Apollo Hope: a really long journey

chapter 1

- "the longer we wait, the more we fall behind on the mission"

- "I know it well but we can't leave the ISS without a biologist and a doctor"

- "I don't see why" answered Maya

- "really? in that case, we don't need an engineer or a mechanic either!" answered Ben

-"Are you trying to tell me that I'm not essential to this mission?"

-"I'm trying to tell you that if we're here, it's because we're all essential to this mission."

- "yes, if we are here... this substitute is not here .... so..."

- "You can't be..."

- "Christina Yang would have been fine"

- "Yes, if she hadn't gotten sick, you know very well that we can't go into space if we are sick"

- "okay, okay, okay, I'll stop arguing with you"

- "thank you, and the shuttle from the Kennedy Space Center should be here soon"

- "I don't see why they didn't just send someone from home"

- "they weren't going to fly a shuttle out of Houston when they had astronauts and supplies coming in from Cape Canaveral. Is there a reason you're so grumpy about this change of plan?"

- "I don't like changes in plans, we've been training with this team for over six months and now we get a change in a member, two days before we're going to be on a shuttle for two hundred and sixty days to go to Mars for an undetermined amount of time. Imagine this person is useless, imagine this astronaut doesn't work like we do? we were coordinated with Christina and now it's as if we had to start all over again but on the field. A space mission is not done lightly".

-"On Apollo 13, they replaced Ken Mattingly with John Swigert two days before departure because of Ken's measles!"

- "oh yes 'Houston we had a problem' that's reassuring! the service module exploded and one of the panels under the oxygen tank level disappeared"

- "but they didn't die and managed to get back to Earth"

- "is that supposed to reassure me?"

- "Bishop... they assured me they were sending the equivalent of Yang to Florida."

- "do I really have a choice?"

- "none of us have it right now..."

- "okay, okay, let's wait and see this super astronaut!"

It had been five days since Ben Warren's crew had been waiting in the ISS orbital station, the International Space Station.

Their trip to Mars should have started two days ago, instead they had to wait for a new crew member to replace one of the astronauts who fell ill.

On the ISS they had seen fellow countrymen and other astronauts, they did not all know each other. But Maya was not the type to mix. She was the arms of this mission but also the little genius. She was the chief engineer and at the same time the mechanic, in fact according to her you couldn't be one without the other. To help her in her mission she had Dean, the big guns, he was a man of thirty years, very nice and square in his work. The blonde had the right to choose her team. So there was Dean and as a second for the engineer part she had Travis Montgomery. They both had notions in the field of expertise of the other.

In the team there was also Victoria Hughes, she was a biologist but she was not a chief biologist, that's why they needed another person to replace Christina. With her was Andy Herrera who was there for the astrophysics and astronomy part, she also knew a bit about medicine and biology. Ben, who was the commander, was a former army pilot with Jack Gibson, who was a former airline pilot, and Taryn Helm, an aeronautical engineer with a civil aviation degree.