Meteor Men

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You know what space reminds me of? It reminds me of being in a giant black bag with tiny and big holes covering it. The big holes are like earth and the nearby planets and the tiny one are the stars shining who knows how many light years away. Sorry for not introducing myself, my name is Captain Mark on the NASA space ship "The Meteor", named for after the purpose of this ship. Me and my crew of five fly around the earth and take samples and record measurements of meteorites that are close to earth. We also test the soil and how fast its going and sometimes we even tag them so we can track them. Our ship is super fast and has state of the art rocket jets and design so we can reach the speeds required to "catch" a meteor. The process is quit simple but extremely dangerous. First we speed up until we are parallel with the asteroid then we "board it" by using a special machine we call the "claw". It basically is just that. It picks us up and drops us on the asteroid. We then take all the measurements required and sometimes tag it. Then we get off the asteroid the same nerve wrecking way and were back at home in the "Comet". Of course if anything goes bad I have my crew and our EVA's just in case but I don't even want to think what would happen if we had to use the EVA's. The though of getting thrown off the meteor or the claw while its setting us down sends chills up my spine. Anyways, I am gonna tell you about the time when everything that could have gone wrong did.

Date: 6/12/35 Number of days in space: 397 speaker: captain Mark

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Ok,ok,deep breaths mark,deep breaths. Whew that was freaking dangerous. Ok, who ever is watching or listening to this something terrible has just happened. We had just gotten the coordinates of a meteorite that was gonna get really close to earth. We had just set off after it and John, my second in command, had went to go get our astronaut food for dinner, when the ship started shaking. Very slowly at first, then faster and faster and FASTER! We all started panicking and John came back in screaming. Ok I think it would be better if I just showed you through my helmet cam instead.

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"WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!" Yelled our team scientist Leo. "I have no idea what that was but it doesn't sound good at all" said our pilot Nick. "Well thanks for pointing out the obvious you moron!" Snapped John. "Shut up and calm down everyone!" I yelled. I was their team leader and I was supposed to be encouraging them that there was no problem but I couldn't help but think to myself did the shaking have something to do with the meteor we were going after? "What do you think we should do boss?" Said Milo. "I really don't know but let's follow the books and run some maintenance checks ok everyone?" I got a chorus of mumbles from my crew and they all started to float away to perform their checks.

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as my crew floated and bounced their way through the space craft to go do perform their checks I floated to my computer monitor and watched as all of the green lights that meant everything was ok go on I sat and wondered why does everything read ok yet those shakings were so violent? The. I realized something I slowly very slowly as if a bomb were under my foot, turned around and looked at my screen in horror. We kept our oxygen tanks outside our spaceship but loaded on the side in one of the most airtight, thickest, and heaviest metal that was found on earth. Yet somehow, of our two big tanks, one of them was breached and we were leaking oxygen fast. My teammates then called in over their comms. "Hey cap'n how's your check? I don't see a green light from ya." Said John. "Guys......." I started to stutter. "What's the problem Mark?" Wondered milo. "I'm afraid we have a situation. And a big one at that. Everyone come back to the deck now." "Ok cap'n" said John almost happily. I was going to half to call Houston control and tell them something that had never been heard since Apollo 13 In the year 1970. "Houston we have a problem."