Monday, May 10, 2010

Mars

Gregory was about to shit his britches.
Well, you would be too if were the first man to walk on Mars.
Gregory, a veteran astronaut, had taken to talking to himself in his spacesuit with the radio off.

"Holy FUCK," he said to nobody in particular.
"Oh my-" he started saying to God, before he cut himself off.
"I cannot FUCKING believe it."
"I am actually walking
    -- fucking WALKING --
        on fucking MARS."

He realized that Mars wasn't about to give a congratulatory answer any time soon, so he radioed Mission Control.
<- Houston, do you fucking copy?, over.
It should be noted that radio contact with Houston, Texas would be incredibly impractical. There would be around four minutes of lag between question and answer. He was instead radioing a Houston-class space station a few hundred thousand miles away. Gregory and many other astronauts referred to them as Houston because they grew up watching too many space movies and that was how it was done. Indeed, this was why there were called Houstons in the first place.
-> Yes, we are fucking copying you, over.
<- Can you fucking believe it?, over.
-> We are only fucking believing it because we built the fucking rocket, over.
<- I am ab-so-fucking-lutely walking on FUCKING Mars, over.
-> That sounds god-damn incredible, over.
He stopped transmitting.
"This is completely goddamn unbelievable. I cannot wait to tell people all about this shit."
He was excited.
"Oh man, in like forty years when some jackasses start saying we faked this shit, I can go all Buzz Aldrin on their asses."
As he stood on goddamn Mars, the sheer astonishingness of the accomplishment was washing over him.
It was like opening presents on Christmas. Infinite possibility and sheer anticipation gave way to untold giddiness.

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