SSF Assignments - Moonstar

Moonstar

The infinite black mass, spanning uncountable distances and filled with irregularly placed white specks of blinding light, drowned the cosmos in darkness, leaving behind a plain canvas of shadows for the art of nebulae and planets to leave behind their many spectrums of colour for the universe to awe upon. With objects of all shapes and sizes floating in the zero-gravity environment, space truly is a masterpiece to gaze at and draw incredible imagination and ideas from. Conquering the corners of the vast galaxy may be the next step for humanity and attempting to discover the long-theorised possibilities of extra-terrestrial lifeforms, hiding away to keep astronomers questioned on their existence.

The rough silver pearl, hanging alone in the Earth's orbit, sat facing its owner, waiting for another being to set foot on its dusty surface. Its craters, rising as high as mountains and dipping as low as canyons, are prominent features of the natural satellite, standing out as uniquely shaped circles and covered the grey sphere. At night, from the point of view of a person on the planet, the Moon may appear to take many varieties of a crescent shape as a result of being invaded by a sea of pitch-black shadows.

Earth's appearance from space accurately reflected the imagery of a diamond blue and emerald green marble, standing out against the other planets in the Solar System. At least, that's what it looked like from Robert Stuartson's perspective.

His view from the cockpit of Mercury Four was incomparable to any other he had seen in his life. As a man who had visited the majority of countries with stunning scenery and beautiful locations, he considered himself an expert in identifying and finding the most unique of settings. Growing up in the United States of America had allowed him to traverse the various lands and that eventually led to his desire to see the world country by country. His obsession soon landed him a job with NASA, the American aeronautics and aerospace research administration, who offered to let him view the whole planet at once with the new space program to orbit the Earth and then land on the Moon to conduct analysis on newly discovered radiation spikes that were detected not so long ago. Stuartson's wife and only child were always supportive of his endeavours. Even though he and his family had moved to England to visit the rich history and landscape that it owned, it didn't stop him from fulfilling his job as a Captain for NASA in America.

Mercury Four was NASA's fourth attempt at sending a rocket to the Moon after a series of failures with the previous models. They were running tests on this one for well over half a year and whilst projected results appeared to be promising, they still had their doubts and concerns. The sleek white rocket, featuring three orange lines in memory of the previous models and crew members, had three lower fins and one main thruster as well as miniature stabilisers towards the lower end of the hull. This was one of NASA's rare decisions to launch single crew missions into space to completely minimise the risk of losing too many lives. Thankfully, they had full trust in Stuartson and were convinced, along with their carefully planned and thought-out equations, that this mission would be successful.

Stuartson shifted his gaze from the planet to the photo of his family, consisting of himself, his wife and son. He was already missing them as a result of leaving for the launch. He was also regretting his decision to accept the mission as he was no longer able to watch his son in a Rounders championship tournament. Stuartson loved his son as much as any father should and made a promise to his son to never miss an important moment of his life again. After a small smile formed on his face at the thought of his family, Stuartson straightened the image on the NymeTech console and sat back with his hands firmly gripping Mercury Four's controls.

That's when the alarms blared.

Red lighting consumed the cockpit and Stuartson began to breathe heavily in a panicked state. In any case, he was instructed to inform NASA base of any errors and use the on-board scanners to detect potential threats to the rocket. After punching a few keys on the monitor, Stuartson reported his situation to NASA.