John Grinstead’s Reviews > Orbital > Status Update

Alaska - ‘A cloud-free confection of crackable white.’
‘The continents pass by like fields and villages from the window of a train.’

Some lovely alliteration as the space station sweeps across the globe on its penultimate orbit - “A cloud-free confection of crackable white” (Alaska)

P.111, Orbit 13 and we have our universe set against a 12 month calendar, featuring human existence coming into being mid-afternoon on NYE!

Chie’s reflections of her Mother from the photograph of her on the day of the moon landing evokes the thoughts of chance - of passing through a crack - that brought her to this place.

On contemplating replacing astronauts with robots - easier to manage, less training, no complications but “what would it be to cast out into space creations that had no eyes to see and no heart to fear or exult in it?”.

6 astronauts waking up to another day, where they circumnavigate the earth 16 times in 24 hours. They fleetingly observe changes in the weather system - tracking a large typhoon - whilst on Earth, Chie’s Mother dies.

“Turning head on heel in the slow drift of their hurtle, head on hip on hand on heel, turning and turning with the days.” the alliteration evoking the rhythm of the slow movement within the spacecraft whilst it hurtles though orbit.