From: joshua@dmccorp.com (Joshua Lellis)
Subject: Spaceboy
Date: 17 Jul 1995 08:00:10 GMT

critiques and comments welcome at joshua@client.dmccorp.com. please
write. :)
as for spelling and such, it's 3 a.m. and i'm running on caffeine and donuts.

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Spaceboy
by Joshua Lellis
Copyright 1995 Joshua Lellis

inspiration from: (well, you know who you are)

  Interest in the United States space program had dwindled terribly in
the last few years of the millenium. By the year 2005, Americans had lost
almost all interest in space, focusing their attentions on various other
objectives that had yet to be accomplished. The homeless in America had
tripled in ten years, and jobs that weren't minimum wage were hard to
find.
  America had always kept up a strong image as the police of the world,
and the citizens were more interested more in the current hotspots of the
globe.  Was there violence in Ireland? Was there ethnic cleansing in
Bosnia?
  With the deployment of ground troops to Bosnia, America entered what
was nicknamed "Vietnam II". The American troops were slaughtered in a
guerrila war they couldn't win. The natives knew the terrain.
  In 2007, the Russians completed a fully operational colony space station.
They named it Archangel. It was capable of supporting one quarter million
people for ten years without receiving supplies from Earth. The station
had weapons systems which operated manually or automatically. There was
no such thing as space pirates back then.
  It was in late 2007 when the United States government decided to
colonize the moon. After they had ended the Apollo program, all hope for
colonization on the moon seemed dim. But now there was motivation. The
Russians had beaten us into space stations, and the next step for them
was going to be the moon. If not the moon, the Russians were surely to
try for Mars.
   Rumor had it that the Russians were busy designing rockets that would
efficiently run on solar energy. At present it would take three years to
make it to Mars. After which, an artificial enviroment would be set up,
and it would take another three years to send colonists to Mars.
Americans had six years to colonize the moon before the Russians did.
   If they had one colony station in orbit of the Earth right now, they
could have hundreds of them up there. What were we to do when hundreds of
colonies floating above us are given nuclear power? They could launch
missiles from space and watch from above as the United States blows up
before their eyes.
   They had their own agriculture system, after all, so they could grow
their own food. They could farm like they did on earth, and they could do
it effectively. Not only that, but with hundreds of colonies firing
missiles at America, they could take over the world when the police of
the world were destroyed.
   The Americans had failed in Bosnia two years earlier, didn't they? This
was necessary. The Americans had to colonize the moon and they had to do
it now!
   This is the point where I come in. I'm one of the last few remaining
astronauts. I'm Russian born and trained, but I came to the United States
in 1997 to pursue a career as a folk singer. I know, I know, looking back
on it now it seems silly, but I could not get into space as a cosmonaut
in Russia, because I was not good enough, and I could not get a record
deal in Russia, because I never found that big break into folk music there.
   With my acoustic guitar in hand, my band and I moved to Florida. We
never did make that big break into folk music, but we did happen to
record an album in 1999, called "The Apocalypse". It failed to make us
any money, and we found other ways to go shortly after that.
   My way led me to NASA.
   NASA had been storing money for years, secretly, and creating bigger
and better rockets to send people into space. When funding increased in
late 2007, NASA quickly brought out plans for a colony on the moon, and I
found myself the pilot of a spaceship carrying tons of colony equipment
to the moon.
   The colony equipment I was assigned to take to the moon on the first
trip was a square mile of metal alloys which were to be attached to the
moon by the eighteen members of my crew. Of course, it would not take as
long as it would on Earth, because there is no gravity in space. My crew
could lay down and attach the metal to the moon in two weeks (or so the
plan went). After which, I would pilot the second half of the colony down
onto the moon. It was a clear metal alloy which would help act as a
greenhouse in the artificial enviroment that was to be in this colony.
   The crew and I would then return to Earth, ready ourselves for the
second trip, and make that second trip to the moon. The second trip would
consist of attaching oxygen tanks into the colony to create the
enviroment. Other gases, nitrogen, etc.., were also being brought along.
Also being brought along were an artificial gravity machine and half a
square mile of soil. The gravity machine would keep the soil on the
ground. The third trip would take up the colonists and the seeds, as well
as plenty of food. They would build up there, and hopefully, life would
continue well on the moon.
   By April 2008, NASA had prepared us all to enter space. My crew and I
lifted off at noon time on April 1st, 2008, and we were to travel the
distance from the earth to the moon in one and a half days.
   I yawned when the first day ended. I really thought it would be much
more exciting to be in space. I mean, after all, this was space! The idea
of having to chase my liquids around the cabin of the cockpit lost its
impact on me. I had reached space.
   I looked out a window of my spaceship, and I saw Archangel, orbiting
the Earth. There were lights blinking and flashing, and it looked like a
regular neighbourhood. It was night there, even though they were in
daylight. People were sleeping on that. Comrades were there. People I
knew from the cosmonauts were there. Someone was in that station's
cockpit, flying that thing, making sure that it didn't crash into the
Earth and burn up a quarter million people. Someone was making sure the
weapons system didn't shoot my spaceship out of the sky.
   And what if they did? We had no weapons. We could not fire back.
   I sighed as this trip began to grate on my nerves, and I looked across
from me at the blank wall, and I closed my eyes, and dreamt of Mars.


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             joshua@client.dmccorp.com
joshua        lellis -- jacob        latter -- stauf