Emotions of an alien

Emotions of an Alien-Part 1: Section 1: Chapter 2

Part 1: Section 1: Chapter 2

The Dogwill Space Foundation was an independently owned space exploration program founded by a Billionaire named Howard Dogwill. The Dogwill Foundation had one primary purpose: to explore and colonize space, both inside and out of the solar system.

Michael Gabrielle was an Astronaut at the Dogwill Space Foundation. He had gone to the moon and back, walked on Halley's comet, and had been in orbit around Mercury for a record-breaking 17 months. He was the most known spacefarer in history, more so than Neil Armstrong.

At this point in history, no permanent settlement had been successfully established on any planetary bodies other than Earth. It had been attempted on numerous occasions, none of which stuck. Although no topic for the meeting that he was in attendance had been announced, he had a feeling it was about that.

Michael entered the room. It was a plain white room with black leather chairs all facing a center stage with a podium. The lights in the room were hidden in wooden alcoves that directed the light upwards toward the white ceiling.

He sat down in the chair closest to the stage. He would have preferred to sit somewhere in the middle, but it was Rilley giving the presentation. Whenever Rilley (basically Michaels biggest fan) was giving the presentation, he would ask where Michael was sitting and point him out to everyone, then Rilley would ask him to move up to the chair closest to the stage, which of course Michael would have to do to prevent himself from looking like an idiot. Michael pictured the young nervous hotshot just recently out of college. Michael liked Rilley, he was a good kid, but sometimes he just got so annoying.

Anyway, Michael decided to try his best to avoid that whole thing by sitting in the seat to begin with.

Many more people began to file in, filling up the chairs around him. After every seat was filled, Rilley walked out.

He was short, with sandy hair and a few freckles covering his handsome face. He was wearing a black button shirt and navy blue dress pants that matched his shoes.

Rilley was Vice Chief of External Affairs, meaning he created and carefully planned almost all ventures outside of the Earth's atmosphere. He worked directly under Dogwill himself.

Rilley was visibly nervous. He was fairly quiet, and didn't like to speak in front of large crowds, for fear he would do something stupid.

"Excuse me." Squeaked Rilley. "Hi." He said, trying to quiet everyone down. They did. "First, where's Michael?"

Michael waved his hand. "Okay good." Rilley said. "I suppose you are all wondering why I have brought you in here today." At this everyone continued to mumble. "I'm going to take that as a yes." He said. "As you know, in 2067 we launched our most sophisticated probe, the "Farion" To the surface of Mars. This probe was equipped with a new type of atmospheric measurement data, in order to gain more specific data about what makes up the atmosphere in layers. Recently, we got that data back."

"This reading" he continued "has given us some startling new evidence. The atmosphere of Mars is breathable."

There were many gasps around the audience. Michael just glanced around the room.

"There is no doubt about it, it is definitely there. Questions?"

Michael raised his hands. "Why hasn't this ever been picked up by other probes?"

"As of now, we don't know. My theory is that there is a type of radiation present on the surface of Mars the likes of which we have never seen before. I think it messed with our measuring devices. The radiation does not like oxygen, so that which is there has steadily been cleansing the planet."

"How do you know that this data isn't the wrong one?"

"We quickly changed the course plan for "Farion 2 and 3" after seeing this. They were set out for Europa and Iapetus. We landed them on the surface and they all got the same reading."

That was good enough for Michael.

"What are we going to do about it?" Someone else asked.

"Well as you have might have guessed, the temperature and the unknown radiation makes the surface still inhabitable without a space suit, which we figure protects from this radiation, as no other people who have been on Mars have died from radiation poisoning. What we plan to do is try yet again to place a permanent settlement on Mars, with several differences. Number one, instead of filtering carbon breathed out from the inhabitants of the station, we are going to filter it from the atmosphere. That is safer, cheaper, cleaner, and less likely to fail. Number two, this radiation does not effect plant life, so we are going to establish several gardens outside the habitat, along with spreading moss and algae around the planet to eventually establish a more healthy atmosphere."

Most people remained quiet. Michael knew he would be picked for the colonization of Mars.

"What else?" He asked.

Rilleys mouth formed a thin line. He spoke again. "Our cameras have picked up this."

An image came on to the screen behind Rilley. It was a pair of simple eyeglasses sitting in the red Martian sand. Everyone gasped. They knew that no one previously on board any mission to mars was allowed to bring glasses, and that everyone who had been to mars had been searched. They knew that however those glasses got there, it wasn't from the people of Earth.