Finally here. This may have been the most exhausting day of my life, and yet I'm still strangely wired. My hab is built, my power is on, the water is heating for my desperately needed shower, and yet at the same time the overall strangeness of it all is a bit overwhelming. I've trained for this for years, but there's something about really being here...
Odd to call it "day 1". We've been in the system 219 days, 72 days before that in loop precession, 233 incredibly boring days from Mars to Jupiter, and .. what was it .. six years preparing for this mission. Hardly day number 1. More like .. anyway a long time. Plus a lifetime.
Space travel is time travel. While we were twisting around the field lines to cover our 500 plus light years we wound ourselves back in time, so right now on Earth (if you can talk about simultaneous over light years) it's 12 years before we left. I've got a modus for it -- in my personal calendar it's May 3, 2325 but on Earth it's March 27, 2313. I was 22, just entering grad school, full of hope and dreaming of Crabs. What things would I tell my earlier self, if it were possible? Of course a message from me now to me then would take over 500 years to get there and I would be long dead. Or at least gone.
On the other hand when we return -- if we return -- we'll unwind all those twists and gain some time in the bargain. Our displacement is almost 18 years. If we go home after 8 years here I would still be my natural age of 43 but my Einsteinian twin sister -- if I had one -- would be 60. My friends -- or lovers -- would be 18 years older than they should be by my mental clock.
The fuel cell system is very quiet. The generator I used in training had a comforting sound. I was used to that. The night here is not so quiet though. Insect-like things -- I'm afraid we don't have names for them yet -- are moving around everywhere. There are also some nocturnal animals. I'm a city girl at heart so all this nature is discomforting, no matter the training and the adrenaline.
I'm hoping my hot water will be ready soon. I really, really need a shower. I guess I'm running the AC at the same time which is overtaxing the rather minimal power system I've been assigned. I can be hot and sticky now and have a hot shower, or I can be cool now and feel dirty all night. I think I'll turn down the AC now and turn it on after I get clean.
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