Europa

May 7, 2054

The rover is still stuck. Lee and Commander Hunt will be leaving to repair it first thing tomorrow. Here at drill site two, it has been extremely quiet. Miller has barely said a word since everyone left. Back on Earth we would have been cracking jokes about how it was girls' night at drill site two. That Miller seemed to be gone. Maybe during this time, we have to ourselves. I can bring a little bit of her back.

With the drill site being basically empty I took the time to basically make a full site tour for Diego and Dad. It was less of a tour and more of a strange day in my life on Europa vlog. It was super cringey, but I had fun with it, and since Miller wasn't paying attention and everyone else was elsewhere, I thought it would be a fun way to give Diego and Dad an inside scoop on my life as an astronaut. I even found a way to fasten my communicator tablet to my space suit to vlog a little space walk. Captain Hunt would have killed me for that, but he would never find out. I am excited to see what my son thinks of the little video. I even put the time into clipping it up and editing it for him.

Later in the day I offered to go on a spacewalk with Miller and she reluctantly agreed, mostly because I pointed out that we were just thirty minutes away from one of those breathtaking Europa sunsets.

We got out a little early and Miller found a nice rock we could both fit on. After the sunset we stayed out as she seemed to be gazing upon Jupiter. It was easy to get lost looking up at the gas giant. One thing people seem to get wrong when they see Jupiter as an image on the internet is they assume its colors are still like the layers of a marble. In reality you can see all its storms slowly moving and flowing if you watch it long enough. It makes it look almost as if the planet is alive.

After sitting there and watching Jupiter in silence for a while Miller said, "It really makes you think, doesn't it."

I didn't even look over. I just continued to stare at Jupiter. "I never realized how small we truly are in the scale of it all. How meaningless this all really is," she continued. When I was younger, I thought a lot about the size of the universe and how overwhelming it could be. It used to give me nightmares, but I had learned it was far less daunting when you thought about the things that mattered most to you. To me those things were Dad, Diego, and my research on life.

We sat there for a few more minutes and I mentioned how I would never forget the view of Jupiter when Miller asked, "Do you think there is something else after we die?" The last time I'd gotten that question was one of the times I'd let Diego sleep in my bed after a nightmare. I was taken off guard by it then and it took me off guard now.

Finally, I said "I've never been much of a religious person. I just try to live each day to the fullest. If at the end of my time, there is another life I'll be happy to take that on to. If not, all I can really do is take advantage of the one life I have." I took a look around at the view in front of us. "I'd say I've done a pretty good job with that."

Miller nodded. After a few minutes she admitted she didn't believe there was anything when you die, and she hadn't believed there was since she was a little girl. Back then it used to give her nightmares, but now it gave her a sense of peace. There would be no stress or suffering. There would be nothing but peace. To her, that perspective didn't sound so bad.

To me it sounded pretty dark, but who was I to say. Different people find their peace in different ways.