In orbit high above the earth is a space station shaped like a big H. Inside are four astronauts—one each from America, Japan, the U.K. and Italy—and two cosmonauts from, where else, Russia. The gender divide as usual does not reflect worldwide demographics: four men and two women. Since the station is in continuous orbit over twenty-four time zones there is no such thing as date or time. Keeping their sense of time coherent and unified, however, inside the ship the time is 4:15 on October 1 according to the Coordinated Universal Time clock on the wall back in mission control
The station will orbit the earth sixteen times which for those inside represents one single twenty-four hour working day. Of course, when you are 250 miles from the nearest human being on one side and actually seeing the immensity of infinity on all others, the workday often includes extended periods of intense metaphysical musing alongside the tasks to maintain a sense of normalcy like keeping track of how many underwear changes have been necessary in the number of days down to the minute that one has been in orbit.
The entire narrative covers that twenty-four period of sixteen orbits around the big blue marble below. When your entertainment is literally the only entire world that any human being has ever known, it becomes the focus of attention not unlike breaking news that captivates everyone’s attention for twelve hours. Each of the six astronauts has been caught in that moment when what they see out the window is Mother Earth, the real deal, source of everything ever known by anyone who ever lived. But that sense of wonderment cannot go on unbroken forever when one must also drink juice with straws and the only utensil necessary for every meal is a spoon.
There is no sudden awakening of a carnivorous space alien midway through the sixteen orbits. There is no collision with asteroids or even man-made space junk that puts the lives of those aboard in mortal danger. There is no revelation that the cosmonauts are planning to take over control of the space station in order to create communications chaos in hostile countries. The conflict in the story is within each mind of the astronauts as they try to grapple with the contradictions of something beyond explanation to anyone but those who have been there and daily routine of humanity.
The narrative is a series of interior monologues within the six who are reflecting upon whatever is occupying their thoughts at any given moment in time. It could be obsessive thoughts about the meaning of a painting titled Las Meninas that is purposely intended to disorient the viewer not unlike how the absence of gravity disorients the natural calculation of up and down. It could be making up lists of things that irritate—like lumpy pillows, the Kennedy family, or trying to pee in space—and another list of things that reassure, like mugs with handles that don’t easily break off, wide stairways, and pumpkins. It might also be the revelation that when you traveling at absurd speed in orbital space there is no past or future or present because there is always at the same time a past, future and present.
Only one thing really unites the six and, curiously enough, it is not something happening inside the space station but rather something happening back on earth that they can see happening only in broken pieces like a live event being streamed over a lousy internet connection. Out in the Western Pacific Ocean a typhoon is gaining strength and heading toward Indonesia and the Philippines. The astronauts watch it forming as if in slow-motion that gets sped up with a view offering a storm so vast that even with their unique perspective they cannot see it all. They can see gaining strength and building toward becoming what will likely be at least a devastating Category 4.
The sense of just how significant the storm back on earth is becoming can be judged by the reaction of those so far away from it. Each time their orbit brings them back around to a position where they can see how much bigger and stronger it has gotten, everything else stops and the cameras come out and snapping of pictures begins. Only those on the space station can witness the actual growth and power of the story rather than enhanced meteorological images. And yet hovering over the storm that nobody back on earth foresaw becoming the Category 5 monster that is still does not allow them to know in advance what is coming and so with each pass what they see becomes more terrifying. Eventually, it will become such a devastating force of nature so atypical that it will be called a super-typhoon.
When the typhoon finally makes landfall there is a super-irony aboard the space station. Nobody is there to see this once-in-a-lifetime event. It takes place during what the Coordinated Universal Time tells them is the middle of the night. They are all asleep as Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are devoured by the storm’s ferocious intensity. While the astronauts slumber as far away from the threat of the violence of natural disasters as it is possible to get, those down below watch as an entire town becomes part of the ocean, the water swallowing bridges and cars as well as airports and planes.
But the slumber is not peaceful. The astronauts are haunted by dreams with subjects ranging from the Challenger space shuttle disaster to personal memories of witnessing a typhoon in Japan as a frightened young child. While one astronaut has a vivid dream that seems like something out of 2001 there is one occupant who is experiencing the rarity of a dreamless sleep deeper and more comforting than any experienced in orbit so far.
On the 16th orbit, they enter the first stage of their powered flyby which will carry them into the moon’s orbit. Navigation at this point requires that the command module in which they remain in tubular modules somehow manages to avoid coming into contact with the hundred million things pieces of space junk orbiting at twenty-five thousand miles an hour. Meanwhile, down below, the super-typhoon has finally had to admit it is no match for vast land masses. The damage it has left in its wake has left islands smaller than they were before it hit.
The space station will soon also meet its match as the forces of physics condemn it to certain death. It only has 35,000 orbits of life left before it loses its ability to remain in orbit and begins its already-schedule plunge toward a very specific small patch of the Pacific Ocean. For now, it is moon-landing day. 5:30 A.M. on a Wednesday, Coordinated Universal Time.
