Innovation

The Prime Space Station orbited serenely above the Earth, lights from various generators and power sources blinking red, blue, and green. Currently manned by a crew of three scientists, the station was modelling the latest in experimental technologies, including a gravity-controlled environment and an energy field enveloping the craft to defend against space debris. The energy field, a faint green net surrounding the station in a bubble, looked as though it would be humming like an electric fence if it could be heard in space. However, the only humming to be heard came from inside the station, emitted by hard-working scientific equipment and the hard-working scientist monitoring it. Penny liked to imitate the pitch of the machine she was working at and make up a little song for herself. Creating harmony with the station, she called it.

Today she was checking up on another experimental addition to the station, a small fresh-food storage unit. It was essentially a compact mini-fridge that could both store and transport fresh produce and meats to and from Earth. While on the station, it clamped into the wall and converted excess heat from the energy field generators into cooling power for the food it held. Normally, maintenance of the unit was done by Milo, the other technician on the station, but Penny had had to take it over from him just a few minutes ago when he received an emergency call from his wife, who had just gone into labour with their first child.

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Milo loved his job doing upkeep and repairs on new spacefaring technology. However, this was one mission he had been reluctant to leave for, as his wife was coming up on her due date. When he had expressed his concerns to her, she had looked him square in the face with her deep, earnest, tired eyes, and assured him that she would be fine. As always, Milo had not been able to argue while gazing into Those Eyes, and had decided to come on the mission. Now, he was thoroughly regretting his choice as he desperately tried to look calm and supportive through the Skype window, white-hot knives of guilt and anxiety turning in his stomach.

“You’re doing great, honey. You’re going to be just fine. I’ll be right here the whole time, I promise.” He gripped the sides of the tablet very tightly as he forced what he thought was a comforting smile onto his face.

From the hospital in Vancouver, over 300 kilometers below, his wife laughed, seeing right through his attempted show of strength. “I know, love. I’m glad you’re here.”

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Key, the third member of the current crew on the PSS, gave a nod to Penny as they passed by her at the food storage unit, heading towards their monitoring workstation. They were the only researcher aboard the station since this was primarily an experimental mission to test out new technology, but the Administration of Space Exploration had wanted to continue scientific experiments at the station during the mission in a limited capacity. Key had been thrilled to be chosen for the mission, but you’d never know it from their aloof, stoic exterior.

They sat down at their station, comprised of three holographic computer screens. Each screen showed streams of data from the probes the ASE had launched to other worlds to study their atmospheres and gain more insight into potentially habitable planets. Two of the probes in the Kepler series were showing promising results, indicating intact ozone layers and acceptable nitrogen and oxygen levels. Key made a note of them and smiled fondly at the screens, proud of their work. They pulled up a new window on the middle computer screen which showed early designs for an extremely long-range probe, which would be able to go further in space than anything yet created by humans. Key had just begun tapping on various parts of the blueprint and completing some basic calculations when they heard a yelp and a thunk from back down the hall where Penny had been working. Confused, they turned in their chair and started to stand up but gave a yelp themself when the whole station suddenly went dark.

A third yelp was heard almost simultaneously from Milo’s room.  For a terrifying moment, all three crew members felt themselves become weightless as the gravity controls were knocked offline. Key, assuming the worst, began calculating how much breathable air the crew had left. They all knew there were systems in place to restore life-maintaining power in the event of an emergency, but in that pitch-black moment the three of them suddenly became very aware that they were small, fragile humans, protected from the crushing void of space by nothing more than a tin box.

Finally, the welcoming sound of whirring machinery returned to the station as the emergency power booted up. Dim red lights fluttered into existence along the walls and floors, and gravity returned to normal, accompanied by the loud thumping of three bodies onto the floor. Immediately, Key rushed from their room to find Penny, who was clambering to her feet with a grimace.

“What happened?” they demanded. “I was working on my long-range probe design. If it didn’t save before the power crashed I might lose everything!”

Penny winced at their confrontational tone, looking like a wounded puppy. Key backpedalled slightly. “Sorry. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” She sighed and gestured to the food storage unit, which was a blackened husk of its former self. “I must have tried to reroute too much power from the generators. The poor thing couldn’t handle it all and kind of exploded. I’m so sorry about this, Key.”

Key’s expression was unforgiving, but they said tartly, “It’s fine. I’m going to go check on the hydroponics bay.” They turned on their heel and marched away. Penny grimaced, finished dusting herself off, then remembered Milo and his video call. She began to head in his direction but soon heard footsteps running towards her. Milo appeared around the corner, looking terrified.

“Penny! What’s going on? I need to call her back!” he gasped. Penny gestured hopelessly at the destroyed food storage unit, feeling more guilty by the moment. Milo looked as though he might pass out. He ran his hands through his hair and started pacing in small circles, breathing shallowly.

“I think it’ll be best if we all get to the mess hall and figure out a plan together. I’ll make sure word gets down to the planet and we’ll get some help right away.” Penny put an arm around Milo’s shoulders and began gently leading him away from the exploded storage unit.

               They found Key already in the mess hall, muttering to themself and scribbling in a notebook as they paced around a dark corner at the far end of the room. They hardly looked up as Penny and Milo entered. Penny sat Milo down in one of the plastic chairs, which had thankfully been bolted to the ground and stayed upright when the gravity controls were temporarily off. Fairly confident that Key and Milo would remain where they were for the time being, she left the room again to head towards the communications area.

               All the computer screens that could normally contact Earth at a moment’s notice were dark, but the station kept rocket flares that could be shot harmlessly into the planet’s atmosphere in the event of an emergency outage like this. The rockets homed in on the nearest ASE base below the station’s current orbit and exploded into colourful fireworks in the sky above it, notifying the teams there that the station required assistance. Penny swung open the door to the cabinet containing the yellow-and-black-striped launch lever, gave it a quarter-turn, and pushed down. A whirring was heard as the bay doors below the communications area opened. Penny knew the flare would soon drop out of the bottom and hurtle towards Earth. Satisfied, she hurried back to the mess hall.

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“I’ve manually launched a flare down to the planet,” she said as she re-entered, picking out a thick wool blanket from the supply closet and draping it around Milo’s shoulders. “I’m sure the power will be back on soon so we don’t have much to worry about, but better safe than sorry. At least the life support and gravity controls are still working!”

“Not much to worry about?” Key snapped, arms folded as they leaned back into the crook of the wall, their face obscured in shadow. “We’re losing data every second we’re in the dark. I can’t communicate with any of my atmospheric probes and if we can’t turn the UV incubators back on soon, we’ll lose all the progress on our Tau Ceti e soil experiments!”

Penny gave a sympathetic grimace from her chair beside Milo. She didn’t know what to say. Key was the most passionate scientist she knew. They had overcome massive obstacles and made huge sacrifices to be in this station right now, and constantly put everything they had into their projects. To them, losing even a few bytes of data must be incredibly frustrating. However, they also had a tendency to overreact when things went wrong, and to focus more on themself than others in bad situations.  Penny decided words of comfort might not do much good right now and stood up to fetch another blanket for them instead, but paused in her venture when Milo spoke, his voice filled with anxiety-fueled exasperation.

“We’ve been collecting data on Earth and other worlds for literal centuries. A few minutes of down time won’t kill you. But this is the only time in all those centuries that my first kid will be born, and –“ he sniffed and then let out a shaky breath, “ – and I’m probably going to miss it.”

Key’s face betrayed a small amount of guilt and their stiff defensive posture relaxed slightly. “Well, women are usually in labour for hours and hours, right? So even if this outage lasts all night, you still have a chance to see the birth. Meanwhile if we’re in the dark for that long, I’m completely screwed. All my samples will be spoiled and it’ll take forever to re-run all those tests. I won’t see proper results until your kid’s half grown up.”

Milo sighed. As usual, Key’s attempts to reassure someone had mostly resulted in condescension and self-centralism. Lacking the energy to argue further, he replied resignedly, “I guess we’ll just have to have to be patient then.”

“Besides, when do we ever get a chance to see a view like this?”

Penny’s voice piped up unexpectedly, filled with wonder. While Milo and Key were arguing, she had turned to look out the planet-side window. With the energy field in place, the view had been rather muddied. Now, she could clearly see the Earth’s surface below them. Vast oceans of magnificent blue dotted with swirls of white and grey clouds, bordered by textured tundra and peaceful expanses of farmland. Tiny islands dotting the expanses of ocean, like younger siblings to the neighbouring continents and land masses. Spidery networks of light connected by glowing orange hubs, indicating centres of human activity. She could even catch a glimpse of wispy, vibrant green and purple light snaking above the sky – aurora borealis.

               Milo turned to look out the window as well, and Key raised their head and leaned over from their corner to see. The general pall of anxiety that had gripped the crew since the station went dark was suddenly replaced with a hushed awe. The three of them were once again made suddenly aware of how small they were, but in a much different way than when the power had first gone out. In the two weeks they had been on the station, the constantly flashing screens and noisy machines and the excitement of pioneering new technology had completely blinded them to what they were missing out on. Almost unconsciously, the three crew members drew close together at the window, united by childlike wonder at the planet they had not seen properly in a long time. Penny gazed down at her home, her pressing guilt over causing the accident fading from a gnawing to a faint throb. Despite the worry and guilt still tying knots in Milo’s stomach, he allowed himself a small smile as he looked out at the world his child would grow up in. Key slid their notebook back into their pocket and, for the first time in a long time, let themself stop analyzing every bit of available data and simply took in the world as it was. And when power eventually returned to the station and the crew’s life went back to normal, each one of them found a small part of themselves wishing for another night of darkness to once again see that perfect view of the Earth.