Elements of Earth: The Element Trials

Chapter 11b, 2020, Estrellita: Reality; Dreams of the future

"Welcome back, I hope you all had a nice weekend. Please start preparing to present your assignments." I raise my hand.

"Ms. Vivian, I haven't finished the assignment on Kira yet."

"I know you weren't well and you will have a one-day extension on that, but I was talking about the assignments related to the special class project." She looked at me sideways. "Perhaps if you had gotten more sleep, than you would have remembered."

"Ooh, that assignment." I didn't let her jibe at my appearance get to me. If I have to come to school an hour early, don't be surprised when I show up in my teen titans pajamas. A major advantage of not having any real classmates is that I don't feel embarrassed wearing whatever I want. I feigned a yawn before being enveloped by a real one. I look to my project partners before giving Vivian a big thumbs up. "Don't worry, we got this."

"November Alpha one Sierra Sierra this is DC junior class one."

"DC junior class one this is November Alpha one Sierra Sierra, I read you clear. but how are you calling? The space station is still over the Atlantic. We shouldn't be in range of DC for another hour."

"Our class is on a bit of a field trip. We chartered a vessel in the mid-Atlantic. We wanted to make sure our time wasn't interrupted." The ship part is true, we just aren't on it. The delay of running the signal through a satellite and the ham radio on the ship shouldn't be noticeable though.

"Who's idea was that?"

"Mine." It was the only way I could convince Vivian and Dad to let me talk to another human being.

"Smart thinking. Early bird gets the worm. Even though we won't be able to talk to anyone else for an hour, you still only get twenty minutes. No special treatment, even if you're clever. What's your name?" I didn't have to look up from the phone to know Vivian was boring holes in the back of my head.

"Sorry, my daddy doesn't like me to be on a first name basis with strangers." I said in a joking tone.

The astronaut's laugh came through loud and clear. "All right, but I have to call you something."

"What's the name of your favorite star?"

"Sirius."

"Call me Sirius then."

And so I present my class' suggestions for experiments to be conducted in space. The first being a psychological experiment. Usually, when astronauts sleep they are secured in place. Yu's suggestion was for an astronaut to sleep unsecured and see if insecurity from not being tethered affected their mood or personality. That was quickly, though respectfully rejected. NASA frowns on emotional experiments being conducted on the people they need to run the space station.

Mine is a look at the crystalline formation of matter when gravitational pull is not a factor. "You know those vortex bottles?"

"Yeah?"

"Well I don't know if this will work but if you route string through both bottles, blocking the passage between them, completely filling one bottle with crystal growing solution, the string should act as a wick in an oil lamp, using osmosis to draw the solution through the passage, allowing for crystal growth in the empty bottle. That way whether or not it works the solution won't get everywhere."

"Cool idea. What's the goal?"

"Afterwards we can compare their structure to crystals grown from an identical solution on earth. If successful my teacher can send you pictures for comparison."

"What a novel idea. If we can grow the crystals where should we send them?"

"What?"

"It's a novel idea. From what I understand your teacher's already sent NASA the ingredients for the solution. We can take them back down during our next rotation after trying to grow them. What address should we mail them to so you get them?"