text: I remember walking through NASA's Johnson Space Center when the Mars rover returned with samples of a strange black tar-like substance. I was taking part in some training at NASA when the atmosphere of the whole building shifted as everyone buzzed with the excitement of what the discovery might lead to. This new substance chiseled open jaded imaginations of tired workers. It lit that spark of excitement that seems to have faded out of the engineers and scientists that have been working the same meticulous job for 40 years, and it gave the younger employees a belief in a better future. The discovery of that black sticky substance did to NASA, nay, the world what heroin does to addicts. There was an overwhelming urge to get more. To find out more. A race between all space agencies followed, each hoping to get their hands on this substance. Some dubbed this the second great Space Race. Looking back now, all I can do is laugh at how naive humans are, hindsight is always 20/20. Let's back up and let me tell you who I am. My name is Maya Ayad. I'm currently the youngest female astronaut, having traveled to space when I was just 24. I beat the previous record holder, Valentina Tereshkova by two years. Growing up, space was my one true passion; I'd spend hours reading about the science of space and the stories of the stars. My teenage years were spent in the summer dusk sitting at my computer toggling between Wikipedia pages on the atomic dust and the mythological stories that were born from the constellations as the warm wind would blow in through my open window. I wish then I would have known how special those nights were. As far as I'm concerned now, that feeling was happiness, and it's far away. Currently, the year is 2050, and I'm sitting in a shelter designed to protect people from the Martian atmosphere, the windows open, but there's no air blowing in. Not enough atmosphere here to do that. I have a few layers of insulated clothing on to keep warm on Mars' -60°C weather, and I'm reading Great Expectation by Charles Dickens's while trying not to draw too many similarities between Pip and myself. It on nights like these that I try to tell myself not to long for the past, and remember that however intoxicating nostalgia is, her stories are lies that disguise themselves as comfort, rudely reminding you of what will never be again, in a way so subtle you'll crawl to her feet begging for another hit. Before we get into why I'm hanging out on Mars, let me get you caught up on what happened. Back in 2023, after scientists discovered the power of what the tar could do, it got renamed to MORE- Muscle oxygen replenishing enzyme. MORE acted as a biological catalyst that would break down CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) into C (carbon) and O2, theoretically allowing organic beings to breathe in environments with CO2 levels. This is particularly unusual, seeing as when CO2 decays typically, it does so in a way that requires the least amount of energy to accomplish, also known as the minimum energy path. Hence, decomposed CO2 usually produces CO (Carbon Monoxide) and a lone Oxygen atom. However, the enzyme manages to excite the CO2 atom into a highly excited state, allowing the molecule to break apart in a way the skips the minimum energy path. When tested on animals, it showed that they could survive in environments with high CO2 levels. When the news of what the tar could do, there was a shift in how space agencies ran their operations. scientists, politicians, militaries, and tech companies all saw endless opportunities in the sticky drug. Visions that ranged from a pure intent like helping firefighters to visions that had more malicious intentions. Unfortunately, as with most ground-breaking discoveries, it came as the result of warfare. A cold war between Russia, the USA, and China ensued. The idea of a new material that could potentially enhance humans had the world militaries clamoring for more, nobody wanted to be left behind. Every powerhouse was scrambling to send probes to space to try and retrieve MORE. That's how I got recruited by SpaceX; they believed that although it would be more costly and time-consuming, the benefits of sending a manned probe to Mars to find this substance would be beneficial, in addition to having us set up Habitats so we could start colonizing Mars. Their reason being that rovers are slower at retrieving samples and are more limited by terrain than humans. The crew's youth and physical ability would give SpaceX an edge over other organizations. I guess I was ignorant to believe that, but the idea of being the first person on Mars? Pride’s a bitch, I guess. There were more signs that I should have picked up on, but as I said earlier, hindsight? She's also a bitch. Since I already had my bachelor's degree in civil engineering and various other hard skills under my belt in addition to having just completed my 3 years' worth of experience in a related field when I was recruited, all that was left to do before launch was pass the physical assessment. The prep period wasn't like anything I would have expected it to be. There was a lot less transparency about the trip, with higher-ups keeping vital pieces of information for the crew and I. There were medical assessments almost every day, followed by vigorous physical testing. The crew consisted of some of the most amazing people I'd ever met. I'm not sure why I was surprised. We were all chosen based on our personalities and compatibility. I guess I have that to be grateful for. On the day of the launch, I felt amazing. Everything I had dreamed of was becoming a reality. Of course, I was apprehensive. It would take us about 205 days to get to space. SpaceX mandated physical assessments every day. Blood tests, urine samples, cognitive assessments all had to be quantified and sent back to Earth. I'd never heard of previous astronauts having to do similar tasks, but I'd figured things were different now because of the cold war. We did what we were told. Some days we felt more like soldiers than astronauts. It was the day before we landed that we heard the three chimed tone indicating we had received a message from the Base. I remember reading the words over and over again, it took me a few attempts to really understand the words I was reading. I think mostly because I did not want to understand them. The entire crew who had gathered around to read the message were yelling or crying. I just sat there. I could feel the tears well up. Betrayal pumped through my veins. SpaceX had been thinking about experimenting with the effects of MORE on humans around the time of our launch. They were apprehensive about testing it on humans in fear that it would cause outbreaks. Their solution? They inject the whole crew with a serum of the stuff. Send us all to space. If anything went wrong, we were too far away to harm the rest of the population. It explained the daily medical tests. Still, to this day, I don't understand why they told us the day before decent. Were they not afraid of us refusing to complete the rest of the mission? They still needed us to locate the rest of the enzyme. Unless that was a lie too. Call me cynical, but trust doesn't come easy to me after they pulled that stunt over on us. After landing and readying the Mars habitat, we did discuss the idea of abandoning our mission. Purely out of spite. We decided against it. We were angry, yeah, but what else could we do? We were stuck on Mars; we were all still healthy with no noticeable changes. So out we went, exploring the many subterranean formations that occurred on mars. We spent many days navigating these structures with every evening dedicated to studying the changes that occurred in our bodies. Eventually, we did find MORE. It was packaged and sent back. SpaceX decided to send it back on its own in a sample return canister that is programmed to automatically launch from the Mars Ascent Vehicle at a predetermined optimal launch window for time's sake. Meaning it was necessary we find MORE before the launch window, so naturally, the first part of our mission was dedicated to finding it. The second part of the mission was dedicated to setting up structures for future individuals to come and stay on Mars. After one long day of building with one of my crew members, Ralph noticed his oxygen tank was nearing empty. I guess he'd been overexerting himself. Being the only two out there, I rushed over to him. We had trained for this, sharing oxygen, except we didn't prepare for what would happen if I didn't have enough oxygen to get the both of us back to our base. I had paused to try and figure out a way to get us both back, and that’s when Ralph realized the situation, he desperately resisted my aids. Theoretically, we should be able to breathe on Mars due to the extremely high CO2 levels thanks to the MORE drug we'd been injected with, but no one ever bothered to test it. Not only because if we were wrong, we would suffocate, but the extremely cold temperatures and the corrosive dust would also be a bit of another problem. In a self-righteous attempt to save me, Ralph knowing that I wouldn't leave him there to die, ripped open his face mask. This meant that either he died, and I would not have to share my oxygen, or he could breathe, and I would not have to share my oxygen. After a short period that consisted of me screaming at him for what he'd done, I stopped, and I released that he was just staring at me wide-eyed. Not dead. That's when we realized how much our physiology had changed. After that the crew got curious. Pushing our bodies to see how much we could handle. It was exciting at first. The cold temperatures felt more like -15°C instead of the actual -60°C it was. The chlorine in the dirt, normally corrosive to humans, didn't affect us. Admittedly our tests were not the safest or the most scientific by any means. We were like children who just found out they had superpowers. Back home on Earth, the scientists were just as excited as we were when it came to our new abilities. Teams and teams of scientists would dissect our daily physical examinations that were sent back with reports of the build updates. It was after another long day of labor we heard the three chimed alerts saying we had a message from Earth. Hearing bad news was different this time. Afterward, I'd tried to figure out why the crew's response was so different. We all just sat there. Silent. I think the difference was that we were not angry. We weren't betrayed. There was no rage. All of us just felt deep mourning--a great sense of loss for what we could never have back. We mourned ourselves. The message stated that after analyzing our samples, SpaceX scientists had discovered that our physiological changes had made it so that it is impossible for us to ever return to Earth. If we did, we would suffer oxygen poisoning in addition to water intoxication, which would lead to Hyponatremia within seconds of being exposed to the Earth's atmosphere. So here I am, sitting in the Mars Habitat, window open, reading. Trying to recreate those summer nights on Earth I'm so desperately longing for. I will remain the observer of the great expanse while my memory will become one of the stories in the stars. It's been years since we've been up here now, every trip to Mars brings us food and supplies because we can't grow anything here. As time has gone on, there have been more changes. We can now feel the pull of magnetic north on Mars, admittedly impressive seeing as its magnetic field is much smaller than Earth’s. All our eye sights have improved to the point of 25/20 vision. Hearing and ability to withstand cold temperatures have also improved--all changes we've attributed to MORE. There have been some negative changes too. I'm looking at the scales on my skin, and I wonder how much must change before I am no longer considered human.