Chapter 02.2

Well, that’s all for now. When we talk tomorrow, be sure to let me know how everything is going on your end. I know your work is sometimes a real bear. Keep going to the gym and working through the stress. I admire your dedication to your job and know the affection you have for your co-workers. But, while I’m gone don’t let the job be your entire life. Got it? As always my love, a penny for your thoughts; the moon and stars for your love. Can’t wait to talk to you tomorrow.

1-4-3 always, Your Tom

< ≡ ♂ ≡ >

From: Sally Chung
Subject: We’re on our way
Date: Sagittarius 25, 0031 15:32
To: Robert Hackard

(CLT): 0.48 sec

Dearest Bobby,

We have left the home world! Everything went just as it should and we’re now headed for Mars. It’s so exciting! LEO was never like this. I mean, I really enjoyed the experience of spending so much time in zero-g on the ISS. The feeling of flying through the modules was so liberating. But I’m sure glad we won’t have to live that way for the next six months. We had zero-g for a couple of hours today, before we got the tether deployed and started rotating the ship. I got a chance to fly around for a while. Now it’s just like being on terra firma. Well, almost.

The only way to tell that we’re moving is to look out the window. Seeing the stars rotating past the porthole in this way is a little disorienting, but it doesn’t last long. At least the view is different from that on the ISS. The stars seem to rotate counter-clockwise past the forward window and they would appear to rotate clockwise past the rear window, but we have that side shuttered since it’s on the sunny side of the ship. It’s a very tranquil, slow rotation, 1 rpm. If we look out the side windows, the stars are going up on one side and down on the other. When you see the stars going up, you get a slight sensation of falling. That takes some getting used to. It’s like the optical illusion of standing on the west side of a building when low clouds are moving quickly to the east. If you look up at the edge of the building and see the clouds passing, there’s a momentary feeling that the clouds are not moving and the building is falling towards you. It’s a very strange sensation.

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