Stars in His Eyes

Jason loved everything about the night sky and the position of its stars. As soon as dinner was over every night, Jason would rush out to the back yard to his beloved telescope to see what the heavens had in store for him. He relished looking up at the sky with its twinkling stars and the full moon and all the shining objects that appeared against the dark blanket of night. On more than one occasion, when it was really clear and dark, he even saw a few shooting stars! 

He soon learned the names of the most visible constellations, including Orion and Scorpius and their location in the sky. 

Whenever there was a “Show and Tell” at school, Jason always brought his telescope and a map of the skies to point out the heavenly objects he could see from his back yard. His fellow classmates were always spell-bound at his knowledge!

One day, Jason was over at his best friend Wally’s house. The two were playing in Wally’s cool tree house when his uncle came to visit the friend’s family. The uncle came out to see what his nephew and his friend were doing. The uncle climbed right up there with them in the tree house. And when his friend Wally introduced his uncle, Uncle Neil, he told him he was an astronaut. 

Jason peppered Uncle Neil with all kinds of questions about his job. It sounded so awesome to Jason and he decided right then and there that he wanted to be an astronaut, too!

When he was older, Jason looked forward to his high school chemistry and science classes. He loved every minute of them. This semester, the instructor was focusing on space science, his favorite subject. 

It was all over the news that NASA was going to launch a man into space in two weeks and Jason was very excited. He wanted to be an astronaut after college and had set his sights on that goal when he was in middle school looking up at the stars every night.

Jason and Wally both had enrolled in biology, chemistry, physics and science classes. They enrolled in all kinds of classes they thought would help them towards their future goal of becoming astronauts.

Earlier in the week, the instructor had challenged the class to design and engineer a miniature space craft. Since the impending space shuttle launch was all over the news, the instructor thought it was appropriate for the class to embrace the idea and make their dreams of space somewhat of a reality.

The instructor reminded them that the employees of NASA and even the astronauts themselves had once been in their shoes. Bright- eyed and forward-looking students dreaming of and looking forward to a career in space technology. And they obviously met their goals. 

“You’re my awesome students and you can meet your space goals, too,” the instructor said.

“So I want you to put all your knowledge, ingenuity and creativity into designing a little craft that you can launch ‘into space’ at the end of the semester. I want you to get into groups of four and put your best foot forward on this project. The best space craft design will not only get a guaranteed ‘A’ on the project, I will personally take the winning team for a field trip to NASA to meet some real astronauts!” he said.

Okay, Jason, Wally and two other classmates that comprised their team all agreed they were up to the challenge.

“Let’s do this!” they all agreed and high-fived each other.

The team got right to work designing their craft. As the team leader, Jason envisioned the spacecraft and instructed Wally to do a pencil sketch of the craft. Jason would design the electronics and propulsion apparatus for launching their craft. The other two team members would design the inside of the miniature spacecraft, as well as design a system for its safe re-entry from its deep space return velocities.

Of course, this was all an imaginary space flight, but Jason went all out. He not only wanted to win the contest and meet the astronauts, but also to design a miniature craft that for all intents and purposes could possibly be launched. Anything’s possible, right? He thought.

The little space force team of four worked feverishly and tirelessly on the project. Each worked during their class and after school until the janitor threw them out of the building at 10:00. And every weekend for the first month they got together sharing their ideas and designs until they were all satisfied with the design they had envisioned.

On the fifth weekend, they started the actual construction of the craft. It was to be silver and cylindrical in design with a tripod at the bottom for stability. 

Jason went an extra step and designed a simple reliable thruster rocket for its pretend launch. The team even added a tiny re-entry rocket to their sample space ship.

It was all coming together beautifully. It was finished! This final weekend, the team stepped back and stared in awe at what they had created. In their young eyes, it was genius – and it looked real.

They took it out behind the school yard to see what it looked like in the daylight. It was magnificent! They placed it on the metal electric box that supplied power to the school. The box was heavy-duty and had a large flat surface.

Once their ship was all set up, they found that it was a little unstable.  Jason told Wally to go into the school and get something they could hide inside the ship to make it a little heavier.

Wally went inside the school. Geez, everything is closed and locked up tight, he thought. 

But then he spied his brown bag lunch sitting on the chemistry table at the back of the classroom. He opened it and retrieved an apple. Well, I guess this is going to have to do, he thought. This is just about the right size to fit inside their ship and not weigh it down.

He took the apple outside to his team. “Hey, how about this, guys? The apple is just about the right size to sit upright inside the ship and not tip it over,” he said.

“Okay,” said Jason, “let’s try it.”

Jason placed the apple inside the miniature rocket ship. Wally was right. It was just the right size, weight and configuration. Perfect. They secured their little ship and stood back in admiration. They had done it! Surely this will win the prize!

Jason said, “Let’s take it one step further. Let’s see if we can make the ship actually launch into the air and come back down safely. That would indeed win us the big prize.” The other three team members agreed. 

“Let’s do this!” They all said in unison.

Jason pressed the rocket’s propulsion mechanism. The little rocket seemed to come to life. Steam and smoke came out of the bottom. It started to vibrate and within 20 seconds, their four-member high school space force silver, cylinder-shaped miniature rocket ship lifted off the metal electrical box!

The little rocket ship launched straight up, soared over the tops of the sycamore trees, continued past the historical outdoor two-story clock and sailed right out of sight. The team stared straight up into nothingness. The rocket had disappeared leaving just a contrail of steam in its wake. The team continued to stare upward in disbelief. What had happened to their rocket ship? Where was it? The team started to panic. Jason ordered the team to spread out and look for the ship and meet back there in an hour. 

“Surely it couldn’t have gone too far, right?” He said nervously. Jason, Wally and the other two team members searched and searched. Their calculations showed it couldn’t have gone more than a few hundred yards. Its trajectory and thus its landing spot had to be here. They searched and searched. They looked under trees, in people’s yards, in nearby parking lots, on top of the cars in the parking lots. Nothing. Their little silver ship was nowhere to be found. The team decided they should fess up to their instructor that Monday. Jason stepped forward and informed the instructor that they finished their ship and couldn’t wait to give it a test run. They were sure it would work and would win them that coveted first prize!

He further explained they had launched it perfectly, but it never came back to the ground – anywhere - because they looked everywhere. The instructor was not happy with the team. “Your space ship project seems to have fallen flat,” he said dryly.

Jason’s team was really sad and unbelievably disappointed. Their fabulous ship they had worked so very hard on for weeks and weeks was gone.

How did it not work and come back down, he thought. I checked and double-checked the math. That little ship was constructed correctly to the millimeter!

Several weeks passed since the launching of Jason and Wally’s ill-fated space ship. Then the weeks became months and the months turned into nearly a year. Jason, Wally and the other team members were now in their senior year of high school. 

One night, Jason and Wally were outside in the parking lot with their classmates and a new instructor. They had not let their huge disappointment of losing their rocket ship stop them from continuing on with their important science classes. 

The class was observing a nighttime eclipse when out of nowhere, there was an odd sound, a whirring sound. Everyone heard it. It seemed to be coming from the farthest part of the parking lot. Then suddenly, something hit the parking lot with a thud, narrowly missing the instructor’s Cadillac SUV!

Bang! The class of students and their instructor ran over to the object that had fallen from the sky. Jason and Wally recognized it right away: it was their little silver space ship! There it was!

“Holy cow! That’s our experimental space ship that Wally and I and two others worked on last year! We gave it a test launch and it never came back down. Now here it is a year later! Oh my goodness!” cried Jason. 

He and Wally rushed over and retrieved the little space ship. It was in very bad shape. It was full of dings and holes and was totally discolored on the outside. It was no long silver or cylindrically shaped. It was more of a darkened turquoise blue color and the top of the rocket was more oval shaped and flattened out.

When he picked it up, the bottom of the rocket where the triangular legs and stable bar were fell off in Jason’s hand.

And the apple that they had placed in the little ship fell out into his hand as well. The apple looked exactly the same as when they had placed it in the ship.

“Wow, how can this be after a year?” Jason said out loud. He turned the apple over and over in his hand. Everyone, including the instructor, stared in awe and amazement at the year-old apple. It was still firm and red and ripe and even had the stem still sticking out of the top.

But there was a bite taken out of it.

Jason and Wally, the instructor and the rest of the class all turned and looked up at the night sky simultaneously with all its twinkling stars and wondered…