Tin Can Dreams
Alex Quasar’s fingers dug deeper into the worn armrest of his old chair. In the distance the Earth stood, not as a majestic marble but a mocking jewel. He was not there, but in his ‘Orbital Debris Retrieval Outpost’. His only companion was the clunky voice of SARA, the station’s rudimentary AI installed two cycles ago.
“SARA, target status,” he mumbled, breaking the silence of the capsule.
“SATCOM-8 is in an approach trajectory. Estimated intercept calculated for three hours,” it replied dryly.
It was just another day up here, with another hunk of space junk to add to his growing collection. Every piece of trash only grew his bitterness. When he signed up, he’d dreamed of mapping undiscovered planets and walking on alien soil. Instead, he was just the planet’s cosmic custodian, forever picking up the scraps from other people’s dreams.
“SARA, calculate the grapple trajectory,” he said as dryly as the computer, his enthusiasm long extinguished.
It dutifully displayed the course on the screen, though Alex hardly needed it. He had become an expert on his own — able to calculate the trajectory, deploy the grapple arm, and secure broken satellites.
The airlock hissed open and he felt the slight tug of the vacuum as the ship tried to compensate. While spacewalks were once a thrill, they had turned into a tedious chore. He secured the grapple to SATCOM-8 and began to drag the now-worthless artifact in his direction.
As he secured it, he checked in with his best friend.
“SARA, grapple succeeded. Begin the retrieval sequence,” he mumbled.
He drifted back inside as he watched the junk get closer. He had once hoped the feeling of loneliness would fade, that the grandeur of his surroundings would rekindle the fire of his youth. It hadn’t.
The satellite was secured inside and so Alex returned to the chair at the front of the tiny station. Then a memory flashed in his head — a few weeks prior he had picked up a chunk of a decommissioned Russian science station. Inside was an unexpected treasure: a sealed bottle of vodka.
Knowing they wouldn’t miss it, he headed to the supply locker as a faint smile crept on his face.
He pulled it out and looked at the label. It was at least thirty years old, a relic of human achievement like everything else he collected. He opened it up, eager for a break.
The harsh liquid burned down his throat, a brief interruption of feeling from the monotony of his life. It provided him with a rough warmth.
He poured some into an old chalice and raised it in the air. He said a silent toast, to dashed dreams, the endless trash of the cosmos, and the fleeting comfort that could be found at the bottom of bottle salvaged from the stars.
As we launch more things into space, and more of these things become inoperable, space junk is a growing problem. There is already work on extracting junk from space. In the future, I anticipate people whose jobs will be going out to space only to deal with removing this junk safely. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck on Earth, unable to penetrate the orbiting garbage.