By Jack Wu.
‘Everyone’s getting pretty antsy. We’ve all examined the specs, and the actual probe, but I’m pretty sure that a quarter of the workforce wants to dismantle then reassemble everything again by hand, just to make sure.’
‘Well… Ben.’ She paused, looking for any kind of reassuring message. ‘Like you’ve said. We’ve all checked the equipment, plans and math more times than Santa probably cleans his beard with a fine-tooth comb. It should be fine.’ Samantha had grown tired of the endless doubting by her peers, but they were probably right, too. This probe was pushing the limits of what could be done in the astronautical field, and she was the lead on the project.
This was a tremendous day for the organisation. A new experimental probe, rocket and set of technology, was set to launch in a few hours, and everything had to be perfect. They’d thrown the rocket, probe, and equipment through rigorous simulations to ensure it could handle the trip. They’d reviewed the equations for the launch over a thousand times, crunching more numbers than household calculators and children’s education shows combined. Everything was being monitored with the utmost precision in mind––communication, fuel, every little dial and number change anywhere on site, even who was using the bathroom and how many times in the day.
Nothing was being left to chance. The entire facility was bustling with a mix of anxiety and stress, and the average blood pressure was high enough to be counted as an outlier in a medical consensus on hypertension in the nation.
Everything. Had. To. Be. Perfect. Otherwise, they’d just be hurling a hunk of metal into the sky and praying nothing would be unlucky enough to be hit while the rocket hurtled back to the ground.
Samantha knew this. But still, her heart was running a mile and her brain slowly melting to jelly. She practiced some mental breathing techniques to calm her nerves. In one… two…, out one… two…. In, one… two…, out one… two… three… four… five… six… seven…
‘Sam, are you trying to emulate the Big Bad Wolf?’ Ben smirked. ‘It looks like you’re about to blow the roof off the building.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Sam blushed. ‘Just trying to calm my nerves.’
‘Okay, you should head to your office and relax.’ Ben turned Sam around and nudged her down the corridor to her office. ‘Seeing the project lead literally deflate in the control centre is going to turn some people’s hair white.’
‘Thanks again Ben, You’re a huge help. I think I need to lie down.’
‘I’ll get launch preparation started.’
It took Sam endless nights working on precise equations, complicated works of engineering and arguing for funding and approval of the project. Truly a gauntlet of challenges to get her project going, ailing her to no end. Even the naming of the project caused her frustration. She’d heard people mockingly calling the project “Project Icarus.” The name was insulting on multiple levels. For one, not being anywhere near accurate to the actual tale, but also because they’d obviously didn’t put much thought into the name and picked the moniker simply to insult the project and imply its failure. If they were going to insult her, she would have at least appreciated some creativity and originality. But, more truthfully, it felt like she was being compared to her family’s long history of doom. Because coincidentally she was a descendant of Icarus, no pun intended, at least the real-life version.
With the help of excellent record keeping, family stories and various genealogy companies, her family could trace their roots far back into history. Every member was obsessed the idea of flight and escaping the bonds of gravity. Many of her ancestors were labelled as loons and fools for their aspirations, their foolhardy plans, their hubris. Though, some found themselves immortalised in historical records and stories. Her most notable ancestor was of course, Icarus, and he epitomised her family’s experience. For Samantha, this launch would be her story, her myth told amongst her family.
The air in the facility seemed to calm down, foot traffic in the hallways lightened and people shifted into quiet contemplation and lunch breaks. But her thoughts were still frantic and sloshing around like syrup in a frozen drink machine. Samantha anchored her mind upon some questions. Would she be like Icarus? Was she reaching too high? Would she crash and burn? Would all her efforts be for nought? The fast-approaching launch time would soon provide answers.
However, distracted by her anxiety, Samantha quickly learned of the imminent approach of her office when she slammed into the door. She could calculate the orbit of satellites around the Earth but, apparently couldn’t track how close to the door she was. Slinking into the office, she took a slow, deep breath.
Samantha couldn’t shake the image of a burning Icarus falling through the sky out of her mind. While Icarus was a tale of hubris, her family took it far more seriously; a warning told to the kids of the family to be wary of the heights they sought to climb, or at least don’t jump off things unless you’re properly equipped. A necessary lesson, because within all their hearts, was engraved their dream. Their dream of flying.
No one really knew why they were each focussed on flying. Maybe the desire was in their blood. Some family members joked that they’d just evolved that way––that they were descendants of the first cave man who tried jumping and simultaneously the first to break their legs. Her own dad, following in Icarus’ footsteps when he was eight, made cardboard wings and jumped off his family’s deck, surviving, thankfully, as he decided to land in some backyard bushes.
The reason for their obsession was of no importance to Samantha. The project was a chance to reach her family’s dream; to prove her own dream.
To many in the STEM field, this project was nothing more than a pipe dream, more akin to speculative science fiction than actual science. For so long, the project had been nothing more than pure hypothesis and fantasy, a point of ridicule for her hecklers. Proving all her detractors wrong was arguably Samantha’s second biggest reason for working on this project.
She scoured over her notes, blueprints, and what looked like some receipts for lunch, hastily searching for any errors in her work––anything that could threaten the success of the launch. Samantha was sure that everything was correct, but the voices of her peers sowed doubt in her mind.
It wasn’t even the first time in her family’s history that people believed their projects, which were grounded and had extensive physics research poured into them, to be mere fantasy. In fact, her great grandpa Dave was one of the first people to work on actual flying machines. Unfortunately, while testing one of his prototypes, he crashed down in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina and slipped into a coma, after which those Wright brothers would appropriate the wreckage and flying machine.
Even worse off was her ancestor from the Renaissance period, Giovanni something or other, a name Samantha, for some reason, could never pin down. He was a minor Renaissance figure who mostly worked on architecture, but his true goal was to build a flying machine. Giovanni even worked with Leonardo Da Vinci and helped with the idea for Leonardo’s aerial screw, which didn’t pan out, and his contribution was left uncredited. Upon learning this Samantha wanted to boycott anything related to Da Vinci. But that made both her trip to the Louvre and her enjoyment of her favourite team of mutant ninjas far more difficult. In the end, these stories hardened her resolve to believe in her plans, to have confidence, to steel her heart.
A light tapping on her glass office door pulled her focus from history. Ben.
‘The rocket’s ready and launch is set to go in about thirty minutes,’ Ben said, popping into the office ‘You ready?’
‘As ready as anyone can be,’ Samantha said, rubbing her forehead. ‘I don’t think there’s anything else I can do. Did you get word from the other departments? Has meteorology given us the go ahead?’
‘Yep,’ Ben replied and leaned against the door ‘Heard back and they said everything should be good. I think people are just waiting to get the green light from you.’
Samantha closed her eyes; it seemed the omens were wrong. But her nerves failed her, and a cold rush of fear washed over her body.
‘Everything ok?’ Ben stood at attention. ‘If you don’t feel like you’re up to it. You can stay in your office.’
‘No… I….’ She took a few deep breaths. In one… two…, out one… two…. ‘I need to see this through.’
Like an old sea captain standing at the bow of their ship gazing forward toward the horizon, Samantha stood in ground control, overlooking everything. Her eyes scanned the room, watching each person in the room juggling their own duties and communication. She stared at the front of the room where the monitors were displaying camera feed, which looked upon her pride and joy, the culmination of all her efforts, the rocket.
Success or failure, the project was driving her mad. Samantha had gone over in her head a thousand times what would happen if this project failed. She’d probably be shunned in the field and be forced to move back home, wallowing in despair and depression. She was certain of that outcome, but realised she never took a moment to think what would happen if the project succeeded. While failure was a prominent family occurrence, they weren’t complete strangers to success.
In fact, a relative was one of the first female aviators. Great aunt Bessie Coleman was greatly accomplished and widely recognised, but she kept pushing the bounds her field and ultimately met a tragic fate. Great aunt Earhart also didn’t meet a happy ending either. Either way, if Samantha did succeed what would happen? The uncertainty was unsettling.
‘Are we good to go Sam?’ Ben prodded.
Oh shit. Samantha wasn’t ready but this was really happening. Really happening. Too late to change anything.
‘Y-yeah. Everything ready?’ She stammered.
‘Yep,’ replied Ben.
‘Alright let’s do this.’ She took a deep breath.
Samantha’s mind was on the verge of blanking out, her legs were ready to give out. Time for the count down.
Ten.
Nine.
She could do this; they’d done everything they could to prepare.
Eight.
Seven.
It began to feel like the longest ten seconds of her life.
Six.
Five.
Nope. Nope. She wasn’t ready.
Four.
Three.
This was a mistake. This was a mistake.
Two.
No turning back.
One.
Blast off.
The rocket bellowed tonnes of steam while blasting into the sky, picking up speed and propelling its way upward. The rocket broke through the troposphere, sailed past the stratosphere, and easily blasted through the mesosphere and thermosphere, navigating the course through the exosphere. The final stretch. After this, it was clean sailing. Samantha’s dream was coming true.
But when the main engine was about to be detached, something went wrong. The mechanism wouldn’t let go. Jammed. Something was wrong. The tension in the room began to rise. People began rushing to figure out what was going on and find a fix. Maybe they could keep going? It was all Samantha could hope for.
‘What’s going on?’ Samantha yelled.
‘I don’t know,’ an engineer called back. ‘Maybe it’s the coupling or…’
BOOM!
Samantha turned towards the screen, once following a rocket but now watching a flaming red and orange ball.
It was over. It was over. It was over.
Her life was over.
After this, there was no way she could stay in the astronautical field. She was an embarrassment. It’s over. She’d have to move back home. It’s over. What was wrong, everything seemed right.
It’s over. It’s over.
She literally couldn’t stand, falling back onto her chair. It’s over. She put everything on the line and now her reputation was tanked. It’s over. The weight of the world began to fall on her shoulders, she could feel her mind breaking, her world closing off.
But Samantha realised that the weight wasn’t metaphorical. There was an actual weight on her shoulder. She snapped back to reality and looked up; it was Ben. He too had a dour expression on his face, his eyes closed, his breathing deep.
‘Shit… I… I… I guess we should contact salvage team,’ Ben said with a sigh
Ben seemed to feel the same pain as her, the same despair and doom. Samantha looked around. Everyone was consoling each other, frustrated and sad. She wasn’t alone. This wasn’t just her project. This was everyone’s project.
Everyone in her family wasn’t alone. Her great aunt’s had family and friends supporting their efforts in aviation. Great-grandpa Dave may have landed in a coma, but when he awoke in the hospital, he met great-grandma Isabelle. Giovanni might not have gotten the credit he deserved, but he still took part in the Renaissance movement that helped to advance humanity. Her dad obviously had Nana and Pops take care of him after the cardboard wings incident. And the real Icarus had the real Daedalus there with him, helping him in his efforts to build the wings. But more importantly, he was there when Icarus fell. When Icarus became the inspiration for Plato’s and Diogenes’ interpretation of a “featherless biped.”
None of them were alone. And they all stood back up when they fell.
She wasn’t alone. This was a failure, yes. But it was an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Samantha stood up, put her hand on Ben’s shoulder, looked to the room and found her strength.
‘Alright everyone,’ she rallied. ‘Contact the salvage team. Let’s see what went wrong. We’ll get it next time.’