Moonstone

Moonstone

Astronaut Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. discovered “flicker-flash” during Apollo 11's historic flight to the moon.  On 17 July 1969, in the dark of simulated night (the Columbia command module's interior lights having been dimmed; its observation windows shaded), work-weary Aldrin, cocooned in his hammock, saw several micro-phantoms of coruscant light flirt with existence.  The lights flashed and flickered and faded, before disappearing altogether in Columbia's synthetic atmosphere—and Aldrin was altogether captivated by them.  This first encounter occurred on the moonward leg of the flight with Apollo 11 some 200,000 kilometers from Earth.  Aldrin saw the lights again the following night, and again, homeward bound.
         Back on Earth, however, during the Apollo 11 mission debriefing, NASA scientists found themselves skeptical of Aldrin's emphatic tale of encountering strange scintillations in outer space.  And this skepticism seemed further justified as the Apollo 11 command module pilot, Michael Collins, denied having seen any of Aldrin's “flickering flashing lights” whatsoever.  But to Aldrin's rescue came Neil Aldin Armstrong (Apollo 11's mission commander; and America's newly minted steely-eyed “...one giant leap for mankind.” hero) who admitted, albeit reluctantly, that yes, he had seen about a hundred of the odd entities the night-cycle prior to reentering Earth's atmosphere; and yes, they were just as Aldrin had described—and who would question the observations of the first man to set foot on the moon?
         So, with eyebrows arched above their skeptical frowns, NASA scientists decided, albeit reluctantly, to investigate the phenomenon further…
         NASA’s investigation spanned the duration of the Apollo Program and spawned the term “flicker-flash”; defining the term as the photo-energetic effect created by high-energy particles flung from the sun—or better yet, galactic cosmic rays—colliding with particles in the viscous fluid of the eye or within the sensitive structure of the retina itself…
         But this explanation is about as definitive as calling Pluto a planet—
         NASA's investigators had hardly any empirical evidence to support their suppositions: none of the astronauts who had seen the light had ever noticed any overall correlation between the position of the sun (in relation to his spacecraft) and the vectors of flicker-flashes.  To this day, neither the solar wind nor galactic cosmic rays can be absolutely verified as the culprits short of exposing test-subjects to lethal streams of ionizing radiation—and who would like to volunteer for that?  And furthermore, flicker-flashes appeared to be quite elusive, as demonstrated by the investigation’s utter failure to explain why so few of the Apollo Program astronauts had actually seen them—reportedly, only about one-third of the corps.
         Obviously, a coherent theory regarding the matter had proven to be quite elusive as well, for NASA’s investigators ended their inquiry by suggesting that perhaps the ability to see flicker-flashes might simply be based on an astronaut’s desire to see them.  As vacillatory as this disclaimer undoubtedly was, its implication made perfectly clear: persisting to report the strange phenomenon was not only undesirable, but likely to get an astronaut grounded pending the outcome of a lengthy (that is to say, incessant) psychological evaluation.
         No further formal reports concerning flicker-flash have been made, and the offensive term is tucked away in a place in the space agency’s contraagonic heart where even its daredevils fear to tread.
         The same cannot be said of the phenomenon itself, however, and much to NASA’s consternation it refuses to go away.  Astronauts continue to see flicker-flashes (even with their eyes closed), and seeing them make mention of them in subtle offhanded ways; and when mentioned aboard spacecraft, where everything is monitored and recorded, somewhere, in some deep dark dungeonlike room in the bowels of the space agency, an accounting of them will exist—offensive terms notwithstanding.
         To date, forty years since manned lunar explorations resumed back in A.D. 2018, about one-third of NASA’s entire active astronaut corps can be said to have had the privilege of seeing flicker-flash—three hundred and eighty-six men and women in all.

●

Embraced by the restraints of an acceleration couch, his forearms floating inches above his torso, Mission Commander Jacob “Jake” Span contemplated the number 386.  He was aware of the significance of the number because he had discovered NASA’s log tracking the “anomaly”—as NASA scientists like to call such uncertain things—of flicker-flash.  He did not find the log buried in the bowels of the space agency, but it had been mislabeled just the same and filed away under a directory of thoroughly boring statistical data indexed as: Baryon Count/Composition/Fluctuation in Yearly Emission of Solar Radiation.
Although the log had been mislabeled and misfiled, Span was surprised to find that it was being kept up-to-date.  In addition to specifics of the incidents of their indiscretion, the names of all the astronauts who had ever mentioned anything having to do with flicker-flash during a mission were in that file.  Span’s name was listed, as were the names of two astronauts currently serving as members of his crew—though these revelations didn’t bother Span one bit.  There was no counting the categories of information the space agency thought to gather about its employees, but Span was fairly certain all the dirty little secrets were collated in there somewhere.
         Regardless of NASA’s feign avoidance of the subject, Span thought flicker-flashes were beautiful.  They allured him.  They expressed a strange accord—a certain rhythmic coordination that was fascinating to discern.  Tiny mimes, visually mimicking the tonal pulses of a celesta solo, say, they composed a karagoz-in-negative—a shadow play of silent prancing pulsating lights projected upon an ebony veil of ether.
         Span had seen thousands of flicker-flashes in his twenty-four years as an astronaut.  He watched for them mainly during the night-cycles of a mission, for they were nearly invisible in the distractions of the working “day”—relegated to a corner of the eye; eluding a steady gaze.  According to the log, astronauts saw the majority of flicker-flashes while in transit to the moon and back; rarely were they seen in low Earth orbit; never while on the surface of the moon.  Span could vouch for that.  He had seen them on practically every one of the thirty-three Constellation-Selēnē Program flights he had made prior to receiving his current command—again, according to the log, but he could vouch for that too.
         Lying there strapped to his acceleration couch, Span wondered if the log was aware that he was seeing flicker-flashes now—dozens of them, peekabooing around the dusky atmosphere in the Crew Exploration Vehicle’s forward crew cabin.  They had been showing themselves for almost an hour, and he wondered how long they would stay.  Would they accompany the entire flight, or fade away the farther from Earth the CEV got?
         As Span considered these questions the Personal Digital Assistant strapped to his wrist emitted a diminishing tone that indicated the prescribed mandatory rest period was almost over; in fifteen minutes he would have to rouse the crew.  With the TMI burn behind them, and their CEV rigged for extended flight and slipping away from Earth at nearly 44,270 kilometers per hour, the crew had certainly earned the rest.  But another mission milestone was already fast approaching and thus another broadcast to be made to the restless people of Earth.
         Including Span, six astronauts composed the crew of the CEV.  At the moment, three crewmembers were resting in their respective quarters in the privacy section of the forward crew cabin.
         The pilot, Dr. Johanna Westral, was in the aft crew cabin monitoring reactor core cooling in the ship's propulsion module and plotting navigation solutions for a course correction should one be necessary.
         On the acceleration couch adjacent to Span, Mission Specialist Samuel “Skylark” Skylar reposed, and Skylar was responsible for the simplest yet paradoxically most profound experience Span ever had in his astronaut career—

         It happened on the moon, eighteen years earlier on Skylar and Span's second mission together, a four-crewmember Constellation-Selēnē Program flight aboard the Lunar Phoenix, when then rookie astronaut Samuel Taliaferro Skylar, in a mood to loose the blues, succumbed to his nigh-obsessive affinity for song and, well, began to sing—something that hadn’t been done on the moon since the days of Apollo.  As the astronauts labored amid the desolate beauty of the lunar landscape the lyrical seasoning of Skylar’s southern heritage came welling basso profundo through their EVA-suits' headsets.  Skylar continued to work as he sang, but the rest of the Lunar Phoenix crew—Span, Imohara, and Wells—spent the compelling minutes of his musical soliloquy frozen in amazement.
         They could not resist it.
         Skylar’s singing was immaculate.  Despite the hard circumlunar vacuum, through which no sound could possibly propagate, Skylar’s lanthanide voice saturated the regolith, enshrouding the moon’s quiescent core like rain on desiccated soil.  Those tumbledown mountains, meandering rilles, blasted craters and basaltic seas, having lingered so long dejected, were soaked in the vitality of his ephemeral song.
         For Span, Imohara, and Wells, the inexorable advance of entropy stalled.  In their timeless state—tools having fallen to the pulverized, sulfur-scented selēnēan dust, arms dangling in the light gravitational tide—the moon (and Span would swear to this to his dying day) had ceased to tread its orbital path.  As Joshua had commanded the moon to pause above the low plain of Ajalon, Samuel Skylar commanded the moon to pause as well—to pause, and to behold the wonder of humans bathed in its dolorous dust.
         For Skylar's crewmates, that sweet sad synodic caesura was the quintessential moment in what manned space exploration is all about—putting the plow of human spirit to the universe’s grand unified field; domesticating the soul of the cosmos; accruing such intimacy with ‘O infinite realm, so opposed to the fragile flesh and bone of biology…’ as to know a drop of blood to shame a sun, a tear…the ocean Eternity.
         And Skylar’s song struck just this cord, until the crackling static of a transmission from Ground intruded and shattered the revelation…
         Feeling that his singing was distracting his crewmates from completing the Imbrium basin He3 mining base, Mission Control openly admonished Skylar.  Although technically this may have been the right thing to do, the men and women in Houston gave little consideration to what Skylar’s fellow astronauts were experiencing—the gooseflesh wrapped around the arms and back; the ache in the center of the chest; stranded on that sterile land, joined together as one by, yet isolate in, microcosms of delicately honed technology; watching as one, without a word, the crescent Earth cradling void above that monochromic horizon; motionless; mired in humanity, as Samuel Skylar’s anthem, anathema to all the apathy in the universe, swept into the depths of space on the crests of a carrier wave…
         The day after the Lunar Phoenix crew arrived back on Earth, Span asked Skylar to attend with him a quite little get-together.  Skylar agreed.  Skylar went.  On arrival, Skylar found, much to his dismay, one hundred and eighteen astronauts, many of them flirting with gimbal-lock of total inebriation, everyone claiming to be his friend and himself the guest of honor.
         To memorialize his—what only he considered to be—innocuous, nepenthean breach of protocol, Samuel, from that day forward to be known as Skylark, Skylar was presented a rather parched-looking papier-mâché sculpture of a gigantic brown bird; marbled-blue orb in beak; squatting on an egg, which looked remarkably like the moon; sporting an inscription on its base, reading, “Earth to Skylark!  We hear you loud and clear!”
         Everyone had a wonderful time—at Samuel Skylar’s expense.  And by the end of the evening, Skylar had amassed (besides the scrapheap sculpture and that annoying epithet) three impressively expensive bottles of enzymatically-synthesized Puligny-Montrachet, one from each of his Lunar Phoenix crewmates; and additionally, from Span, The Autumn Compositions of Handel Ryan & The Blue Devils (signed Limited Edition, holographically remastered on LaserCube).
         So the night hadn’t been a total loss after all.
         The next day the folks at Mission Control received a poignant petition suggesting they let Skylar do his thing “whenever he damn well feels like it!”
         The petition bore one hundred and nineteen signatures—Span’s included.
         Though few of the signatures were legible, the esprit de corps was as obvious as, say, wearing a lampshade in lieu of a crash helmet…
         No derogation of a Skylark’s song has since ensued—

         Span released the acceleration couch's restraining harness.  He nudged himself away from the couch and floated three-and-a-half meters to the bulkhead above him.  Using anchor-points on for'cab's “ceiling,” he monkeyed himself into a position above Skylar.  Skylar was another of the CEV’s crewmembers able to discern flicker-flashes, and judging by the whites of his eyes glowing diffusely in the gloom it was plain to see he was watching them now.
         Span pushed away from the bulkhead.  Descending slowly, he arrested his momentum on a corner of Skylar's acceleration couch.
         “Sky?” Span said.
         “Yes, Commander?”
         “Beautiful aren't they?”
         “I don’t know what you're talking about, Commander.”
         “That so?  Sky, we're about as far from Earth as anyone has ever managed to get; and going farther.  You plan on towing the company’s line the whole way?”
         “Call me old-fashioned, Commander.”
         “Old-fashioned my asymmetry.  I'd call you just about the closest thing to a saint I’ve ever known, Samuel.”
         “I'm sure Father DeLumière would hate to hear you say that.”
         “You bet he would.  We'll just keep it between ourselves, won't we?  Anyway, TICO is coming up.  I have to go aft to get set up for the broadcast.  We've got fifty-five minutes.  I want you to let the crew rest for another fifteen minutes, then get everyone up and assembled in cen'cab.  I’ll remind you that we're conducting the tour again, so it's be-on-your-best-behavior—eyes open, lips shut, fingers out of your noses.  You know the drill.  Any questions?”
         “None, Commander.  Fifteen ticks then man the boat; mind our p's and q's; all fingers present and accounted for.  No problem.”
         Span rested his hand on Skylar's shoulder.  “I know.  And I don’t say this often enough, but Sam, it's a comfort to know I can count on you.”
         “Well Commander, the mission’s different, but the job remains the same.  Right?”
         “Roger that, Mission Specialist,” Span said affectionately; and like a swimmer kicking off from the side of a pool, he rolled sideways, planted his feet on the side of Skylar's acceleration couch and propelled himself away.
         Span's momentum carried him through the transfer-tube that coupled the forward crew cabin to the CEV's center crew cabin.  Transitioning from the dark for'cab to the well-lit cen'cab involved a deluge of light that took a moment to deliquesce.  As Span's vision adjusted, he noticed the pilot toed-into an anchor-point at the far end of the cabin.
         The pilot, positioned in front of the CEV's port food warmer, was holding pinched between her thumb and forefinger a silvery single-serving pouch of one of the many flavors of pabulum the CEV's pantry had to offer.  The pouch was labeled OATMEAL: APPLE in that same minimalist font NASA admires to use for its acronyms.  The pilot was regarding the item doubtfully, bottom lip pursed in her well-used what-the-heck-is-this-for frown.
         “Hey Joey,” Span said, grabbing an anchor-point to heave to.
         “Hey Jake,” Johanna Westral replied, pushing the silver pouch against a patch of Geckostrip—offspring of Velcro that seemed to sprout funguslike from the interior surfaces of all Orion series CEV’s.  Poking the pouch with her finger, she told it to “Stay!”
         “You look tired,” Span said.
         “I am, Jake.  I'm running on vapor.”
         “I can image.  How's the reactor core?”
         “It's fine—still cooling.”
         “And the nav-plots?”
         “My calculations are right in line with what the AI's suggesting, but it looks as if we won't require a course correction anytime soon.  That was an excellent TMI burn.  The ship performed flawlessly.”
         “So?  How long?”
         “Nav's indicating three-and-a-half, four months.”
         “Wow.  That's outstanding work, Joey!”
         “Don’t thank me, Commander.  Thank the folks at Lockheed-Boeing.”
         Johanna Westral smiled wearily, though warmly, at Span; then, as if losing a struggle to stay afloat, her smile sank into a somewhat flirtatious leer that was clearly meant to elicit from Span a very uncommanderlike response.
         Span suddenly felt warm...
         Of the various qualifications astronauts needed to get selected for a flight, there was one qualification, uniquely demanded by the specifications of their current mission, that heretofore had never been seriously considered in the history of NASA's astronaut selection process—the potential for one astronaut to be attracted to another.  And when it came to Jacob Span and Johanna Westral, NASA's matchmakers got it exactly right—damn them.
         Span hung from the anchor-point, blushing as though he were standing in the ruddy glow of a red giant, as images of embracing Johanna, of kissing her, of—well, of achieving orbital rendezvous with her (docking procedures and all), crowded into his already overpreoccupied mind—

         Span had heard Mission Specialist (Doctor/Father) Benton DeLumière once describe Johanna Westral as “jolie-laid”—attractive, though not conventionally pretty.  And yes, the assessment was perfectly fair.  Johanna's expression was perpetually tense; her manner somewhat stern; her gaze uncomfortably scrutinizing; her posture noticeably prim.  Her entire demeanor, in fact, seemed poised on the verge of some unfathomable plight—an awkward defensive insecurity that Span had seen her involuntarily retreat from only on those rare occasions when after a kiss, their lips having parted, she would stand there at ease in his embrace...façade fractured...surrendered to vulnerability...the tranquil attractiveness she hid from sight shyly revealing itself like the first fragile ray of dawn.
         Of course she's a pilot, Span thought three years ago when they first met.  She practically radiated the need to flyaway, to rocket beyond whatever it was pressing her into that incontrovertible mold of hers.  But, by some supersaturated circumstance, he simply began to adore her; and he was relieved to see everything that seemed so unconventional about her slip away as she lingered after a kiss—her eyes closed; her face relaxed and lifted up to his.
         Their first kiss had been over a year ago—initiated by Johanna, surprisingly enough.  They had engaged in several others since, and sometimes it was just impossible for Span to view their relationship in terms other than the distance between those feral moments of affection and the expectation of the next.  None of the crewmembers were married, but he and Johanna firmly believed in the sanctity of wedded bliss and agreed to content themselves with their current level of intimacy until such a union could be arranged.  Although Span preferred a civil arrangement, he wondered if, perhaps, at some point during the mission, officiating a marital union was a service Father Benton DeLumière was expected to provide.
         Span knew that during the past three years of mission preparation similar amorous circumstances had emerged between Samuel Skylar and Mission Specialist Dr. Melissa “Mels” Morgan.  Those damn NASA mat(c)h-makers at work again.  There were, however, certain notable dissimilarities between Span’s and Skylar’s prospective helpmates: where Johanna Westral was bold and assertive, Melissa Morgan had aloof, opportunistic qualities; she liked to work alone (a disposition Span had had a difficult time ameliorating in her); when offered suggestions concerning her work, she had a tendency to personalize them until credit for them could be construed in no other way than as absolutely, undeniable hers; criticize her in even the most constructive manner, and she could fold in ways unknown to origami in an effort to alienate herself.
         Span found Dr. Morgan to be temperamental, and a perfectionist.  But being one of the few black women to have struggled their way into NASA's astronaut corps, he was quick to forgive her her—what he considered to be—competitive quirks.  And all other considerations aside, she was extremely capable, intelligent, and determined.
         Although it was his duty to critically evaluate each member of his crew, the thing Span was really trying to convey with his assessment of this particular crewmember (having tried to convey it to Skylar on several occasions), was that with NASA's less than subtle efforts at pairing the crewmembers together in the “…Adam knew Eve his wife…” way, Span knew that when it came to Melissa Morgan, Samuel Skylar had his hands full.
         But upon reflection, so did he, with Johanna Westral—

         “Jacob—I didn't mean to embarrass you,” Johanna said, spilling Span from his reverie.
         “It's not your fault, Johanna,” Span assured her.  “According to the shrinks at NASA, ease-of-embarrassment is one of my finer psychological weaknesses.  But I came to tell you we're coming up on TICO.  I need you on the camera.  Are you up to it?”
         “I can manage.”
         Span glanced at his PDA.  “Alright—we have to get set up.  We better get a move on.”
         “Just lead the way, O Captain, my Captain,” Johanna said.
         And Span did, pushing off towards the transfer-tube leading to the CEV's aft crew cabin with Johanna Westral in tow.

○

         Commander and Pilot donned com units—small, ear-mounted, wireless devices, sprouting tiny microphones that just reached the corner of the mouth.
         “Com-check, Ground—” Span said.
         “Read you loud and clear, Commander,” came an even uninflected reply in his ear.
         “Joey, are you receiving?”
         “Affirmative, Commander.”
         “Okay.  Who's CAPCOM today?”
         “Felix here, Commander.”
         “Good morning, Felix-here.  How is our visual?”
         “Framed and centered, Commander.  You look great.  Great camera work, Doctor Westral.”
         “I'm here to please,” Johanna responded.
         “All right, Houston—” Span adjusted the headset's tiny mike closer to the corner of his mouth, “—channel two is our in-house loop.  What channel are we using for the public?”
         “Um—one second, Commander...okay, we have that for you now.  Set COM-Q to broadcast over widebeam five.  That's Whiskey Bravo Five.  Copy?”
         “Span nodded to Johanna.  With a few taps across the touch screen display of her PDA, Johanna configured the ship's transmitter to broadcast their audio-visual signal over the assigned channel then nodded back.
         “Copy, Whiskey Bravo Five,” Span said.  “Okay Houston, we're ready to go live when you are.  Over.”
         “Roger, Commander.  TICO is coming up in forty-five minutes.  We go live in four.  That should allow enough time for a quick tour of the ship, and a few words from you prior to crossover.”
         “Splendid,” Span said.
         Gripping a thin titanium strut on the navigation console's display scaffolding, Span made a serious attempt to float in the most dignified position possible.
         Johanna floated upside down, relative to Span, one foot toed-into an anchor-point on aft'cab's “ceiling.”  She held the camera inverted, centering Span in the view screen—unconventional as always.
         “Joey, you're making me dizzy,” Span said.
         “You'll be fine, Commander,” Johanna said.
         “Commander Span,” CAPCOM said, “we are three minutes to live feed; we have a quick reminder about broadcasting protocol that requires your attention.”
         “Roger, Houston.  I’m all ears,” Span said slightly annoyed.
“During the broadcast, Commander, please do not mention any anomalies you might see, or may have seen; no profanity; no risqué jokes; no political statements; no overt religious references—no mentioning the names Yahweh, Jehovah, Jesus, Allah, Muhammad, Buddha, Vishnu, Odin, Ormazd, et cetera; no derogatory remarks regarding race, color, or creed; no—”
         Span frowned, tuning-out NASA's standard list of public communication restrictions.  Of this near-endless monotony of stipulations for conducting what was essentially a taxpayer-funded broadcast, the items that amused him the least—agnostic though he was; as contrary to some of his theological professions as it might seem—were those admonitions governing an astronaut's expression of faith—

         Span knew that on numerous occasions the space agency has had to defend itself against religion’s opponents—from Madalyn Murray O'Hair's lawsuit spewing her indignation of the harm she imagined done by the Apollo 8 astronauts' reading out of the Book of Genesis from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968; to last year's legal conflagration Barry Boyd had embroiled NASA in, decrying the televised memorial service held by the crew of the Lunar Horizon on the rim of Bürg crater for the four astronauts who had died there in the crash of the Eos LEM in January of '57—and that these fiery darts, flung at NASA since 1968, formed a festering wound that has in some measure infected every manned space mission since Apollo 8; even to the extent that during Apollo 11, after landing the Eagle LM on the Sea of Tranquility, Buzz Aldrin (having carried to the moon with him a small wafer, a modicum of wine, a tiny chalice, and a card on which applicable passages from the Book of John were written) was denied permission to broadcast his preparations for, and partaking of, Communion.
         It was a wonder then that NASA’s Administration, having long shown such theological trepidation, ever allowed the Judeo-Christian memorial service for the crew of the Eos LEM to be televised.  But Span wholeheartedly agreed with their decision.  Among the deceased astronauts were two of his dearest friends.  He had known them and their families for more than two decades.  He witnessed the sorrow that engulfed those families after that tragic incident took there loved-ones’ lives.  He also witnessed those family members survive those terrible days through reliance on the strength of their various faiths.
         The loss of his colleagues had driven Span to the event horizon of an emotional black hole as well.  During the series of missions that Span undertook in the months following those deaths, and at the most critical operational junctures of those missions, Span experienced fleeting yet vivid visions—visions of descent engines failing, heat shields cracking, reentry chutes collapsing, reactor cores exploding, pressure leaks slowly suffocating him and his entire crew… as if Death were advertising her services in his head.  And at the center of each of these tormenting visions, like a cold cadaver’s eye, was the charred impact crater left by the Eos LEM in the lunar regolith.
         Two years into the preparation and training for the most complex and audacious mission the human race had ever endeavored to undertake—and commanding that mission the culmination of Span’s career—Span found himself on the brink of losing his courage, his sanity, his soul.
         Then came the morning when Span did the last thing he thought he would ever do.  He collapsed to his knees on his bathroom floor, and, for the first time in his life, he prayed.
         “Oh God!” he pleaded, “Whoever you are, whatever you are…Please help me!”
         That simple prayer was cathartic.  At once, Span felt peace.  And yet within an hour he could not help but question whether this calming of his private storm was due to divine intervention, or acquiescence to emotional exhaustion.  Yes, he had knelt at the altar of crying-out-and-surrendering-to-God, but he could not consummate the sacrifice.  The scientist in him demanded a rational physiological explanation for the peace that descended upon him.  In the weeks to come, he would assure himself that it was better to err on the side of caution – as his agnosticism reasserted itself.  Still, he had gained invaluable insight into the indispensable function of faith.
         So, although NASA's apostasy was nothing new—kowtowing to antireligion disestablishmentarians; and God ejected from all mission profiles due to “impractical payload specifications”—it still really burned Span's engines to think that a miserable public minority could not find it in their hearts to refrain from bashing the various faiths of the brave men and women who daily subjected themselves to the possibility of dying in the low-paying pursuit of scientific knowledge and national prestige—

         “—and no figs, high-fives, thumbs-up, or middle fingers,” CAPCOM spouted in Span's ear.  “And remember Commander, when introducing the crewmembers we ask that you refer to Mission Specialist DeLumière as Doctor, not Father.  Okay, we go live in...Five...four...three...two...one—”

         Well, they can’t order me back now, Span thought, and with all the enthusiasm he could muster he displayed his winningest smile and exclaimed: “Greetings to the people of Earth, from the crew of MEO: Mars Endeavor One!  And good morning!  I say 'good morning' because, as some of you may know, we operate on Greenwich Mean Time aboard this ship and therefore, to us—” he checked his PDA, “—it's o'six:forty-five:twenty-three GMT.  In our previous broadcast to you, we were minutes away from what we referred to as our TMI burn: the prolonged firing of our main engines to place us on a trajectory we term trans-Mars injection.  We are pleased to report that the burn succeeded wonderfully.  By the time we reached MECO—main engine cutoff—we had attained all the acceleration we had hoped for.  Now in free flight, we have been slowly decelerating out of Earth's gravitational field.  Our Delta-V—or changing velocity—combined with the curvature of our orbital path, which greatly extends the otherwise straight-line distance we would have to travel, puts us on course to intercept the Red Planet in its orbit five months from now.
         “But in the meantime, we are on the verge of crossing a threshold that has been given slight consideration in the public arena.  For NASA's mission planners, however, and for us, it is a unique milestone.  We call this threshold TICO—Terra Incognita Crossover.  Our fancy name for the farthest point mankind, in vivo, has ever traveled beyond the reach of Earth.
         “This distance record is currently held by Asky, Gonzales, Jones, and Lizotte, the crew of the Lunar Baedeker, who in '38 placed their ship into a highly elliptical orbit around the moon at apogee.  They rode their CEV out to an apocynthion 1866-point-97 kilometers above the lunar surface—a distance of 410,175-point-97 kilometers out as measured from the center of the mass of our planet Earth.  At 410,176 kilometers, Mars Endeavor One will simply begin to shatter that record!
         “We have thirty-seven minutes before we reach TICO, and—Hey! Wouldn't you know it!  That appears to be just enough time to give y'all a quick tour of our ship!”  Span beamed as if this faux-fortuitous opportunity was the most fortunate development to have occurred aboard the ship since blasting out of low Earth orbit.
         “First, I would like to introduce our pilot, Doctor Johanna Westral.  Doctor Westral is manning the camera.  Say hello, Joey.”
         “Hello!” Johanna said, wiggling her fingers in front of the camera lens.