From: Thomas Castle
Subject: Blast off!
Date: Sagittarius 25, 0031 14:28
To: Penny Castle
(CLT): 0.39 sec
Hi Pen,
Like you saw from the ground, the launch went off without a hitch. We’ve made ready the ship, reeled out the tether, and started our spin to achieve artificial gravity to make it easier to tell up from down. Everything’s running like clockwork. (ha, ha) Of course, the clockwork part won’t come into play until the return trip, but you get the idea. Valerie and Brandon have turned in for some rest, Carl and Jackie are on duty, and Sally and I are off duty. I wanted to get some Earth photos, but I’ve shot it so many times from lunar orbit I think I’ll wait for a better angle. ;~p From LEO, shooting the Earth and Moon at the same time’s hard because the Earth is so damn close. But, just give me a week or two and I should be able to put them both in the same frame, with space between the two. They won’t quite be the nature photos you are so good at taking, but I think you’ll like the way they turn out.
As a chemist/geologist, Sally really doesn’t have much work to do until we touch down on Mars, nor most of us for that mater. Brandon and Valerie are the masters in hydroponics and we will all get our hands dirty up there, so to speak, once everything is squared away. For now, Sally’s headed down to Deck One to check on Jackie and see if she needs any help setting up the Med-lab. Though, on second thought, we really should let the rookies fail on their own ;~p so I can complete their initial evaluations. I’ll use that to chart their progress over the course of our trip. I’d better let Sally know about that. I’ll be right back…