I think it would be great fun to blast off into space to save the world with my wife by my side. She inexplicably disagrees.
Inspired by an actual conversation …
It was Tuesday night. The two empty nesters had not yet been blessed with grandchildren. He kept busy writing for gun magazines in lieu of sleeping. She loved a cozy British mystery.
They sat in their respective chairs in the living room, quietly engrossed. Life was peaceful. They both embraced the routine.
“I got an interesting email today,” he said. She did not answer right off.
Looking up from her book, his wife said, “Great. I assume it was something other than another desperate plea from one of your editors or notice of yet another gun auction.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Nothing like that. It was actually from NASA, of all places. You remember back in ‘94 when I applied for the astronaut program?”
Of course she remembered that. It was one of literally countless foolish, silly, ill-advised things her husband had done since she had married him. He had come shockingly close to being accepted.
The astronaut assessment is run every other year. Had it not been for the kids and then medical school, he likely would have tried again and gotten in. Would have served him right … to get launched off into space. She smiled thinly in spite of herself.
“I certainly do remember,” she said. “What about it?”
“Well,” he said, “You know that asteroid that’s been all over the news, LV-426?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am indeed familiar with LV-426. Folks have been squawking about little else for the past three months. There’s currently a 27% probability it could strike the Earth and end life as we know it. As I said, what about it?”
“It seems NASA is planning to do something about that,” he said. “Apparently, the probability has gone up. It’s 53% now, so the government is launching a space probe to go deal with it.”
She placed her book in her lap and stared at him.
I can think of worse things than spending the rest of my natural days floating about in space with my soul mate.
“OK,” she said. “What did NASA want?”
“About that,” he continued. “Apparently, it needs to be a manned mission. They are going to launch a spaceship equipped with a massive 102-megaton thermonuclear bomb with the intent of redirecting the trajectory of LV-426.
The problem is that the thing isn’t completely predictable. They need someone on board to tweak the guidance solution. They’ve only got one shot at this. It has to be done right, or everybody on Earth could die.”
“And your point would be?” she asked.
“That’s the thing,” he said. “It seems they have been scrubbing old applications, and they wanted to see if I would be willing to do it.”
The woman stared silently at her husband. The quiet became uncomfortable.
“They’re serious,” he continued. “The email said it’s actually a two-person mission. They know all about me and my background from my previous application. This is the government, so they obviously have access to your academic records. Your superlative performance in the hard sciences apparently got their attention as well. What do you think?”
There was yet another uncomfortable silence.
“That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” she said. “You and I are both nearly sixty years old. We’re both healthy, I’ll grant you that, but there have got to be better candidates than the two of us. I hate riding in a car. There’s no way I’d voluntarily climb up into a rocket.”
“Hear me out,” the man said. “It’s an open-ended mission. They need somebody our age, because it’s not coming home. The ship is nuclear-powered. It recycles air, water, and food … though I’m not sure exactly how they pull off the last one. The email said it would run indefinitely. After we deal with LV-426, our mandate would be to simply sail out into space and see what we could find.
They would send us off with digital copies of every book, movie, and television program ever created. There’s plenty of space on the ship to move around and exercise. I think it would be kind of cool. It’d be just the two of us out in space forever. I can think of way worse things.”
By now, the woman had turned in her chair to face her husband.
“That is ridiculous,” she said. “What would they expect us to actually do out there?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Push a button or something. The email didn’t say.”
“AI could do that,” she said.
“Apparently not,” he countered. “The email was real. They need an answer by Friday.”
Once again … stunned silence.
“What would we do out in space for the rest of our natural lives?” she asked rhetorically.
“I don’t know,” he said. “After we pushed the button and saved the world, presuming we still had communications, I can see them making this into some kind of reality TV show or something. They could call it Marriage Among the Stars. I think you’d look awesome floating around in zero gravity.”
“And there it is,” she said flatly. “When I started dating you at age sixteen, it was on the expectation you might someday mature past that point.”
That bounced right off.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I’m genuinely interested, but they won’t take me without you. It’s a package deal. We’d be saving the world, saving our kids … it’d be awesome.”
The words hung in the air as the woman stared at her husband. Turning back into her chair, she lifted her book, adjusted her glasses, and said, “Nope.”