Artemis I Has A Stowaway - Day 13
November 28th, 2022
With comms back up properly the flight surgeon has a look at my toes, and says they’ll probably be ok. NASA spends six hours of horror making me re-enact everything that I did to try and “fix” things. Horror? Remember how I was telling you I could hear Mark cringe over the radio? Yeah, he’s horrified at some of the buttons I decided to mash.
I’ve missed them.
Eventually though they’re down to having me measure how much duct tape is left on the roll, and I’m feeling like life’s getting back to normal. It’s a bit like I just survived some kind of natural disaster and I’ve come home to a dad that can’t really relate, so all he says when he sees me is, “I’m so glad you’re safe - take out the garbage.”
I love you too NASA.
“Alex, this is Charlie,” the radio call comes in while I’m elbow deep in the toilet’s pluming, though at least it’s very clean plumbing. Charlie’s got a really expressive voice actually, good radio voice. I could tell when she was pissed the first time we talked, I could tell when she was thrilled when we got back in touch, and now I can tell she’s in a more business as usual mode.
“Hey Charlie. How’s it going down there?” What else do you say to your former boss’s boss’s boss?
“Honestly Alex, it’s a complete circus. We really would have preferred you not have told folks what was going on when you were trying to get in touch. It’s kicked off a media storm down here.”
“I’m surprised you hadn’t told everyone about me. I mean wouldn’t they find out when I had a trial?”
“The plan was to give you a choice when you got back. A very loud trial with a very long sentence, or a silent plea bargain with a light sentence and the promise this all stays quiet. “
“Magnanimous of NASA.”
“Yeah, well that’s all off the table now. But…” she says, and I can see why radio procedure comes in handy, it would be nice if everyone had to say ‘over’ when they are done with a sentence.
She wasn’t done and continued. “You’ve got a hell of a story right now Alex and we can turn this into a win-win. You give some interviews, tell your tale, emphasize what a good job NASA is doing and what a good ship Orion is, and once you’re back maybe public opinion is so much in your favour, and NASA is so happy with how it all turned out in the end, a slap on the wrist is in the cards.”
“Seriously?” In retrospect I think that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever said in my life. I am pretty sure it made me sound like a five-year-old who had been naughty, and it would have played out for the entire control room to hear.
On the other hand, if you ever do something really cringy and feel terrible about yourself, just close your eyes and imagine a NASA control room. Imagine that huge room filled with the world’s leading experts in their fields, professionals at the heights of their careers, and I guarantee they’ve all done far cringier things than whatever it was you just did.
Long story short, I’m having a radio interview with Oprah. Oh, and I’m not going to jail. Probation, lots and lots of probation, but not jail - assuming Oprah likes me.
Fun story, true story, you know how long I had between “hey maybe it would be a good idea if you did an interview with Oprah, and if you do well you don’t go to jail,” and “hey Oprah, it’s great to meet you”? Thirty-seven minutes.
Mark gave me some good advice going into it though, or, rather he gave me some advice, and I’ll know how good or bad it is once I’m back. “Just talk to her like you would a friend. Be honest, be yourself, don’t worry about making her or her audience like you. Just let them see who you are. People like authenticity and there’s no time to polish you up or focus group what you’re saying, so don’t even try.”
Anyways, Oprah, nice lady. Mostly it was just retelling the story backwards. How I saved Artemis I, then how I snuck onboard. Then the conversation turned to why I snuck onboard.
“You had a pretty recent breakup, didn’t you?” Oprah asked. She has a remarkably soft voice. Is that why she’s so famous? She asks these personal questions and it kind of feels like you’re sitting in the office of a guidance counselor who just wants what’s best for you.
“Yeah. But I didn’t do this to win Jess back if that’s what you mean.” And that was true. But if she happened to come to see me in a different light, and if that light happened to show her why my weird personality quirks were actually admirable skills, and if that revelation made her want to get back together…
“I was wondering how the breakup changed your outlook,” she said.
I probably should have prepared for this. Honestly when I imagined monologuing about what I’d done it was always to a judge and jury, never to the press. The truth? When you love someone, think they’re amazing, want to go see the world with them and have little babies you can dress up as Tesla and Edison… Well, you really want that person to feel the same way about you, to admire you like you admire them. And when, instead, they dump you… they don’t even like you… That sucks in all kinds of ways.
Are you actually worthless? I mean hey you also just got that form rejection letter from NASA telling you that you’re not good enough for your childhood dream. Sure, a degree in aerospace engineering isn’t nothing, but that just means I’m good at math, society’s least sexy and valued skill. I mean seriously if you were playing the video game of life and you could be good at anything, “math” would be a stupid skill tree to select.
I know what you’re thinking, ‘whatever you say to Oprah, don’t say that stuff.’ I said that stuff.
“It sounds a bit like you feel you were in the wrong place. Do you feel like you’re in the right one now?”
“I just saw this empty seat on Artemis I and couldn’t stand the idea of everything I’d always wanted just being… an empty seat that no one was going to take.”
“You’ve broken some laws doing this.”
“Yeah. I didn’t actually stop to figure out which laws exactly, or what the punishment was. But like… it’s obviously got to be all kinds of illegal to do this.”
“What do you think should happen to you when you get back?” Oprah asked.
I really wish I had a PR person. What’s the answer to that? When in doubt, go with the truth.
“Same thing as I think should happen to everyone else who breaks a law. You look at the harm caused, the need to make sure the victims feel vindicated, the need to deter other people from doing what I did or some variation of it, what it would take to stop me from doing this again, and whether I’m a danger to society and need to be isolated. Mix that stuff all together and figure out how long I should be in jail.”
“It sounds like you’re saying you shouldn’t be in jail very long,” Oprah said and, there’s this ambiguity in her tone. I have no idea what she thinks. Is she amused? Is she testing? Is she just putting it out there because I dodged the question.
“I don’t think I’m an evil person… Just naughty.”
NASA didn’t feel like telling me how they thought I did. So I had a Skor bar and when I closed my eyes to sleep, I thanked god that the interview wasn’t playing back in my mind as a horror reel.
***
I’m Nathan H. Green, a science-fiction writer with a degree in aerospace engineering, and
I’m going to be doing daily semi-fictional stories tracking the Artemis I mission. You can follow along through my reddit (u/authornathanhgreen).
Artemis I Has A Stowaway is a work of semi-fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue and sentiments (which are not part of the mission’s official history), are entirely fictional. Where real historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, sentiments, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events, personality, disposition, or attitudes of the real person, nor to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Save the above, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© 2022 Nathan H. Green
With comms back up properly the flight surgeon has a look at my toes, and says they’ll probably be ok. NASA spends six hours of horror making me re-enact everything that I did to try and “fix” things. Horror? Remember how I was telling you I could hear Mark cringe over the radio? Yeah, he’s horrified at some of the buttons I decided to mash.
I’ve missed them.
Eventually though they’re down to having me measure how much duct tape is left on the roll, and I’m feeling like life’s getting back to normal. It’s a bit like I just survived some kind of natural disaster and I’ve come home to a dad that can’t really relate, so all he says when he sees me is, “I’m so glad you’re safe - take out the garbage.”
I love you too NASA.
“Alex, this is Charlie,” the radio call comes in while I’m elbow deep in the toilet’s pluming, though at least it’s very clean plumbing. Charlie’s got a really expressive voice actually, good radio voice. I could tell when she was pissed the first time we talked, I could tell when she was thrilled when we got back in touch, and now I can tell she’s in a more business as usual mode.
“Hey Charlie. How’s it going down there?” What else do you say to your former boss’s boss’s boss?
“Honestly Alex, it’s a complete circus. We really would have preferred you not have told folks what was going on when you were trying to get in touch. It’s kicked off a media storm down here.”
“I’m surprised you hadn’t told everyone about me. I mean wouldn’t they find out when I had a trial?”
“The plan was to give you a choice when you got back. A very loud trial with a very long sentence, or a silent plea bargain with a light sentence and the promise this all stays quiet. “
“Magnanimous of NASA.”
“Yeah, well that’s all off the table now. But…” she says, and I can see why radio procedure comes in handy, it would be nice if everyone had to say ‘over’ when they are done with a sentence.
She wasn’t done and continued. “You’ve got a hell of a story right now Alex and we can turn this into a win-win. You give some interviews, tell your tale, emphasize what a good job NASA is doing and what a good ship Orion is, and once you’re back maybe public opinion is so much in your favour, and NASA is so happy with how it all turned out in the end, a slap on the wrist is in the cards.”
“Seriously?” In retrospect I think that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever said in my life. I am pretty sure it made me sound like a five-year-old who had been naughty, and it would have played out for the entire control room to hear.
On the other hand, if you ever do something really cringy and feel terrible about yourself, just close your eyes and imagine a NASA control room. Imagine that huge room filled with the world’s leading experts in their fields, professionals at the heights of their careers, and I guarantee they’ve all done far cringier things than whatever it was you just did.
Long story short, I’m having a radio interview with Oprah. Oh, and I’m not going to jail. Probation, lots and lots of probation, but not jail - assuming Oprah likes me.
Fun story, true story, you know how long I had between “hey maybe it would be a good idea if you did an interview with Oprah, and if you do well you don’t go to jail,” and “hey Oprah, it’s great to meet you”? Thirty-seven minutes.
Mark gave me some good advice going into it though, or, rather he gave me some advice, and I’ll know how good or bad it is once I’m back. “Just talk to her like you would a friend. Be honest, be yourself, don’t worry about making her or her audience like you. Just let them see who you are. People like authenticity and there’s no time to polish you up or focus group what you’re saying, so don’t even try.”
Anyways, Oprah, nice lady. Mostly it was just retelling the story backwards. How I saved Artemis I, then how I snuck onboard. Then the conversation turned to why I snuck onboard.
“You had a pretty recent breakup, didn’t you?” Oprah asked. She has a remarkably soft voice. Is that why she’s so famous? She asks these personal questions and it kind of feels like you’re sitting in the office of a guidance counselor who just wants what’s best for you.
“Yeah. But I didn’t do this to win Jess back if that’s what you mean.” And that was true. But if she happened to come to see me in a different light, and if that light happened to show her why my weird personality quirks were actually admirable skills, and if that revelation made her want to get back together…
“I was wondering how the breakup changed your outlook,” she said.
I probably should have prepared for this. Honestly when I imagined monologuing about what I’d done it was always to a judge and jury, never to the press. The truth? When you love someone, think they’re amazing, want to go see the world with them and have little babies you can dress up as Tesla and Edison… Well, you really want that person to feel the same way about you, to admire you like you admire them. And when, instead, they dump you… they don’t even like you… That sucks in all kinds of ways.
Are you actually worthless? I mean hey you also just got that form rejection letter from NASA telling you that you’re not good enough for your childhood dream. Sure, a degree in aerospace engineering isn’t nothing, but that just means I’m good at math, society’s least sexy and valued skill. I mean seriously if you were playing the video game of life and you could be good at anything, “math” would be a stupid skill tree to select.
I know what you’re thinking, ‘whatever you say to Oprah, don’t say that stuff.’ I said that stuff.
“It sounds a bit like you feel you were in the wrong place. Do you feel like you’re in the right one now?”
“I just saw this empty seat on Artemis I and couldn’t stand the idea of everything I’d always wanted just being… an empty seat that no one was going to take.”
“You’ve broken some laws doing this.”
“Yeah. I didn’t actually stop to figure out which laws exactly, or what the punishment was. But like… it’s obviously got to be all kinds of illegal to do this.”
“What do you think should happen to you when you get back?” Oprah asked.
I really wish I had a PR person. What’s the answer to that? When in doubt, go with the truth.
“Same thing as I think should happen to everyone else who breaks a law. You look at the harm caused, the need to make sure the victims feel vindicated, the need to deter other people from doing what I did or some variation of it, what it would take to stop me from doing this again, and whether I’m a danger to society and need to be isolated. Mix that stuff all together and figure out how long I should be in jail.”
“It sounds like you’re saying you shouldn’t be in jail very long,” Oprah said and, there’s this ambiguity in her tone. I have no idea what she thinks. Is she amused? Is she testing? Is she just putting it out there because I dodged the question.
“I don’t think I’m an evil person… Just naughty.”
NASA didn’t feel like telling me how they thought I did. So I had a Skor bar and when I closed my eyes to sleep, I thanked god that the interview wasn’t playing back in my mind as a horror reel.
***
I’m Nathan H. Green, a science-fiction writer with a degree in aerospace engineering, and
I’m going to be doing daily semi-fictional stories tracking the Artemis I mission. You can follow along through my reddit (u/authornathanhgreen).
Artemis I Has A Stowaway is a work of semi-fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue and sentiments (which are not part of the mission’s official history), are entirely fictional. Where real historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, sentiments, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events, personality, disposition, or attitudes of the real person, nor to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Save the above, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© 2022 Nathan H. Green
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