As the Earth Fades

It felt something like a roller coaster, only so much more intense. Months of training may have prepared me to handle this, but there is no feeling on earth that quite illustrated how it would feel to be shot up into outer space. As the G forces eased up and the shaking calmed, we were suddenly weightless. It was not the light-hearted kind of weightlessness you feel walking outside on a sunny spring day. It was more like what you feel the second you find out a loved one has died – like you are floating away from the ground, and there is nothing you can do to regain control.

Although the physical sensations were a bit of a mystery, I had dreamed about this moment for years. This is what I trained for. This is what I fought so hard for. This is what every great astronaut describes, the one thing that will make you marvel at creation in a way that is even more profound than the birth of your own children.

Yet, there is a sense of dread in my stomach. As I unbuckle, I feel as though I have swallowed a whole box of popsicles and they refuse to melt. The artificial gravity has not been turned on yet, and I gently float up out of my seat. I know there is no time to waste.

I use the armrest to push off and propel myself toward the porthole. Before I make it to the window I can already see light. I know what lies before me is not what I have dreamed about. Will my first glimpse of earth from space look like earth at all?

Eighteen months ago, a nobody environmental grad student stumbled upon information he probably wished someone else would have found. The earth was dying. Science had finally stamped the globe with an expiration date, and it was very specific.

The grad student and his professor brought the information to the United States government, who decided to pass the challenge to the United Nations. The UN then alerted the scientists and engineers who might be able to find some sort of solution. When they were certain that there was no preventing a catastrophe, they announced to the general populace, that they would only have ten more months on planet earth.

The governments and organizations in charge almost had the public convinced that they would save everyone. But there was simply no way to launch that many people into space at once. Even if they managed to get everyone up there, it wasn’t sustainable and only prevented the inevitable mass death.

There were tests and trials and tribulations. Even some of those who had started studying space sciences years before fell behind to newcomers with greater natural talent, stronger bones, or an uncanny ability not to puke when g forces made it feel like their brain was about to explode.

It is no accident that I am here. I had to fight for my seat on this ship, and even harder for my title as Commander. So why do I still feel so ill-prepared?

One of the ship's warning alarms starts blaring. I am suddenly floating far too slowly. When I finally make it to the wall I was heading toward, the window is no longer the goal. I quickly kick-off of the wall and head for the control panel.

As I kick into problem-solving mode, I am less of the girl who grew up in Kentucky turning every Barbie she had into makeshift a Space Barbie. It’s more like I am a warrior with a single focused mission. I bark out orders and my crew quickly locates the problem.

No sooner than we find the space debris, someone is suiting up to head outside and dislodge it.

Although I know the situation is critical, I resent the waste of time, and as soon as I am sure my ship and crew are safe, I shove off of the control panel heading back for the window. My sense of urgency is ten-fold now. And the fear that I am too late grips and rips through me, like ivy vines strangling my very soul.

We were the last to take off. We were seconds away from missing our window. As we boarded our ship we had felt the ground shaking beneath us, ready to give way. The atmosphere physically changed around us as we blasted our way through it.

I make it to the port-hole window, and with numbness consuming me, I peer out at the remains.

At first, I think I am looking at the sun. Then I notice the last bit of blue and green patches toward the far edge of the sphere. The earth is incinerating before my eyes. I watch, helplessly glued to the window, as the flames engulf everything, even the last bit of water and landholding out on the sides. The ball of fire seems to shake, then pieces just begin floating away, like a bath bomb disintegrating in water. This level of destruction seems like it should come at an intense volume, but I hear nothing. It was impossible to imagine what it must have been like for those who were still there when our home caught fire and fell apart. 

I stand there, much longer than I should, just begging the world to pull itself back together. It is impossible to accept. I always dreamed of being up here, I just never imagined it would be because there was no longer anything down there. To see the earth from space for the first time, only as a means of coming to grips with the fact that indeed there was no longer planet earth, was the most detestable evil. It was as if all that I had ever wanted to be was mocking me. Though I am not proud of it, I fell apart.

The earth could never pull itself back together, but I could. My crew needed me. We had a mission. With steel pulsing through my veins, I took my spot at the control panel. I turned on the warp thrusters, and we headed into the future, leaving everything we knew behind.