Future Astronaut Sophie Hayes

On a balmy Georgia morning in mid July I sat on my porch with a cup of coffee, and scrolled blindly through my phone. I paused to watch a video of an astronaut named Miles Raskin, who had recently returned to Earth.

In the clip he sits in a chair in his blue NASA jumpsuit, holding a red pen in his right hand and a black notebook in his left. He flips to a blank page in the notebook and sketches a diagram. When he holds the page open to the camera, it shows a simple layout of the International Space Station, and the man explains to the interviewer behind the lens how Russia’s Soyuz vehicle docks at the station to bring astronauts from earth up to space. I glanced at the clock and paused the video midway.

I walked inside to my daughter’s bedroom, where she was still sleeping with the door cracked open a few inches to ward off the darkness during the night. I laid down in bed beside her and hummed a gentle tune. This is how we had started most mornings since her father left.

“Sophie, it’s time to wake up,” I whispered. I felt her stir but she did not reply.

“Come on baby, I have something to show you. I think you’ll really like it,” I said, and she peeled over and pulled herself to a seat, brushing the blonde mess away from her eyes.

During the last few weeks of third grade, Sophie’s teacher had taught the kids a special unit about the solar system, and had taken them to the planetarium on a field trip before vacation. I had been making regular, clumsy attempts to recall her school work in our everyday lives, hoping that at least some of the lessons would stick with her through the long summer holiday.

I started the video over again, and we watched together. As the astronaut speaks he points a finger at the page, releasing his pen in midair, which falls to the ground beside him. For several seconds after, we watch him search for the pen in the floating air around his left side body, and above his head, before he recalls that here on earth a pen dropped at height will dependably fall to the floor. He chuckles to himself and makes a joke to the interviewer.

Sophie howled with laughter.

“He thought it would float!” she said grinning from ear to ear, revealing a recently lost tooth. She asked to watch it again, so we started it from the beginning, cuddled against one another in bed.

Occasionally, something unexpected strikes the perfect chord in a child’s imagination. Sophie rewatched the video every single day for weeks. She would grab my phone as I folded laundry or unloaded groceries, and I would hear the voice of the astronaut and hear the pen drop, followed by my daughter’s shrieks of delight.

We began to notice details in the video; the impressive titles of the books stacked behind him, the many varied badges sewn into his jumpsuit, and the NASA emblem printed on the cover of the black notebook, which was visible for just a few seconds as he closed the book and held it in his lap as the interview draws to a close.

During the last week of August we received a packet in the mail from Sophie’s school, including a note from her new teacher and a list of all the supplies that she would need to begin the Fourth grade.

“Hey Bug,” I said, “do you want to go back to school shopping today?” and Sophie nodded and ran to her room to get dressed as I began to tally in my head the probable cost of the whole list, which was rather longer than the previous year’s.

At the store we circled the aisles, loading our cart with colorful folders and wide-lined notebooks. I told her that she was allowed to pick one special item for herself, and she pondered her options carefully.

We turned a corner and Sophie ran headlong to the end of the aisle, where there stood a display of multicolored, leather bound notebooks.

“Mom! This is just like the one in the video!” she said.

The Sophie I knew of one month prior would have gone straight for the pink or the green bound book, but now she reached for the neatly stacked black notebooks at the center of the display. She placed one carefully in the cart.

That night, once Sophie was asleep, I ordered a small NASA sticker online. It arrived the following week in the mail, and I pressed it firmly to the cover of the new black notebook. On the morning of her first day of school, I laid her supplies on the table, and placed the notebook at the top of the stack.

When Sophie sat for her breakfast, she spotted it, and hugged it to her chest.

“Do you like it?” I asked, “I thought the sticker made it look more official.”

“It’s perfect!” she said, and she grabbed a pen from the table and slowly wrote on the inside cover,

“Property of Sophie Hayes, Future Astronaut.”

As Sophie headed for the door I grabbed my old polaroid camera and snapped three pictures of her while we waited for the bus. When it pulled up to our house I kissed her goodbye, and once I saw the bus turn the corner I went inside and placed the pictures on the shelf above my desk.

The school year went on, and Sophie brought her notebook with her everywhere she went, filling it with stories and drawings. At home, we watched more interviews with astronauts, and stumbled across the blog of a teenage girl who is being trained by NASA to be the first person to go to Mars in the year 2030.

Over dinner one evening Sophie was discussing the events of her day, which included a lesson on fractions, and a game of soccer at recess.

“During free time I showed Mrs. Garcia my notebook” Sophie said, “and she told me that there are space camps where kids can go to learn how to be an Astronaut. Can I go to space camp this summer?”

I felt the bite of pasta I had just swallowed slide down my throat, but the sensation of a lump remained for several seconds after. I paused before answering.

“That does sound cool Bug, but camps cost a lot of money," I said, "and grandma is coming to stay with us this summer. That will be fun too!”

She did not reply, but I saw the disappointment in her eyes. I wanted badly to give her a different answer.

“Do you understand?” I asked, and she nodded.

That night after I tucked her into bed, I heard a trace of sniffles and muffled crying through the small gap that we still kept open in the door frame. I sat on the floor in the hallway beside her door, and once I heard her steadied breath, I retired to my room where I thought that I might also cry myself to sleep.

She did not ask again, and the incident faded. A part of me wished that she would beg like a small child might when they still had no concept of money, but she was getting older and more insightful every day. She told me that she loved her math classes, and had even won her fourth grade math contest, which qualified her to go on to a county-wide competition. I decided that in the spring I would find her an after school math and science club. The school district offered a small but quality list of free programs.

About a month later, I grabbed the mail on my way into the house, and hidden in the stack of catalogues I found a letter sealed in a manilla envelope addressed to a “Ms. Sophie Hayes". I did a double take. I sat at my desk, laying the rest of the mail aside. The return address on the envelope specified a “Dr. Miles Raskin,” and I gaped in disbelief. I opened it, and pulled out a thin stack of pages. The topmost paper was a typed letter addressed to my ten year old daughter, printed on embossed NASA letterhead.

Dear Sophie,

Thank you so much for your letter, and for the photograph. You’re right, that does look just like my notebook! I am so glad to hear that you are a fan of mine. I also have a daughter who is about your age, and I think it’s great that you are so interested in outer space.

I understand that space camp is expensive, and I'm glad to hear that you've discovered and applied for our scholarships. You seem like a very smart girl. Don't let anything hold you back.

I called up the director of the program, and she will be looking out for your application. I’ve taken the liberty of writing you a letter of recommendation myself, which I have sent over to her directly.

Best of luck! Keep on reaching for the stars.

Best,

Dr. Miles Raskin

I raised my head to inspect the shelf above my desk and, as I suspected, one of the polaroid pictures of Sophie clutching her notebook was missing. I sat in shock for the next hour, waiting for Sophie’s bus to bring her home from school.

As she stepped off the school bus, I picked her up and I hugged her tight, twirling her around.

“There’s a surprise waiting for you inside, my smart girl,” I said, and felt tears rolling down my cheeks.

We sat on her bed and I showed her the letter. She screamed at the top of her lungs in excitement.

“Sophie, when did you write the letter? And how did you apply for the scholarship on your own?” I asked, and she explained how her school librarian had helped her during lunchtime to find NASA’s fan mail address online. Together, they had written and submitted an application essay for a scholarship competition that was listed on the space camp website. The librarian had also helped her attach a copy of her 1st place award from the school math competition, and a copy of her academic record. Mrs. Garcia had written an accompanying letter as well. I listened to the story in dumbfounded silence at the persistence of my little girl.

Sophie pulled her notebook from her bag and showed me four drafts of the letter, each with sentences crossed out and spelling mistakes, before turning to a fifth page that had been neatly torn out.

Two months later, we received a call from a woman at the “U.S. Space & Science Foundation". She alerted us that the panel had been thoroughly impressed with the personal letter from Dr. Raskin, along with Sophie's academic record. They had decided to award her a $20,000 scholarship, the highest amount for elementary aged girls who display academic promise in STEM fields. The money could be used for college, or for other qualified academic expenses. Most importantly, the money was eligible to be used toward NASA’s official space camp.

On July 1st, Sophie and I finally got in the car and began the four hour drive to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

We pulled up to the parking lot, and before I unlocked the car door I turned and handed Sophie a brand new black leather notebook. She ran her hand across the clean cover with pride.

“Are you ready?” I asked, and she nodded. I unlocked the doors and watched her swing her feet off the side. She skipped around the car to grab her bag from the trunk, and together we set off in the direction of the rest of her life.