Year 3

March 14th 2077

We are nearly a quarter of the way through our third year now and the experiment has proven massively successful. Just had a meeting with headquarters and though things planet side are looking rather grim there is hope that this project might serve to put out the sparks down there that might otherwise ignite a fire whose spread would be difficult at best to control. We've been out here, slowly revolving around Mother Earth, proving that methods and technologies dreamed up by some of the greatest minds we have ever known actually work.

It's really quite exciting.

Feinburn's Theorem has proven correct and his device has, at least thus far as the team oft remind me, succeeded in preventing the loss in bone density that has always limited our ability to explore beyond our infinitesimal little neighborhood and out into the grand sprawl of limitless space. That alone provides so much promise. I've only a limited grasp on how the device functions, or how those that accompany it prevent it's manipulation and creation of limited gravity from throwing our course off and sending us spinning into space...but it works. It works, and so, if these results persist, mankind can stretch itself out and venture to those outer limits and then beyond.

The work of Debra M. Ellison has worked quite nicely alongside Feinburns, and together we can plant and harvest a variety of vegetables, grains, and legumes to keep our people healthy. Coupled with the in-vitro meat (shmeat as many call it) we enjoy, thanks to Westerhoof and Eelen's process of seeding collagen with muscle cells and bathing it in a solution of dissolved nutrients, we should be limited merely by the daring of our leaders and the ability and dedication of our astronauts.

We're heroes, I suppose.

This process has worked quite nicely as well, for whatever reason writing about all of this helps me to keep things in perspective. All that has come before to make it possible for us all to be where we are. All that our pilots had to go through to be here, here at the tip of the spear as we reach out to the sky. The minds of our scientists, the things they understand intrinsically, just glancing at one readout or another, thinking to themselves and solving problems that are so far beyond me. Our doctors, my god our doctors. Everyone necessary to keep something like this running. All that I've had to do myself, physically, mentally, emotionally, everything, to get here. To lead this great adventure. Granted sometimes that just makes it worse.

The pressure, the fear of failure. I worry what if I'm just not quite good enough. What if I had what it took to get all these people out here, so far from home and help, but what i fit at some critical juncture I can't solve that one problem. The people here are brilliant, but what if something is so far beyond my comprehension I don't even know who to ask. What if I ask the wrong person, and while I'm trying to work it out that guy, or girl, that had the right answer, she just walks on by. The clock ticks away, so many systems, so many of them dependent on so many other systems, what if I falter and a system fails and we all...

They can be pretty blunt but headquarters helped with that as well. All we've done, what we've proven, the possibilities we've proven plausible. Even if I did make the mistake, or even if something utterly beyond my control...and I've heard the rumors of rogue asteroids and strangelets, dark matter, and all manner of astrophysics and quantum mechanics that is far far beyond my understanding...but even if something utterly beyond my control were to end this mission. Even if this home is lost and all these friends, my family now, were lost the mission would still be a monumental success and we'd be remembered, lauded, heroes.

It's not going to come to that though. This writing helps me, my team and I are going to finish this adventure out. Wherever it is they want us to go, we'll do it. In time our duty will be done, our shift will be over, and we can come home.

Another entry complete, the Captain folds his table back into the wall and lays down on the bed which had served as his chair. Confined quarters were much more to his liking. With the knowledge of the seemingly infinite expanse of space that surrounded them the Captain found it comforting to always have a wall or two within arms reach. He had been afforded rather luxurious living space, but such indulgences didn't really suit him. Too much wasted space, too much empty space. It served better as a second conference room, a less formal one. A roundtable essentially.

Glancing at the clock he realizes that the final watch of the night had begun. All about the ship guards were patrolling about. They had no need of weapon. Each passenger must serve from time to time and so each understood the burden of authority. Somewhere out there, even now as the Captain felt the pull of his warm bed and soft sheets, some of his fellow passengers patrolled the living quarters, some the various laboratories, and others the eerie expanses that held the many machines needed to keep this place adrift in the sea of space.

Tomorrow will bring with it all the potential for glory or disaster that it always has, but for the time being they are still alive, and each day marks a new point in human history. Each day they venture further from Earth than man ever has, further and further from home.

He's getting bigger. He's smiling and talking and laughing, and all manner of other completely ordinary yet breath-takingly extraordinary things.

My little boy.

David is a sweet man, but we never would have made it on this ship if it weren't for our little boy. The night we got that letter, that "just not quite enough" letter, we had cried and talked and finally made careful and quiet love. Our son was conceived as we sought solace from all the great things we would now miss.

The next morning our lives had continued on exactly as they had for the past several years, except with the knowledge that the greatest exploration in human history would be conducted without us. It's shameful now but I think we blamed each other for it. We were both quite accomplished but apparently not quite enough to make it on our own, nor quite enough that including either of us would justify including the other. So we continued on growing more distant from one another as the mission launch approached.

We had stupid fights, we struggled to do anything in our fields, and though we both pretended to be over it we both kept as up to date as possible about the mission. That was how we heard about the disqualification, how we heard about the need for a replacement, and how we found ourselves waiting impatiently amongst all those who had been invited for a second physical examination, drug test, and interview.

That was how we found out we were pregnant and that pregnancy was ultimately what secured our place in this mission. Our son would be the first child born in space and the human born furthest from the planet Earth. Our little miracle would be a miracle for the entire planet.

And he was, he is.