The Astronaut

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Author's Note: This is a work of fiction. The characters do not represent any person living or dead. Procedures described do not represent actual procedures used by NASA. This story is in no way endorsed or approved by NASA or any other government agency.

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"Okay, Zed. I've got this now."

Words that were about to go viral. Words that caused someone to say "Uh oh" in hundreds of homes across the nation. Words that led to Dennis Wilson holding his head in his hands at the NASA Family Center in Houston, Texas. The two teen girls with him sat with their mouths open.

Astronaut Carol 'Pudge' Wilson had spoken those words. She wasn't really pudgy. That was a nickname she had gotten when she was two years old and being pudgy was cute. The nickname had stuck.

She was a teacher from a small town in New Hampshire. The 'Live Free or Die' state. She had been selected by NASA to be on the last mission to the space station. It was partly a PR gesture and partly a sincere thank you to all the civilians who had backed the space station over the years.

The two professional astronaut scientists were already in the capsule that would return them to Earth. Mrs. Wilson was supposed to throw the last switch to power down the space station and join them. She had asked for 15 minutes more to absorb where she was and the impact of what she was about to do. NASA refused. There was a schedule to keep.

"Okay, Zed. I've got this now."

In hundreds of homes, her students and former students said, "Uh oh". They had all heard those words at some point and knew what they meant. Dennis Wilson knew what they meant too. Face in hands, he was smiling and shaking his head.

"They should have given her the damn 15 minutes."

Her two daughters knew what they meant. Their jaws dropped.

"Mom did not just say that to NASA," one whispered. The two teens looked at each other.

"I think the shiteth is about to hiteth the faneth," replied her sister.

"Okay, Zed" was a catchphrase used by Mrs. Wilson. It was a play on the British word for the last letter of the alphabet.

It meant Pudge Wilson was done. She had covered everything from A to Z. She was done talking. Done arguing. Done debating. Done listening.

It meant Pudge Wilson was now going to take action. Unilateral action.

Mrs. Wilson never said those words lightly. She was more than willing to talk things out, listen to other opinions, take suggestions, explore options. But when she reached the end, it was over.

CAPCOM, the man listening to those words, had no idea what they meant.

"Say again, Pudge"

There was no reply.

"Flight, environmentals just came back online."

"Flight, auxiliary power just came back online."

Pudge Wilson was going to get her 15 minutes one way or the other. She hadn't been trained on how to power up the space station but figured it was the reverse of powering it down.

"Pudge, we see what you're doing. Hold right there. If systems aren't brought up properly it can cause a catastrophic failure. Repeat. Hold right there."

"Roger. Holding for ten minutes."

Everyone looked at Flight, the man in charge of the mission. He was considering how to deal with an insubordinate astronaut who was 250 miles away. There wasn't a contingency plan for an astronaut rebellion.

Flight was about to tell the other two astronauts to remove Pudge and shut the station down themselves. He didn't have the chance.

"Mark here. With Pudge."

"James here. With Pudge."

"Pudge here. Waiting for power up instructions. Eight minutes until end of hold."

Now it was a three person rebellion. A three person astronaut rebellion that was playing out in public. Nobody had turned off the public communication feed. Social media was going crazy. Memes were flying. TV and cable networks were interrupting whatever show was being broadcast.

"Okay, Zed. I've got this" had just gone viral. In ten minutes, a third of the planet was listening. In twenty minutes, it was closer to three quarters of the planet.

"Damn internet," thought Flight. He couldn't turn off the public communication feed now without feeling the wrath of several billion people. He couldn't leave it on without feeling the wrath of everybody higher in the chain of command.

The man weighed all the factors. Safety, budget, politics, PR, options. He was pretty sure he would have to retire after this if he wasn't fired first. Someone would be blamed and it wouldn't be Pudge Wilson. She would be a folk hero.

"CAPCOM, give her the checklist. Slowly," Flight ordered.

That would buy time at least. It would take an hour or two to go through the power up checklist and confirm everything was operating correctly.

An hour to do what? It wasn't like you could send a SWAT team to the space station.

"Go offline, Pudge," Flight wanted to talk to her privately. "What do you want, Carol?" Flight only used her first name when he was very mad or very serious. Right now he was both.

"Well, I did want 15 minutes but now I think we need something more. Maybe a few days more. And a way for people to ask us questions. Let them talk to us directly for question and answer sessions."

"Can't do it, Carol. Do you know how much time it's going to take to recalculate reentry and get ships in position? You need to power down and get in the capsule. We can still get you back on schedule."

"Guess you better get somebody on those new calculations, Flight. We're staying." There was a long pause.

"Flight, let people call in and talk to us directly. No texting, no passing questions along. Real people having a real conversation with real astronauts in space. It'll be a PR goldmine. Nobody will care how this all started."

There was another pause.

"Do you know how popular talk radio is these days?"

Flight didn't know and didn't care. He wanted his astronauts in the capsule and on their way back to earth. He just couldn't figure out how to do it.

"How many days more?" he asked in resignation.

"Fifteen days. By my rough calculations, that will make reentry close to what it is today. Save moving the ships too far. Besides having 15 minutes become 15 days seems kind of poetic, doesn't it?"

Flight cursed under his breath. "Seems kind of poetic" he mocked silently with a pained expression on his face.

He grunted into the mike. It wasn't a 'yes' but it wasn't a 'no' either.

Mrs. Wilson was well aware that Mission Control could turn off the systems remotely. That would force the astronauts into the capsule. But Mission Control couldn't operate the capsule remotely. The astronauts could live in the capsule for several days, perhaps a week before returning.

That would be a PR nightmare for NASA. They would essentially be trying to starve the astronauts out in front of the whole world. Not a good look.

Flight asked James and Mark to go private. The conversation was brief. The other two astronauts were siding with Pudge on this. While they would probably lose their current jobs, they would also be folk heroes and were certain to get new jobs. Plus they were civilians, not military. They couldn't be ordered to obey and they couldn't be court martialed.

"Can you be charged with grand theft for stealing a space station?" Flight idly wondered.

Flight called his boss, who called his boss, who called his boss. Eventually, the ultimate boss, the President, refused to get involved. The other bosses said the same thing so the matter landed back in the lap of Flight and the head of the Johnson Space Center.

The head of the Space Center suggested an approach.

"Let's just ignore how this started. We'll announce the mission is being extended for 15 days. We'll announce the call-ins with the astronauts."

Flight nodded. That might work.

"The press is going to want to know why. We need to get Pudge, Mark, and James on board. Maybe she'd agree to say an anomaly led to her first request for 15 minutes and it spiraled from there. That would almost be the truth."

They got all three astronauts on the next call. Pudge was irritatingly chipper. Mark and James sounded amused. Flight fumed. The head of the Space Center listened silently as he paced back and forth.

"Just saying it was an anomaly won't cut it, Flight. The press will want to know what kind of anomaly and why you didn't see it and why you didn't give me 15 minutes to fix it and yada yada yada."

Flight waited.

"Better if I say I thought I saw something anomalous but it wasn't. Better if I say I didn't explain myself clearly to you guys. I'm just a school teacher after all."

For the first time, Flight got a slight smile on his face. Pudge Wilson had been thinking about the fall out even as she worked to get the space station back up and running Thinking about it better than he had been.

She was offering an explanation that would be completely understandable to the rest of the world. A simple mistake by someone who was just a regular person. It wasn't really an anomaly. It wasn't NASA's fault. We've all goofed up at one time or another.

"You sure, Pudge? There could be repercussions," Flight liked her idea but he wanted her to be sure of what she was doing.

"Mark and James came back on board to check on me. Make sure everything was okay."

"That's our story and we're sticking to it," Flight offered.

"No, Flight. That's what happened."

Mrs. Wilson, the school teacher from a small town in New Hampshire, wasn't going to back down even an inch.

Flight was beginning to sense that he and the rest of NASA had vastly underestimated the woman.

"One more thing, Flight. I want Jodie Miller from my school to be the first caller."

"Is she one of your students?"

"She was." There was a pause while Wilson considered what to say. "She's on the verge of flunking out. There are family problems. I want her to know she's got value. That she's worth talking to. That of all the people in the world we could have talked to first, we wanted it to be her."

There was another long pause.

"It won't fix her problems but maybe it will help her to keep trying. And if the President wants to call, tell him to call after we land."

There was more conversation about the logistics necessary to set up the calls. It was decided the first calls would take place the next morning.

Flight and the director of the Space Center looked at each other. They were grinning. Maybe this would work, maybe it wouldn't but, boy, this was going to be fun.

Nine o'clock the next morning Flight was on with Pudge. The first call was about to be put through. Sounds could be heard as it was connected.

"Mrs. Wilson, this is the White House. Please stand by."

"I said I didn't want to talk to the President," Pudge fumed.

"Take the call. It's not the President," Flight interrupted.

"Mrs. Wilson? It's me, Jodie. Are you there?" It was the voice of a very nervous teenager.

"Jodie? What's going on? Where are you calling from?". For a second, Mrs. Wilson thought this might be an elaborate joke staged by Flight.

"I'm at the White House. In the President's office. You know? The oval one. The police showed up last night at dinner time and brought us here. They put us on a jet, all by ourselves. Well, us and the Principal. And some guy that said you wanted to talk to me."

"I did want to talk to you. I'm still on the space station with Mr. Mark and Mr. James. We're going to be here for another couple weeks talking to people. Letting them ask questions and such. I wanted you to be the first one to call."

"Why me? I'm nothing special."

"You are special to me. Your thoughts and questions matter just as much as anyone else's. Even the President's."

"He's not as boring as I thought he would be. He was telling funny stories about his cat over breakfast. Where are you now?"

"In the space station." Mrs. Wilson was a little confused by the question.

"No, I mean where are you over the Earth. Look out the window."

"We're over India right now."

"Mark here. We should be over you in about 20 minutes."

The conversation went on as the space station passed by overhead and headed across the Atlantic. Nothing earth shaking was discussed. There was talk of family, problems she faced at home and school, thoughts about what she might want to be in the future.

Finally, it was time to say goodbye.

"Thanks for asking for me, Mrs. Wilson. It's probably the greatest thing I'll ever get to do."

"Your welcome, Jodie. And I'm confident there are other great things waiting for you in the future."

Pudge didn't know it until later but Jodie and her family toured Washington the rest of the day. They toured New York City the next day and then Boston. The President had understood Pudge's goal and arranged the whole trip.

When the family returned home, there was a job offer for Jodie's father. He had been unemployed for nearly a year. The local community college offered the teen a scholarship if she got her grades up. They also offered tutoring assistance to help get her grades up.

For the next fourteen days, there were calls 24 hours a day. Calls from all over the world. The astronauts slept in shifts so at least two were available to talk. Questions about space and how to become an astronaut, of course. But more questions about family and the caller's lives. Discussions of hopes and dreams and fears. Discussions of successes and failures.

It was like the space station was the kitchen table and the world was sitting around it, talking and listening over a cup of coffee.

NASA did a good job screening the calls. There were no nut cases, no politicians, nobody famous or super-rich. Just a lot of average people trying to do their best in life. A reminder that most people were average and most people were trying to do their best.

Everyone who called from the United States received a personal note from the President. He listened to each of their calls. He said it was the most enjoyable thing he had done as President.

Day fifteen came. Mark and James were in the capsule. Carol 'Pudge' Wilson was in the space station waiting to throw the last switch. She took a last look out the window.

"Fifteen more minutes?"

"Anything you want, Pudge."

"Just kidding. Three ... two ... one ... shut down complete."

The space station went dark. Mrs. Wilson clambered into the capsule and sealed the door. It was time to go home.

It was tough switching from space travel to earth travel. In space, they had circled the globe every 90 minutes. Now it took four days to go from their Pacific Ocean landing to Houston.

They exited the plane and stood at the top of the steps. Carol was in front, Mark and James behind to the sides. They had insisted she go first. They waved at the crowd.

Carol scanned the faces. There were Dennis and her two daughters. She had missed them. She blew a kiss. There were the director of the Space Center and Flight. They smiled and gave a thumbs up.

There was a red carpet from the bottom of the steps to a receiving line set up twenty feet away. The President and First Lady were the first in the receiving line. Jodie Miller was the third person in line.

When Carol's foot touched the red carpet, Jodie left her place in line. She walked toward her teacher, slowly at first, then quicker, then running. Teacher and student embraced for a long time. Jodie hugged Mr. Mark and Mr. James before escorting them down the red carpet.

"Mr. President, this is my teacher, Mrs. Wilson."

- - - - -

Pudge Wilson's punishment for her space rebellion was a two month long publicity tour for NASA. She had been right. The calls during the 15 day extension had been a PR goldmine. Congress had even increased the NASA budget.

Finally it was over. She had packed and was saying her goodbyes at the Space Center. Home awaited. She needed to start preparing for the new school year.

Flight walked her to a waiting car.

"Would you answer one question for me?" he asked, "Why did you want the extra 15 minutes?"

Carol smiled and looked a little embarrassed.

"I wanted to see home one more time. We would have been over the East Coast in 15 more minutes."

- - - - -

Jodie Miller got her grades up. She went to community college and the University of New Hampshire on scholarships. She was the first college graduate in her family.

Nine years after her call from the White House, Jodie was hired to teach science at her old high school. She and her colleague, Carol Wilson, regularly have lunch together in the faculty lounge.