“All crewmembers may now exit the Alpha Spacecraft” announced the aviator.
My parents slowly got up and walked to the exit. I rushed over to follow. After I climbed out of the spacecraft, I saw the huge, orange, rocky, and mostly beautiful Martian landscape. It was both terrifying and amazing how vast this planet was. It was completely different from Earth. “Earth,” I thought “such a shame what it has become.”
Earth was where my parents and I were born. From my parents’ stories, I learned that the earth used to be completely different. It was green and full of life. My mom used to go hiking over tall mountains and thousands of trees. My dad used to go miles out into the sea with his dad. Back then, everything was a lot better. Now the existing trees and animals are in museums or zoos all over the world. The earth’s oceans are now so polluted that most beaches have water as dark as charcoal. Mom and Dad wanted to find somewhere untouched by humans and their supercities while most people still wanted to live on Earth. Sometimes I question the sanity of the people on Earth. That’s why they signed us up for the building of the first fixed Martian base.
Many other people who came out of the exit were carrying supplies to make our first temporary base. They were people like us, who wanted to live in a world without many humans for a while. In our group, we had over a thousand workers. My parents and I went back in to help bring our supplies to the campsite. We can use this base to rest during the building process. After multiple inflatable rooms were placed, I started to bring my luggage to my room. After turning on my computer I stared at the next day’s schedule. We would only be eating lunch and dinner. There was too little time or space for breakfast. I closed the computer sadly, I was starving. The last time I ate was at lunchtime when I had been only given a small box of raisins. I hoped that tomorrow’s lunch would allow me to have plenty of food. Then, a wave of exhaustion hit me. I had been carrying luggage to the base for a whole day and it wore me out. I collapsed onto my bed and dozed off immediately.
Heaving the many piles of metal and cleaning the new base wasn’t easy, but soon we got used to most of the tedious tasks. After a few boring months of working on the base, it was finally done. The entire crew celebrated. But suddenly, we received an urgent message. The ship stopped working! I panicked. That ship was how we were going to get back. The announcement assured us that we would figure out how to fix it. We still had over a year to figure it out.
In the next few months, all the technicians checked every nook and cranny for an issue with the system. They ran electrical tests through all the wire systems. We still didn’t know why it wasn’t working. One day when I was cleaning a panel room, I peeked through one of the electrical boxes. It seemed like all the electrical boxes had been checked except for one. The box was open, but there was no evidence of it being checked. I looked inside but I only saw some wires. Suddenly, I noticed an empty can of soda in the corner of the wire box. Then I realized that the ship wasn’t working because someone must have dropped an entire can of soda onto the main control wires. Maybe someone was too embarrassed to admit it! Soon enough the problem was fixed, and all the wires were replaced with new dry wires. We all returned home without a problem, as we had planned. I was dying to meet my friend Ryan after so many months of work and worrying.
The End
My parents slowly got up and walked to the exit. I rushed over to follow. After I climbed out of the spacecraft, I saw the huge, orange, rocky, and mostly beautiful Martian landscape. It was both terrifying and amazing how vast this planet was. It was completely different from Earth. “Earth,” I thought “such a shame what it has become.”
Earth was where my parents and I were born. From my parents’ stories, I learned that the earth used to be completely different. It was green and full of life. My mom used to go hiking over tall mountains and thousands of trees. My dad used to go miles out into the sea with his dad. Back then, everything was a lot better. Now the existing trees and animals are in museums or zoos all over the world. The earth’s oceans are now so polluted that most beaches have water as dark as charcoal. Mom and Dad wanted to find somewhere untouched by humans and their supercities while most people still wanted to live on Earth. Sometimes I question the sanity of the people on Earth. That’s why they signed us up for the building of the first fixed Martian base.
Many other people who came out of the exit were carrying supplies to make our first temporary base. They were people like us, who wanted to live in a world without many humans for a while. In our group, we had over a thousand workers. My parents and I went back in to help bring our supplies to the campsite. We can use this base to rest during the building process. After multiple inflatable rooms were placed, I started to bring my luggage to my room. After turning on my computer I stared at the next day’s schedule. We would only be eating lunch and dinner. There was too little time or space for breakfast. I closed the computer sadly, I was starving. The last time I ate was at lunchtime when I had been only given a small box of raisins. I hoped that tomorrow’s lunch would allow me to have plenty of food. Then, a wave of exhaustion hit me. I had been carrying luggage to the base for a whole day and it wore me out. I collapsed onto my bed and dozed off immediately.
Heaving the many piles of metal and cleaning the new base wasn’t easy, but soon we got used to most of the tedious tasks. After a few boring months of working on the base, it was finally done. The entire crew celebrated. But suddenly, we received an urgent message. The ship stopped working! I panicked. That ship was how we were going to get back. The announcement assured us that we would figure out how to fix it. We still had over a year to figure it out.
In the next few months, all the technicians checked every nook and cranny for an issue with the system. They ran electrical tests through all the wire systems. We still didn’t know why it wasn’t working. One day when I was cleaning a panel room, I peeked through one of the electrical boxes. It seemed like all the electrical boxes had been checked except for one. The box was open, but there was no evidence of it being checked. I looked inside but I only saw some wires. Suddenly, I noticed an empty can of soda in the corner of the wire box. Then I realized that the ship wasn’t working because someone must have dropped an entire can of soda onto the main control wires. Maybe someone was too embarrassed to admit it! Soon enough the problem was fixed, and all the wires were replaced with new dry wires. We all returned home without a problem, as we had planned. I was dying to meet my friend Ryan after so many months of work and worrying.
The End
