The Journey Begins

by Dan Eaton

  And then there was me. I’m a thirteen year old kid who gets good grades in school, plays sports, likes on-line gaming, and really hasn’t a clue when it comes to what I want to be when I grow up. Like everyone else in my class I had to fill out a four year plan to help me figure out what classes I needed to take in high school but mine wasn’t a detailed plan. It was a do this stuff to be able to go to college as opposed to a do this stuff to have a non-degree based career. Mom and Dad want me to go to college and I mostly agree, but I have no idea what I really want to do with my life. I’m not a bad kid and I do okay, but if the decision on our family going came down to me, I don’t think there’s anything special about me that would swing the decision in our favor.

  It was Friday, October 17th and things just couldn’t get any better for me. I’d passed two of my tests in school today with A’s. It was a Friday, so no more school and no homework until Monday and that was ages away. There was an on-line Gogo tournament that my friend Marty and I were entering on Saturday with what we thought were good chances of placing. Did I mention it was Friday and that I was off of school? I bounced down to the mailbox to grab the mail and that was where my good mood got put on hold. Going through the mail I found a large envelope addressed to my parents. The return address was for NASA. To tell you the truth, I had kind of forgotten about the selection process. We had filled in on-line all the information they had requested of us and Dad had received back a confirmation email saying we had completed the enrollment process. I remembered him saying something about the application process closing at the end of September so I guess once they had all the applications they made their first cut and now we were going to find out whether we made it or not. Dad usually beat Mom home, but it all depended on the traffic so either way I had at least an hour to wait before I could find out how we did. I decided to go have a snack.

  Dad got home about when I expected him to. He insisted we wait for Mom and open the letter as a family. Mom rolled in about fifteen minutes later and we sat down at the table to read the letter. Dad opened it and started reading aloud,

  “Dear Burns family,

  Congratulations, you have been selected as one of the sixty families admitted to the final selection process. During this process, we will be conducting an in depth review of your family characteristics via an in person interview process. To facilitate this process we are inviting the families who have been selected to attend a special one day interview event scheduled for the Monday, November 3rd, 2036. Please let call my office to let us know if you can attend by no later than Friday, October 24, 2036. Travel arrangements will be made for you by NASA once we have your confirmation.

  Regards,

  Dr. Jessica Martin.”

  In addition to Dr. Martin’s letter there was a map showing us how to get to the Space Center and where to go once we arrived there. There were also several brochures showing attractions in the Houston area if we wanted to make a quick family vacation out of the trip.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Interview

  We landed at Houston's Bush International and as soon as we cleared the gate, Dad was on his phone confirming our arrival with the rental company. From terminal A where the gate we arrived at was we made our way down to the rental car boarding area. The rental agency had already dispatched a car and using our flight information it had been routed through the baggage loading area to pick up our bags before arriving in the parking slot. When we got to the car, Dad just had to provide his credit card and driver’s license to the car's reader, confirm that our bags had safely made it to the trunk of the car and off we went.

  The car makers had made a big push towards providing autonomous cars customized for the rental car market and all of the major rental players had jumped on the bandwagon. The autonomous cars provided advantages like lower operating costs because of lower insurance rates and fewer accidents which was very attractive to the rental agencies. Things like the collaboration between the airlines and rental agencies hadn't been initially foreseen. By taking advantage of being able to link in the autonomous cars into the airline's baggage systems the airlines, rental agencies, and airports were able to get rental users out of the airport and on their way quicker which helped ease congestion and just in general made life easier for everyone.

  My dad slid into the driver's seat, but there was no steering wheel or any other provision to actually manually drive the car. The only control you had was a touch screen mounted in the dash that let you select where you were going. It also let you choose between listening to the local radio stations, watching local programing, or giving you a tour guide description of anything interesting you were passing. Dad selected the route that would take us slightly West so we could catch the I-45 South which would then take us right through downtown Houston and then on South almost to League City where we would catch the NASA Bypass. Once on the NASA Bypass it was a short hop east to the Johnson Space Center.

  Houston was pretty flat so as we left Bush International and headed West on the Sam Houston Tollway we were greeted by a typical suburban landscape with nothing much to make it remarkable. That changed when we got to the intersection with I-45. There were these really tall flyover ramps soaring over the interchange. We didn’t get to use one as we were going south, but they looked very impressive, and tall. Did I mention they were really tall? We saw several others just as tall at some of the other interchanges so I asked Dad why there were built so high.

  Dad said, “Son, I have no clue why they are built so tall. Maybe the guy who designed them had a brother-in-law in the business of selling concrete. All I know is if they ever have an ice storm like we get back home driving up and over one of them during the storm will be quite a feat.”

  We weren’t going directly to the Center this evening so we needed to check into the Marriott Courtyard that was across the street from the Center and then find some food. The room was the typical nondescript two beds and a bath, but by then my stomach was growling and I really didn’t care about the room.

  Mom said, “Hey, there’s a place nearby called the Kemah Boardwalk. It looks like it’s a tourist trap sort of area, but they have a good selection of restaurants. Why don’t we head over there for dinner?”

  The three of us all loved seafood so we were hoping we could find a nice place to get some fresh seafood. When we got there, Mom picked out a buffet place that sounded good and we all got stuffed on a delicious meal.

  We managed to waddle back to the hotel.

  Dad said, “Anybody up for a little walk to exercise off a little of that meal?”

  Mom said, “You two go ahead and get a walk in. I’m going to head on up to the room.”

  Back home the high for the day was in the mid-fifties, but here in Houston it had reached the mid-seventies. With the sun down it was cooling off quickly, but it was still in the sixties and felt great out. Dad and I just walked down the block and back and then took a circuit of the hotel parking lot before heading up to the room. While we were walking I said, “I hope we do okay tomorrow. Coming here to Houston was nice, but going to the Moon would be really cool. Now that we’re here, I’m getting nervous about our chances of getting through this next round.”

  Dad said, “I think we’ll do just fine. You just be yourself and if we make it, we make it. If we don’t, then at least no one can say we didn’t try.”

  When the walk was over I was still full but talking to Dad did help me to get to sleep that night.

  Mom woke us up early and after getting cleaned up we went downstairs to have breakfast in the restaurant. Mom just had a bagel with some coffee. Dad had some biscuits and gravy with OJ. I was curious about something on the menu called Cheesy sausage breakfast Grits. It was made with breakfast sausage, eggs, some jalapenos and scallions which I all like. I’d never had grits before, so I asked Mom and Dad and they said I’d probably like it, but I’d never know if I didn’t try it. I ended up with the Cheesy sausage breakfast Grits and an OJ. Learned somethin
g new, grits are yummy.

  As we were going back through the lobby on our way back to the room I noticed this girl and her dad come in from outside. From the way they were dressed and how sweaty the dad looked they must have been coming back from a morning run. She was pretty and looked to be about the same age as me. Given she was just back from a run I doubted she had any make up on but that suited me and she still looked great. She had blond hair that was pulled back into a tight pony tail for her run. With her hair down it probably fell to below her shoulders. Mom and Dad noticed where my attention had wandered off to.

  Mom nudged me and said, “Quit staring at her."

  Dad said, “She and her family are probably here for the same reason we are so you’ll probably be seeing her again slugger”. We headed on up to the room to clean up and then went back down to the lobby when it was closer to the time to leave.

  Out in the parking lot was a large bus that NASA had provided to take all the families across the street to the Center. We went out to the bus and got on. I was pleased to see my dad was right. Sitting three rows back on the right hand side was the blond sitting with her mother. Her dad was sitting in the seat across the aisle. We had to go back away to find some seats. The bus was filling up and another bus had pulled up for the remaining families. Once we had made the preliminary selection I hadn’t thought much about our chances of making the final cut, but now looking at all the families that were here for the same reason we were I started having some doubts again about us making it. The blond and her mom and dad looked like very capable people.

  “Dad,” I said, “Do we look as good as some of these families? Some of them look like they just jumped off the cover of an Adventure magazine or something.”

  Dad said, “Just remember you can’t tell a book by its cover. I think we look plenty good where it counts.”

  The buses finally filled up and after a short wait took us over to the Johnson Space Center. When we got off the bus we were outside a building called the Teague Auditorium and found there were tables for us to sign in at and get our badges and information packets. With that done, we were escorted into the auditorium to our assigned seats. It was packed, but fortunately we only had to sit there for the introduction. Shortly after everyone was settled our host, Dr. Jessica Martin came onstage to talk to us. She first congratulated everyone for making it to this selection stage. She then went on about how the data gathered today would lead to the final selection of the six families that would participate in the next stage and wished us luck. She said the day would be broken up into a tour of the facility, interviews as families and as individuals, a series of team building exercises to help assess our strengths and weaknesses, a physical, a 3D scan, and lunch. Not necessarily in that order. She instructed us to check our information packet for the number assigned to our family and then the attached chart that told us where to report. Guides assisted getting everyone to the right place.

  Our first stop was a conference room where we were interviewed by a woman who spoke and acted like a news reporter right down to the camera man filming the interview. From there we were sent to the first team building exercise that we did as a family. Next up was an exercise where each of us was separated and we had to complete a task on our own. We got a short break, then as we waited in a conference room for enough people to gather from their tasks. Once there were 10 families present we were split up into a group of 10 kids and two groups of ten adults. They took us off to separate rooms and gave us our tasks. This was a hard one for me, not that the task was that hard, but there was a girl named Jillian whose volume control was permanently stuck on loud. That wouldn’t have been too bad, but she had an opinion on everything and wanted to make sure everyone knew it. Somehow we managed to complete the exercise, but it wasn’t a moment too soon from my point of view. Fortunately, I never saw her again.

  It was about the second or third exercise that I noticed the floaters. There were people acting as guides that helped us get from place to place. There were people acting as facilitators to run us through the exercises. And then there were these people just floating around the hallways, break rooms, and staging/waiting areas. I also noticed there were a number of still photographers wandering around snapping pictures at random moments. During our lunch break I asked Mom and Dad, “Have you guys noticed these people that just seem to be floating around with nothing to do but watch us? It seems like there are a lot of photographers too.”

  Mom said, “I think the floaters are observers checking on how we behaved during the periods where we aren’t doing an exercise and might have our guard down.”

  Dad said, “I noticed the number of photographers too, and am not sure what is going on with that. I was once told that if you really wanted to see something you should take a picture of it. Our brains filter what we see directly, but a photograph sometimes allows you to see beyond the filtering so you can pick up on little things we might normally miss.”

  First up for us after lunch were the physicals and then we got to go do the 3D scans. The scans were interesting. You entered a small private booth and stripped down to your underwear. Then you entered a circular enclosure and were told to close your eyes. There was then a bright light show, which lasted about 30 seconds while your body was scanned multiple times. By the time you got dressed and exited the booth there was a display up on a monitor showing you dressed in a crew uniform like those that were selected would wear to the Moon. They had a rapid prototyping, 3D printer that printed out a small figure of what was displayed on the monitor. You got to keep a printout from the monitor and the 3D printed figure as a souvenir of your JSC visit. After that we got to relax and take the JSC tour, which eventually brought us back to outside of the Teague Auditorium. We were done for the day and I was kind of tired by the time we got back on the bus for the trip across the street to the hotel. I fell asleep while waiting for the bus to fill up and Dad nudged me awake when we got back to the hotel parking lot.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Selection

  We got back from Houston on Tuesday afternoon. I was feeling tired and a little let down. Being there had made it all real to me and I really wanted the trip but looking at all of the other families had reminded me that NASA had a lot of choices to make and we had no guarantee of being selected. I got back to school the next day and then the Holidays came. It always seems like we have Thanksgiving and a week later it’s New Years. It just seems like time really flies during the Holidays. We did have a very good Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years with all of the family. I guess maybe because we might not be there the following year made the celebrations more special to us.

  New Year’s Day I sat around feeling stuffed and realized that the selection was to be made on the fourteenth. You know what I said about time flying during the holidays? Obviously, that can’t be right, so the universe made up for the rapid passage of time during the holidays by slowing time down for the next two weeks. Every day seemed to take forever and it seemed like the two weeks took a month to go by.

  I talked to Dad about our chances. He surprised me by saying, “I think your mother is our biggest risk factor for not being selected.”

  I looked at Dad like he had flipped and he just said, “You need to go talk to your mom. That’s her story to tell.”

  I was surprised when Dad said he thought Mom was probably the biggest obstacle to us being selected. I just couldn't believe it and thought Mom really had the stuff NASA was looking for. Mom had a PhD. in Botany. She had several experiments that she had designed, and had been flown on the ISS when she was younger. She regularly consulted with Dr. Belvert who was in charge of growing stuff at the lunar habitat. Her work had something to do with adapting plants to adverse conditions. If the Moon wasn't adverse I didn't know what was. She didn’t just know the plant science, she practiced what she preached and had a green thumb that was the envy of the neighborhood. It was rare growing up that throughout the year we didn't have some food on the table that mom had
grown from her gardens. To me, that was all good, but it was just the frosting on the cake. Mom had a smile that didn't stop and was always in a good mood. When I was feeling sad I'd go find my mom and I'd cheer up just being around her. I had read through the general mission requirements and Mom being a very cheerful person along with her skills made her a shoe-in for the mission in my mind and I couldn't understand why Dad thought NASA might think she was a liability.

  So that evening I asked Mom about it. She gave me a hug and a smile and guided me over to the couch to sit down. She said, "Bryce, the reason NASA may have a problem with me is I'm special. I should have died when I was born and that left me a little different than everyone else. Not a lot different, but enough that the doctors at NASA have to give it some thought" My mom isn't special. I mean she's special to me and Dad and she's smart and all that, but other than that and lighting up the room with her smile and laugh she was just like all my friends’ moms. She saw the confused look on my face and said, "Let me tell you a little story. Grandma and Grandpa were married and had your uncle Bob several years later. Grandma had no problems with the pregnancy and Bob was healthy. A couple of years later they decided to have me. Everything was going great until on a normal checkup the doctors detected something wrong. They ran some more tests and then called Grandma and Grandpa in. They sat them down and told them that I had a condition called congenital diaphragmatic hernia."

  Mom placed her hand on my chest and told me to take a deep breath in. She said what allowed me to take every breath was the diaphragm which was a sheet of muscles that's main job was to inflate/deflate the lungs. The other really important thing it did which most people never thought about was to separate all the organs in the lower abdomen from the lungs so they had space to expand and contract. So congenital meant something you were born with, and diaphragmatic hernia were big words meaning there was a hole in the diaphragm. It didn't sound good, but it didn't sound that bad either. I figured it must be like having a flat tire on your bike. Take the inner tube out, find the hole and slap a patch on it. It wasn't that big of a deal. Mom watched me like she could see the wheels turning in my head as I worked through it and after a bit said "Let me explain a bit more about CDH."