The Real Reason We Went

Wednesday the 27th June 2027, that was the day I was inducted into BIED. I remember vividly sitting in a conference room surrounded by about 20 or so other recruits. There was crappy coffee and weird biscuits. Everyone awkwardly mingled, pretending to be cool and mysterious; but really everyone was absolutely buzzing to be joining a government agency. You could spot the actual astronauts a mile off, they have presence and… muscles, it was vaguely distracting. I was joining the on the ground tech team, an apprentice. I had to be honest with myself; I had been employed to make coffee and observe, but not touch, the complicated, technical work of more senior BIED employees, but I was still on the payroll and my parents were so proud. I was plucked out of university, Bristol. I was in my last year, aerospace engineering, having weekly breakdowns - panicking about what I was going to do with my life, when a letter arrived on the doormat. We stared at it, four of us sat around the kitchen table; it was made of heavy, cream paper and my name was printed in that old-style typewriter font. I cried when I saw the government's sigil thing on the top of the paper - I thought I’d done something illegal. I wasn’t really supposed to discuss much, but I blabbed. A lot. At our school reunion last year: that was the first time I declared, to an old friend, that ‘I work for The British Institute of Extraterrestrial Discovery now’. I also milked it, I told him, ‘I work for the government and can't tell you anything else about my job role’. He was an arse at school, so he kind of deserved it. 

My point is, I was supposed to be on the ground. A headset, a screen and a keyboard; I was more than happy with that. 

It was a bit of a shock. Sorry, that was an understatement. A big bloody shock, when I was called into the big boss office. I thought I was going to get fired, I took a few pens from the store cupboard a few weeks before, only because my last pen ran out and I’m terrible at keeping stocked up. I was going to put them back, I just never got around to it. I was given another ominous letter, assumed to be a P45 and the big boss gave me a slow nod, he was sitting behind a big dark oak desk like in the Godfather. I was in the office for approximately 30 seconds. I cried when I opened that letter too, mainly out of relief that I wasn’t in fact fired. The letter invited me to an induction evening to meet my new BIED specific team. I didn’t know what that meant. 

So, I rocked up to this evening, there was again more coffee and biscuits. I remember looking around and realising there were only 8 of us in the room, I was the only woman in the room and I was severely under dressed. An older gentleman across the room, suited, like most people in the room, must have seen the look on my face, because he came straight over. “You weren’t expecting this, were you?” He said with a slight laugh. He was Scottish. 

“Not exactly.” I say quietly, clasping at my slightly too hot cup of coffee. 

“Well, I am Archibald Baines,” he held out his hand for me to shake, “I’ll be the team leader, from the ground.” I took his hand hesitantly. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what I’m doing here.” I say quietly, almost a whisper. 

“You are Olivia Cotton? From engineering. Tech team.”

“Yes.” 

“I’m sorry, but you must not have understood, this is an active team you're joining. We intend to send you up with them. To Space.” He was blunt and I reacted completely off instinct. 

I swore. Loudly. Archibald let out a barking laugh and slapped me on the back. The whole room turned and stared.

My next coherent memory was seeing a Powerpoint being pulled up. There was an image of the Earth from space and some text saying, BIED TEAM 571 INDUCTION EVENING. I literally thought this was all a joke; until they switched to the next slide, labelled YOUR TEAM. There, about halfway down the page was my name, next to it read Active Technical Engineer. At that point I lost all control of myself, I ran out of the room. Straight to the nearest toilet and threw up. 

That was not the last time I threw up. Gym and fitness sessions sucked. I also, as it seems did not have the best stomach for atmospheric and zero gravity training. It was 4 years before we actually went to space and I had a lot to learn. 

Now you are all caught up.

So there we were, 5 freaking astronauts, sitting at the window of the main pod waiting to catch our first glimpse of Earth. “I’m excited.” Allan mutters to my left.

“No shit,” I reply. 

“Shut up you two,” Marshall is American, he’s been to space before and I’m not sure why he’s so uptight, “this is important.” 

Turns out Marshall was right. This was important.

They call it the ‘Overview Effect’. It is described as ‘a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from outer space.’ I learnt that from Wikipedia years ago.The feeling is so much more than that and it rocked my world. Marshall demanded that we all sit together to see the moment Earth came into view, he said it was special and every single time it was unique. I get that now. I immediately disassociated, apparently I didn’t speak or move for hours, I was just staring. The second I saw that pale blue orb I was flooded with such emotion that an overwhelming feeling of nothingness came over me. Nothing felt real. I was stuck inside my own head and just could not comprehend how this tiny, fragile ball of life was just there, a mere speck in the vastness. 

I don’t know how much time passed before I started thinking again. I thought of my family, my hometown and myself and how it didn’t really matter out here. I think I cried. I couldn't help thinking of the millions of people who don't have clean water, the unimaginable number who go to bed hungry every night, the injustice, conflicts, and poverty that remain pervasive across this tiny, beautiful oasis.

We went to space to study biometric readings from a satellite growing carrots in Mars’ atmosphere. That was our mission, but, in that moment: staring back at our brilliant jewel in the black velvet sky, it didn’t feel like the real reason we went.