Mission 1705

For this mission, it was difficult to navigate the web of intentions surrounding the thing, which produced unlikely celestial phenomena, mechanical malfunctions of all kinds, ridiculous human error and too many small furry animals. It was, if not precisely logical, unpredictable.

On the first day (Monday), a Soyez craft was launched (for lack of clearance of a space shuttle) and came down hard later that same day. The go-ahead was given to launch a shuttle and Endeavor was taken up.

The second day opened with a semi-serious set of injuries to the Endeavor’s pilot, who was caught in a vacuum created when the ISS failed to form a tight seal with the Endeavor in the docking bay. The pilot did recover however, and Endeavor was able to return to earth where it touched down hard, damaging the landing gear and getting all the shuttles grounded until the cause of the problem could be determined….

…on Wednesday, immediately preceding a supply run by the space shuttle Atlantis, there was a station-wide lighting failure on the ISS. Later that day, the Atlantis was brought back to Earth where it ran off the runway with a landing gear problem. However there was no empathy at mission control, whose major concern was with the thunder clouds into which they were busy shooting the space shuttle Discovery. This flight was abandoned at the realization of the threat posed by the lightning the clouds were generating, and the Discovery was brought down in Morocco. Meanwhile the ISS was irradiated during a solar flare and the entire crew was sent into isolation.

The Discovery was returned by the Moroccans on Thursday and a refurbished Endeavor launched, delivering Sheskamu to the then radiation-free ISS. Sheskamu is the daughter of the founder of the space program’s primary technological supplier and the woman who would become the first residential inhabitant of outer space. The ISS crew quickly grew to loathe her and they were applauded by all upon cocooning her in the duct tape and throwing her out of the airlock. The Endeavor landed safely, and tribbles were discovered on the ISS.

When on Saturday the sun peeked over the Earth’s crown and looked upon the space station, all was havoc. The Station had experienced a total power failure due to the malfunctioning of the motorized joint responsible for adjusting the Station’s solar panels to catch sunlight. The panels themselves had been riddled with micrometeorites, so once reserve power in the batteries was gone, the crew was out of luck. Repairs were impossible thanks to the damage caused by the tribbles (natural equivalent of the garbage disposal - eat anything, man!) which had multiplied to an unhealthy product, and begun eating away at the Station’s wiring. Mission Commander Stephan Justus had gone insane from stress and been relieved of duty at the same time that the station was in imminent danger of a collision by a giant asteroid. Via a frantic rally and several illegal permutations of authority, CASA’s senior students were able to evaluate the Station and retrieve all the tribbles, expect one, which is now presumed dead. But is it? Maybe we will find out during next year’s mission.