Word Count:\u00a0 219<\/p>\n

It seemed to be taking forever. Waiting for clearance for liftoff. The hours of delay. The months and final weeks of preparation for this first trip to Mars.<\/p>\n

He squirmed a bit in his seat. Radioed for clearance to unbuckle and float. His back was kinked into position. His legs starting to doze into sleep.<\/p>\n

He felt better as soon as he stretched, bounced around, touching off walls. Had a snack with mission control\u2019s reluctant permission. Sat back down, refreshed, settled in.<\/p>\n

It still seemed to be taking forever. The planet no longer in view. They confirmed they\u2019d had to make one small adjustment, realignment. No problem, no worry,<\/em> they said.<\/p>\n

He was the first, was the most trusted, the most experienced astronaut they\u2019d been willing to send. He knew the dangers as well as he\u2019d known the controls. Still, it seemed so much longer to get there than planned. They told him that was all right. Joked about light years and referred to the extra time spent on the pad.<\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t we tell him?<\/em> the second man in control on the ground asked the first.<\/p>\n

How long will the oxygen hold? <\/em>was the reply.<\/p>\n

Not much longer, an hour, maybe two\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

He\u2019ll just go to sleep. We can’t fix it now and it’s better that he’ll never know.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Word Count:\u00a0 219 It seemed to be taking forever. Waiting for clearance for liftoff. The hours of delay. The months and final weeks of preparation for this first trip to Mars. He squirmed a bit in his seat. Radioed for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[25,24],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-100-days-2012","category-horror","tag-100-days-2012","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1438,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions\/1438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}