Stranded in the Void

About the author:

Colin likes math, food and family.

T minus 7, 6, 5, 4...

“WHY AM I DOING THIS?” Derrick yells.

2, 1!

A Nasa pilot and two teachers are stuck to the back of their seat as the Challenger rocket lifts off the launch pad, soon to be approaching the International Space Station in earth's orbit traveling upwards at 17,000 miles per hour.

Two teachers volunteered for Nasa’s Teacher in Space Program 2 years ago in the summer of 2017. This program is meant to inspire students, mathematicians and scientists. Sharron Clarke a science teacher from Texas, and Derrick Edwards a math teacher from Iowa where selected to go. Elijah Wang is the pilot with over 15,000 hours of flying experience, he is a very experienced pilot. After 7 months of training, they’re ready to go on the mission of a lifetime.

Just about 150 seconds later all three have reached space and in about 6 minutes they will be orbiting earth at almost 5 miles a second.

“Wow, Home is so small from up here.” Sharron Observes.

At this point Derrick grabs a barf bag at just the right time, he gags up most of his breakfast into it but there is a few stray scrambled egg bits floating around in the shuttle. The rendezvous with the space station will take just over a day. All three astronauts double check the whole shuttle to make sure everything is working good.

The ISS is coming in fast.

Elijah grabs the stick, “I got control.”

“Don’t smash the rocket, this is our ticket out of here.” Derrick yells.

Elijah counts down, “6 meters, 5 meters, 4, 3…”

Clunk, the clamp locks.

“Okay, we have a tight seal.” Elijah verified.

The rocket is now docked with the ISS.

“Ok everyone suit up,” Elijah announces “we can’t die, it’s our second day up here.”

“Wow, it’s quite unorganized up here ,” Sharron notices.

“Sharron, check the oxygen systems,” Elijah Remarks.

“Oh my god!” Derrick cries, “It smells like dead bodies up here.”

“Ya we probably should get a few air fresheners going,” Elijah adds.

Sharron comes back, “All the oxygen systems are online.”

“Good” Derrick sighs, “let’s contact the ground crew.”

“It’s pretty late, we should get some shut eye,” Sharron says.

All three astronauts go to sleep. They have some testing and other experiments and training to do over the next few weeks. Sharron and Derrick both record little videos of cool things in the zero-gravity environment and send them to their students to watch over summer break. Derrick’s wife gives birth to their first kid and he can’t wait to get back to see her.

July 25, 2019. Mission day 29. Beep, beep, beep. All three astronauts are woken up to the sound of an emergency message received on the communications console.

Derrick yells, “Guys there's an emergency.”

“Be right there,” Elijah and Sharron shout.

They play the message and listen. “Hello, this is the Nasa ground crew speaking. We just got notice that there was some controversy between Europe and Russia. Well anyways this lead to a European satellite being blown up by a Russian Missile… The debri field is about 23 minutes out from your position.”

“Ok guys I want everything prepped, get space suits ready,” Elijah shouts, “don’t panic.”

Everyone grabs radios, oxygen tanks and other vital needs for survival. The many outcomes of the debri field striking the ISS are all pretty bad.

If someone is struck they die. If the debri smashes the liquid oxygen tanks the Challenger rocket uses as fuel and a fire is started or an explosion occurs, they die. If an oxygen pipe or a compartment of the space station is punctured they die. If solar panels are hit, which will probably happen because there is about 27,000 square feet of solar panels attached to the ISS, they will most likely malfunction, so they have no power which means no life support systems which also equates in death. If somehow no one is injured, but they lose communication or gps, or the rocket and escape pods are damaged, they cannot get back home and that means… you guessed it, they die.

If everything goes perfectly they are also in trouble because the debri field will orbit back around the Earth in 93 minutes so they have a little sliver of time to get out of the path of the once European satellite.

“Holy crap!” Sharron says astonished as she looks out the Cupola.

“What?” Elijah ask.

“Come and see for yourself,” Sharron replies.

Derrick and Elijah float over to the cupola module and look out the window. Floating to them, about 3 minutes out is the most metal chunks they have ever seen in there life, followed by a solar panel.

“Suit up” Elijah screams.

Just 1 minute later the first chunk of metal smashes into the space station, the whole station jolts. Like a bomb that was just detonated next door. Just a few seconds later the oxygen system started going nuts. Sharron was smacked against the wall. Derrick tries to get his suit on but all the movement makes it hard. He can’t focus, at this point all the loud noises and warnings and alarms and voices become a blur. Just after two minutes everything quiets down. All the alarms and warnings come to an eerie silence. There is no sound or light. “Crap,” Elijah disclaimed, “We lost all power.”

“We’re losing oxygen fast,” Sharron interrupted.

“I’ll get the emergency power up and running,” Derrick offers.

“We have about a three days of oxygen max for all three of us, the main tanks where punctured and I had to seal the airlock in the section leading to the escape pods,” Sharron informs the crew, “The rocket is in good shape except the tail fin. Landing could be dangerous.”

Elijah has an idea, “I think we should wait for the next encounter with the space debris so we can go straight out and head back to earth.”

Derrick tunes in“We have 82 percent power on the emergency power systems, that will last a day at max.”

“What do we do?” Sharron ask.

“Let's go out and check the condition of the escape pods,” Derrick answers.

“I disagree,” Elijah argues, “it’s already been half an hour since the collision. That means we have one hour to get ready, hop in the escape pod and get out of the path of the debris. If we don’t do it fast enough, then we could get hit by the debris and die. I say we just wait till the debris passes because we are safer here in the station than if we leave.”

“Good idea,” Sharron adds.

The astronauts plan to wait it out until the debris passes, then they go outside and check if the can use the escape pods. This is preferred because the tail fin on the shuttle is damaged and this will cause instabilities in the atmosphere and this could lead to a hard landing or even death.

Nasa’s ground crew just gave message that 3 minutes after the next encounter with the space debris the Russian station will be about 1 mile out. If they can use the Manned Maneuvering Units to get over there they will be able to use the Soyuz capsule to get down to earth in one piece. But now the question is will they have enough monopropellant to fuel the MMU’s and get to the station, and they need to point in the right direction. The good news is the Russian station will be between them and the earth so they should be able to see it.

“The next debris field is coming up quick so let's go to a nice place where we won’t die,” Sharron informs the crew.

The next debris field passes and nothing was damaged expect for the all important life saving backup power unit. Elijah goes outside and checks the escape pods. About ten minutes later he comes back in and educates the crew on what happened from the two previous incidents with space debris. “Well the good news is, actually great news, the escape pods are not damaged or even scratched, the bad news is on the first escape pods parachute is damaged and the second one, the parachute is already deployed.”

At this point Derrick is getting kind of mad and starting to panic. “So basically what you're saying is the bad news is we can’t use the escape pods?”

“Correct,” Elijah answers.

“Dammit,” Derrick whispers under his breath.

“Bad news,” Sharron yells from another room in the space station, “we only have two MMU’s and there's three of us.” Elijah responds “Well I guess Derrick and I well get one and you can tag along with this paracord from the damaged escape pod.” “Sometimes I really dislike you people,” Sharron reponds.

At this point everyone is wearing there space suit. Elijah is tying the rope from the parachute on the back of the MMU. The other will soon be tied to Sharron for the hour trip to the Russian Station. Elijah ties the rope to Sharon's suit and hopes it holds. If it breaks or becomes un-tied Sharron will float away off into space look like another one of the millions stars in the large black void. It would be too risky to go get here because the monopropellant in the MMU used as fuel is very limited. At this point Elijah is done tying the rope.

“Ok, I’m ready,” Sharron says crackling through the radio.

“Me too,” Derrick adds.

“Okay let’s go,” says Elijah.

It was a bumpy start to get Elijah and Sharron moving because the MMU is only meant to propel one person.

At this point the astronauts are about 100 feet from the Russian station, and it’s coming up fast. They only had one minor problem. The rope connecting Sharron and Elijah became loose on the side connecting to Elijah’s back so Derrick had to go over and tie it costing lots of monopropellant. If they hadn’t noticed it could have been deadly. The Russian station is about 50 feet out and Derrick pointed himself strait at the station and used his last puff of fuel. His only hope is to catch onto something. Elijah and Sharron are coming in slowly also very low on fuel. The grab on safely and turn around. At this point Derrick can’t see much because the sun is blocked by the earth so grabbing something will be hard. Derrick misses the first handle on the space station and the space station ends up grabbing him. The communications antenna impaled his leg and is coming out the back. He has to break they antena off, the blood froze and sealed the hole.

He and the two other astronauts enter the Russian sation with the comfort of everything working properly. They have all the oxygen and electricity that they would ever need. Derreck takes of his suit. “It feels like I am getting a giant flu shot in my leg except I can’t feel it anymore,” Derrick says, “I also feel light-headed.” “Ok, let me go and get the medical equipment.” Sharron says.

“Ok, the the Soyuz capsule is ready,’ Elijah says. “I will be right there,” Sharron responds. Sharron feels a warm sensation on the back of her neck. She turns around, there are giant blotches of blood, and Derrick fainted. Sharron rushes over and puts her finger to his wrist. She starts crying. Elijah comes rushing over. Sharron has lots of experience in medical work. She hooks Derrick up to diagnostic machine. Derrick has wires and tubes coming out of every part of his body. The machine is reading lots of blood loss and no pulse.

Sharron and Elijah both enter into the Soyuz capsule feeling lonely and empty. They do all the procedure safety checks and undock. Tears run down Sharron’s face as they slowly back away from the Russian space station. Elijah is also very quiet.

After a while the Soyuz capsule stops shaking. It has finally entered earth's atmosphere. The parachutes deploy. About a minute later the landing rockets fire. The capsule hits the ground and comes to a stop. The GPS reads that they landed in Tasikmalaya, Indonesia. “I guess we have some hiking to do,” Elijah laughs.