Scott Folds log on the space station

Report 1724, January 4th, 2050, Scott Folds on Space Station 1 hub 9, 7:05 am

This is our first day at work since New Years and we’re asked to write a little journal. When this station is done, we’ll put our journal with the one my wife and other writers are making down on the planet into a spacecraft that will be sent across the galaxy so if there are other beings out there, they’ll be able to get to know us better.

Joanne and I spent some much-needed time together. We see each other every weekend but that goes by too fast. The hardest thing to do is keeping the surprises I’ll have for her in a few months.

Calgrove Aerospace is giving all of their workers first pick of the house they want on the space station and the lead engineers (like me) get a penthouse. Well, that’s one of the surprises, the other surprise is we’re building our house for the surface up here in space and when both are done, while I’m keeping Joanne busy showing her our house up here, the pods that will make our house will be brought and put together down there. She’s going to be shocked, and I hope happy.

While I’m up here working on and building space stations my wife Joanne is helping rebuild our town down on the surface. I’m so proud of her, before the war she was an architect for a big firm and now she’s using this knowledge to help down there. Her and my best friend Mark worked together for Ludlum Inc., the biggest contractor in the state and third in the country. Every weekend I visit I see how much work they’ve done.

At this moment I’m working on the wing that our home on the station will be on and in my spare time I’m helping with the construction of our house for the surface. In a few months both will be done then I’ll surprise her with both places.

Today there isn’t much to look at, we’re just constructing the frame. Me and a few others were welding pieces of this new wing that were made in a shop on another station. Sure, we could have bots doing all the work but like my wife would say about their work down on the surface, we want to have a sense of accomplishment.

There’s nothing like being in space, looking down at the Earth, pictures can’t even do justice. You can barely see the shield protecting the Earth due to climate change. Now we mine asteroids instead of the Earth, we’ve found many new elements that we can use for cheaper energy, tougher alloys and more.

3:26 pm

We almost lost someone, their tether broke, but we got them with the Canadarm and he’s ok, was just a little shaken.

6:25 pm

I’m off work and heading to my cabin. Our cabins are a set of temporary hubs that are connected. To get across from spaces station to the living quarters we have a docking bridge which are shielded so we don’t have to wear our space suits. The cabins are a nice size, they house 4 people, there are just beds and lockers for our clothes. The beds have walls around them for privacy and sound dampening in case someone gets in late or snores.

January 5th, 5:12 am

It’s Friday and I’m excited to see Joanne, she told me the people who own the winery that’s being built have their first long aged batch of wine since the war, we had some pretty good wines aged a few months, but this should be a treat. They feed us well up here, but we don’t get alcohol sent up to the station so we’re sharp while working.

January 6th 1:20 am

I woke up to get something to drink and couldn’t fall back to sleep so I’m adding to this journal. Joanne and I had genetically cloned steak and lobster with locally grown veggies. The wine was excellent too, nice Earthy flavor with a hint of chocolate. Other alcohol is coming as well, the equipment is being made. Sodas are going to be made too, they’ll have natural ingredients and the sweetener that’s made by Stone labs, who also came out with candy that cleans your teeth, no more brushing.

Anyways, today I’m going to take Joanne on a picnic and tonight we’re going to dinner with some friends.

I’m going to try and go back to sleep.

10:48 pm

This morning we slept in, it was so nice. Val asked if we wanted to do breakfast before we go to the lake. She made pancakes, eggs and home fried potatoes. Mark took me aside, he wanted to know about the house, I told him it’s still a work in progress and it still will be done on time. I showed him the final blueprint and he patted me on the back and said, “you’re a good dude, she’s going to love it.”

We left for the lake about noon, it was a nice hike. Everyone walks around here because the grid is only at about 46% so power has to be used sparingly. Also, a lot of the oil refineries and drilling sites were destroyed. Calgrove towers has a few chargers around the world, but their strategically placed for work shuttles only. New chargers are being built, but it’ll take a while until we get the grid to at least 95%, new plants have to be built, Garolium needs to be mined which makes the power, so we walk. It’s good exercise and on nice days it’s beautiful. For food we brought cheese, crackers, vegetables, dip and a bottle of wine. It wasn’t as good as last night but it was decent.

The water looked beautiful; bots clean out the stuff companies dumped in it before the war. We found a nice quiet area where we could take a dip and just enjoy the peacefulness of the day, we even turned our comms down to emergency mode.

The water was perfect, we even saw some fish. We don’t hunt or eat live animals anymore. The ones that are still alive are cared for by Live, a worldwide wildlife administration, which has offices all over the Earth, they look out to keep track of the wildlife population and look for ones that are injured.

You don’t see a lot of animals around because most are in sanctuaries where they can be helped if hurt and where they can breed. When animals have their babies, most are kept until the little one is a certain age then the parents are let loose into secluded areas where they can be away from the noise of the people working and going about their business. If an animal does show up in town it’s just left alone for the most part, we’re given a list of what each animal can be fed if you want, they usually hang around a bit then move along. Today we saw some birds, not sure what type they were, one landed on Val’s leg, and we pet it a little bit before it flew off. Since we’re not hunting animals, some have become friendly.

That night for dinner we ate pretty light, until dessert, Joanne made peach cobbler, brownies and homemade ice cream, it was so good.

January 7th 10 am

Tomorrow, I have to leave for the station, a week still isn’t long enough but it’ll do for now.

January 8th 5:32 am

I just said goodbye to my wife and as I ascended in the shuttle up to the space station I look at Joanne waving, getting smaller and smaller. It makes me think how lucky I am to have such a supportive wife, and I support her 100% as well.