text: December 10th, 2022 Imagine that you’re Barack Obama and you’ve just won your first presidential election. It’s election night, the results are in, and you’re buzzing. How long do you keep feeling that way? All night for sure. And I bet you wake up the next morning walking with a hell of a swagger. But within 72 hours he put the milk into the cabinet and cereal into the fridge, started washing his hair with body soap instead of shampoo, or realized he was out of toilet paper only after using the bathroom, and instantly felt like a doofus. Because for me I spent about four hours being the swash-buckling, space-pirate, hero then became the guy at a dorm-room party where he doesn’t know anyone else and smiles along to inside jokes and shorthand he doesn’t get. As a side note, I don’t know what a swash is, nor what buckling is - assuming it isn’t a reference to buckles? It’s kind of embarrassing to even admit that after 24 days of being totally alone I kind of miss the solitude. Big hero to socially awkward engineer in four hours. Breaking more records every day up here. It does make me wonder about the future of humanity though. Orion is spacious compared to the Apollo capsule, yet it still has as much privacy as that dorm-room party would. It could well take centuries before we get up to Star Trek level population densities on spaceships. So does that mean the only people going out and inhabiting strange new worlds are all going to be extroverts out of necessity? Could Mars end up being THE night club destination of the future and Earth just filled with people who wear headphones and type on their laptop whenever they go to Starbucks? In movies they always show really spacious ships going to Mars, but no one bothers thinking about the mass involved in so much structure for so few people. The reality is that every cubic inch of space has a cost in terms of structural mass which in turn means more mass in the structural elements that support it, which means bigger, heavier engines, and more fuel for all of that stuff, and then the extra fuel to lift that extra fuel. With spaceships: mass breeds mass. When we do go to Mars, every square inch of that spaceship is going to be necessary, and Alex Whelm getting some alone time isn’t NASA’s idea of necessary. Anyways, I’m not some masochist who just likes to tell people about his insecurities, flaws, and embarrassing personality quirks for fun. I’m only telling you about this because it is necessary context. You’ve got to understand that when Mark gets on the radio and tells me that Jess would like to talk with me, there are four sets of eyes that pivot around to look at me. Sarah gathers everyone together and pushes them to the bunks and just out of sight - but absolutely not out of earshot. I take the call with a live studio audience of god only knows how many. “Hey Alex. How are you doing?” It’s been months, but hearing her voice is like there’s a well trod path of neurons in my brain that lights up and it really could have been yesterday that we broke up. Or were dating. I tell her about my toes. She doesn’t know what to say back to that, so I make a joke about never liking thong sandals anyways. My brain chooses that moment to present me with a very vivid imagined image of her rolling her eyes in response. “Did you ever watch Love is Blind? It’s on Netflix,” she asked. “I’m aware it exists... But I haven’t seen it.” Why do I talk like that? I’m honestly trying to be helpful. What I meant to communicate was, ‘I’ve seen the icon and know the idea, but haven’t watched it.’ Instead, I went for brevity and technical accuracy and the words just come out like a challenge, or like I’m too good to watch something like that. How often do you think Barack Obama says something he feels like an idiot for a quarter second after he finishes saying it? That’s what they should ask Michelle about in interviews. “What’s something Barack did that he’s still embarrassed about?” “The producers gave me a call. They’d like to sit down with us when you get back, pitch an idea to us.” “I don’t think that’s really for me,” I say. There’s a long silence on the other end, a few minutes of even more awkward conversation, and Jess gets off the radio. This is probably worth saying because, given what you know about me and relationships, it might not be obvious, but I did understand she was asking me to give things another chance. At least, I think that’s what she was asking. She was right? You know what: doesn’t matter. In my head she asked me to get back together, and I said no. Why? Because Jess was right to break up with me. I’ve lived my whole life thinking that when you get dumped it’s because you did something wrong, or should have done something differently, or you’re just not good enough for the other person. But that isn’t it. People break up because they don’t like the other person. I’m a Hawaiian pizza, and not everyone likes Hawaiian pizza. I’m not going to pick off my chunks of pineapple and hope she doesn’t notice the little juicy divots left on me. I need someone who loves Hawaiian pizza. Yeah sure, there are easy-to-love lucky folks out there who are pepperoni pizzas, but I’m done regretting the fact that I’m not one of them. People like Hawaiian pizza too! “Whatcha writing?” Sarah asks. I jumped, and fumbled the pad that I’m writing this out on. If you think jumping on Earth is embarrassing, try doing it in zero-g. You just kind of... spasm in space. Despite my repeated objections, she reads the whole thing before giving the pad back. She doesn’t say anything, but she’s got this look on her face like she’s thinking about saying something and is close to laughing at her own joke. People suck. And are the best. Maybe Orion crashes tomorrow and I’ll never have to feel embarrassed again. \*\*\* I’m Nathan H. Green, a science-fiction writer with a degree in aerospace engineering, and I’m going to be doing daily semi-fictional stories tracking the Artemis I mission. You can follow along through my reddit (u/authornathanhgreen). *Artemis I Has A Stowaway* is a work of semi-fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue and sentiments (which are not part of the mission’s official history), are entirely fictional. Where real historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, sentiments, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events, personality, disposition, or attitudes of the real person, nor to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Save the above, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. © 2022 Nathan H.