The Light Beckons

Day Before Launch: Well, here we go, expedition 13 into the farther reaches of our galaxy. It's pretty weird how casually that can be said now. In the event that someone in the future or some alien that can miraculously speak English finds this, you are currently reading the log of Commander Carlos McGavin, head of the Deep Space Exploration branch of NASA. As I write this, I look down at Earth from the ISS, waiting for our launch tomorrow. With the fairly new invention of the Cosmos Propulsion Cannon (basically a giant slingshot in space), we can reach deep space safely at incredible speed. With this new means of exploring our galaxy, I really feel as if there's been a ton of hope instilled into the human race. On this exploration, we will be attempting to reach a solar system of particular interest. On a planet with a similar readings to Earth, yellow lights have been occasionally seen flashing across its surface. Although it is exciting to believe, light does not equal life. We had an almost identical situation happen on expedition 4. We saw a planet with flashing lights and showed up to a giant black rock with constant lightning storms; no thanks. I would be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for aliens though. Whether they look just like us or look like E.T., that would arguably be the biggest discovery in the history of mankind. Tomorrow could be the beginning of a new era. However, that's tomorrow. I better get to bed soon, I don't want to crash into a star because I was sleepy. Until next time. (Hopefully)

Day 1: Thankfully everything went pretty smoothly. We've mostly lost the speed of the canon launch, just drifting towards the destination at a steady pace. I think I can speak for the entire crew when it comes to this; I'm so damn thankful to be off that space station. The place is too cramped, we all get spoiled after having spent so much time on our rather spacious ship during missions. It's come a long way from bumping into something every time you turn around on the ISS. The planet in question is a bit clearer to see now, the yellow bursts of light only taking place on the defined land of the planet, everything else being surrounded by water. I'm feeling really good about this one.

Day 3: Woke up this morning to a blaring siren. Not a nice way to start the day thinking you might be sucked out into the endless void of space. Thankfully Briggs just forgot to lock the waste chute. Looking back at what I just wrote, morning... are there mornings in space? Wake up, black. Go to sleep, black. Whatever, it is what it is. The crew and I took bets on if this will be the one. Carrie and I voted yes, everyone else voted no. They're just not looking on the bright side. (Can I say bright side while being surrounded by the darkness of space?)

Day 7: Nothing noteworthy has happened in the past few days, however this morning something really strange happened. When we were eating breakfast, Kelsey started talking about a dream she had last night. In summary, she was at home in her pool lying on her back. Suddenly, the sky turned red and there was a flashing red light in the sky. You might be thinking; Okay? It sounds just like a normal weird dream. Now under any other circumstance, I would be inclined to agree. However, the dream I had last night had eerily similar aspects to hers. I was in my car, driving to work. I was the only car on the road in a usually busy town. The light switched from green to yellow and I sped past it hoping to not get caught. The next light did the same thing, and then the next. Not wanting to push my luck I pushed on the brake as the next light turned to yellow. My car came to a stop under the yellow light. The light then switched to red and started rapidly flaring, illuminating the sky with each burst. After I finished recounting my dream, Carrie and Briggs spoke up, sharing their versions of how they encountered this ominous red light. Everyone has been pretty quiet for the rest of the day. I think this little (hopefully) coincidence gave everyone a little spook. It was also probably not a good idea to make a joke about us being in some sort of alien mind control beam.

Day 10: Things are really looking up for us today! First off, there are no new instances of the red light in our dreams, so that has calmed down amongst the crew. We're close enough to the planet that we can make out defining features of it's landscape. It appears to be quite similar to Earth's surface, the only difference being that the landmasses are more of a warm orange rather than the green of Earth. There are four medium size continents with water surrounding them. It has rather strange topography though, very high highs and very low lows. Most peculiarly of all, there was a moon hidden in the planet's shadow that we have not seen until now. Although we can only see it's silhouette, this has provided us with the morale boost everyone needed.