented, but I’m ok now.”

“Good, your heart rate is going down.”

“The haul looks smooth all the way up to the port.There are no visible dents. Looks Like a malfunction. I’m almost there.”

“Good to know,” he sounded relieved. How does he do that?

“FRED, I had some thoughts out here after my brief moment of vertigo. I’m looking forward to the classroom questions. Ratings will always go up and down. It’s always rewarding to see the eagerness of the kids and share our adventure.” Am I laying it on too thick? My mind is full of paranoid thoughts. I want FRED to open the door. I want to go home.

“I’m glad to hear you say that.” More relief. “We’ll take the morning off, and begin work afternoon.”

Phew, FRED still thinks I’m still an ignorant participant.I replace the sensor, hopefully we can repair the broken one. A broken sensor and a drone that just flew off the haul. Are parts wearing out? ESL must have planned this show to end before we reach Europa, which is almost four years from now. How long is this survival show supposed to last? I am sure ESL has a very dramatic ending planned.

“Mark your heart rate is climbing again.”

“Thanks, taking deep breaths and calming down. Space walking is fun and scary at the same time. Almost to the door.”

…

Taffy always wakes up first. Except today, I was not really asleep. I feel her stirring under my hands that keep her on my chest.

I have spent the night trying to figure out how desperate things are for me. Is it even possible to get home? Is there enough fuel? What is FRED’s programmed response if he determines I know the mission is a scam? Can I disable FRED?