The astronaut

The roar of rocket thrusters, the shaking of the shuttle, rattling the inside of the capsule invigorated me. The force of gravity made me feel as though i was melting into my seat. "We have lift off", static in my ear from the earpiece of NASA confirming we were air bound. Straight through the clouds, the ground disappearing within seconds. Instruments glowing and gages flowing, telling us the temperature and altitude.

The heat of the atmosphere sucking the ship in and spitting it out into darkness. The vastness of it all was breath taking. As the engine slowed the static in my earpiece came again, "Houston we made". I looked at my pilot and i smiled, I couldnt believe I was in space. I no longer was melted into my seat, rather floating with my seatbelt holding me down.

We checked all the gages to make sure everything was still working and we had oxygen. I gave a thumbs up and took off my helmet and seatbelt. I instantly floated to the top of the shuttle. I grabbed the bars that were welded throughout the ship to help guide us as we floated into different parts of the shuttle. The static in my earpiece came again, "I'm going to get some shut eye", said the pilot disappearing into the sleeping quarters. "Roger that" I replied floating to the kitchen for a bite to eat. I unlatched the cabinet door and opened it to reveal silver packages that were generically marked, turkey sandwich. I proceeded to open the package and the sandwich floated into the air. I disposed of the package into a latched box on the wall marked, trash reciprocal. I grabbed the sandwich, and headed back into cock pit. We were to take turns sleeping to make sure we didnt drift off course.

As i ate my sandwich, I was still in amazement that, I was in outter space. I looked out the left side of the window and saw planet earth, my beautiful blue and green home. My earpiece started to static and a voice came into my ear, "how does everything look up there". I replied, "like the most beautful, peaceful black sea". The voice said, "10-4 apollo, enjoy the scenery, you have about 2 days till you reach your destination". "Roger that, over and out", I signed off the radio for the night. A few hours later the pilot floated into the cockpit. "How did you sleep" I asked. "Like a baby" said the pilot. As the pilot sat in his seat, I floated back to the bedroom and strapped myself in to go to sleep. I wondered how I was going to sleep considering I was so excited. I pushed the button in the side of the bed that said, sleep chamber. A plastic bubble covered the bed and soothing sounds and smells filled the bed. I was asleep instantly.

I woke up and pushed the button to release the cover. I stretched and floated into the cockpit area where the pilot was sitting. "Good morning sunshine", said the pilot. He told me we were about 5 hours from our destination. We went and had some food, played some cards and talked about the trip for a little before houston came into our earpiece. "Apollo, you are almost to your destination, suit up and strap in for decent". The pilot replied, "roger that Houston". We suited-up, put on our helmets with oxygen, strapped ourselves in, and got ready to descend down to our destination. We had a very smooth landing on to the planet surface. We took off our seatbelts, got out of the chair and headed to the shuttle door. As the door opened we proceeded to walk down the stairs onto the planet surface. We were very bouncy, but had some gravity. We collected a few samples of dirt and rocks, and got back on to the shuttle.

Static in the earpiece again, "Houston, mission complete, we're heading home". There was clapping in the back ground and a voice said, "come home". We lifted off the planet surface without a problem and headed back to our planet earth. The trip to space was short but sweet, and I will never forget it.