The Science of Lost Futures

A Cosmonaut’s Guide to Microgravitic Reproduction

The job notice was simple: COSMONAUTS WANTED. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. I was looking for gainful employment. It seemed like a good opportunity in a recession-proof industry.

I’ve had all sorts of jobs. I’ve been a plumber, bike messenger, food taster, data entry clerk, window display model at a mortuary, pharmaceutical test subject, grocery bagger, and hospital janitor. I sold life insurance. For two months I was even a caretaker at a pet cemetery, but the sadness of it all nearly crushed me.

But cosmonaut! All my life I have been in love with the sky. As a boy I wore a space helmet made out of a cardboard box to the retro science fiction serials playing at the local theater. When I was nine I drafted my first design for a fully-functioning light saber and sent the blueprints to Lockheed Martin. I never heard back, but that didn’t stop me from earning average grades in my high school physics class. I had never heard of the company sponsoring the cosmonaut training, but anyone willing to put a man in the sky was where I wanted to be. If not now, when?

I sold my things. I moved out of my apartment. I called the number on the flier. There was a phone interview. They sent a questionnaire. They took tissue samples. They studied my blood and male fluids. The Psych Department profile came back in the acceptable range. They purchased me a plane ticket to come to the facility at the end of the month.

Say goodbye to your loved ones, the HR woman told me. You may be gone awhile.

The night before I left I had a date with a girl. Her name was Naomi. We shared a few acquaintances. They thought we might be a good match. She was intrigued by my new job.

What will you do?

Probably science, I said, my mouth full of alfredo sauce.

Naomi seemed nervous, twirling her fork in her noodles.

My parents are dead, I told her. My grandmother is in a home. My brother got blown up in the war.

Why are you telling me this? she wanted to know. I could sense she did not go on many dates and was unfamiliar with the social custom of meaningless chitchat.

They told me to say goodbye to my loved ones. I don’t have any loved ones left. I took a deep breath and swallowed. You’re all I got.

We just met, she blushed.

I don’t want to be launched into outer space without having someone to love down here. Love is a balloon, my father always said. It carries you away and bursts when you least expect it. I need to be tethered. That’s the way my heart works.

Naomi stared at me. I’ve never dated someone who, she paused, choosing her words carefully, communicates. She chewed more noodles. She drank more wine.

When dinner was over I invited her for coffee at my loft but she said she was tired. I said the coffee could keep her up but she kissed me on the cheek and told me some other time. She must not have been much of a coffee drinker.

Can I write you while I’m away? I asked before she got in the taxi.

She stared at me like I was halfway between crazy and genius, like I was a little romantic but maybe a little creepy. You know, the kind of looks Stephen Hawking writes about in his memoirs.

Give me a sign you’re up there and I’ll be waiting for it, Naomi said. She kissed me again on the cheek.

It has been four hundred and eighty-seven days since we were last together. I have not exactly been faithful. The problem is accountability. The problem, I am discovering after four hundred and eighty-seven days adrift in this capsule somewhere between the thermosphere and the moon, is one of basic accountability. I have no accounts of Naomi’s behavior. She is ignorant of my data log despite my best efforts to relay a sign of my condition. Relationships are difficult unless you define the relationship by making accounts of who is doing what and who feels what and when and why. Yet each day I settle the accounts on my cosmological mission. We must take into account the vacuum of space. We must take into account the angular velocity in geosynchronous orbit. We must take into account the beauty of the stars. We must take into account we will arrive at day four hundred and eighty-eight and nothing will be gained nor lost and despite my best efforts and enumerations, despite all my accounting, we are one day closer to extinction.

Training lasted three days. There were eleven of us in the beginning. We had all seen the advertisement, flier 14-307-1792. We had all been extended invitations. Upon arrival we were administered a second round of medical assessments. Two candidates were disqualified. One was too tall. The other failed a vision test. That placed us all on alert. Only the best would advance.

A series of exercises followed. We treaded water in full cosmonaut suits for six hours. We were subject to extreme temperatures. We were locked in a room with small animals and told there was only enough oxygen for one of us. Decisions were made. Morals were questioned. By the end of the first day only five cadets remained.

The second day involved flight simulations and preliminary microgravity experiments. We were taken to the launching facility. From the outside it looked like a grain silo. Inside were lots of machines. Men and women in lab coats paced around the machinery with their clipboards. There was a persistent noise. It smelled like someone had spilled cola on the electrical outlets.

They introduced us to the space capsules. These were large, spherical orbs. The outer shell was made of a kind of durable plastic or experimental metal. There were three viewing windows. The orbs were attached to a rocket propulsion system. It looked like a network of wires and tubing and circuitry plugged into a series of outlets. It was remarkable.

To acquaint us with the system we watched a launch simulation performed on a monkey. We were not allowed to visit the launching site, but a video camera allowed us to see inside the simulation capsule using a simultaneous broadcast. It was a very seasoned monkey, a descendant of one of the first monkeys launched into space by the Russians. He looked very cute in his hand-tailored monkey spacesuit.

The monkey did not survive the third simulation. It started screeching and then the video transmission failed. We stared, unblinking, at the black screen. Someone said it was a malfunction. But was it the monkey or the capsule? Nobody could say. One of the cadets excused himself from consideration and left the facility. And then there were four of us.

We spent the remainder of the second day in trial launches. The first of these was the most frightening. Thankfully, I was not the first cadet. That privilege belonged to Atwater.

We watched from the control room as they strapped him into the capsule. He was shown the adjoining escape pod. He was given some brief instructions on using the controls. Then the capsule door closed. Atwater looked directly at the camera. He seemed serene, like an angel who knew his place was among the stars. He waved. We waved back.

We asked the launch director how fast Atwater would be traveling. We also wanted to know how high into the atmosphere he would reach. The launch director shrugged.

However fast and high the propulsion system launches him.

During the launch the reception of Atwater’s video transmission began to blur. Within a few minutes the screen was black. We waited a few hours to receive word about the success of the launch. The reconnaissance team returned with a few splintered pieces of wood and clumps of tinfoil. These were analyzed. We received no further transmissions from Atwater.

Now there were three of us. The directors congratulated us. We were the best of the best, a holy trinity of sorts.

Now that we are in orbit, training all seems like a dream. It is only Saratov and I in the capsule. Obermeier, the third wheel of our trinity, received the unnameable assignment elsewhere. We are shipmates, me and Saratov, anxiously engaged in the completion of our mission.

It is cramped in the capsule. The main control room is shaped like an egg and from top to bottom is roughly twelve feet. Attached to the main capsule orb is the research chamber full of cables, elastic belts and inflatable tunnels. It is also shaped like an egg but not as spacious. Saratov erroneously calls it the emergency escape pod, but Saratov is not well and easily confused. I never got a good look at the capsule from the outside before launch, but I imagine to extraterrestrial life forms we look like two sad testicles castrated and floating in the great womb of space.

Saratov is less poetic than I am. As we drift in our relentless orbit I point out the stars whose light comes through the window dull as ice cream and compare it to the light of the sun which at certain times of the day overwhelms the senses. Saratov calls me an idiot. Saratov says it is obvious the stars have been cut out of paper, the glare of the sun is just a man with a flashlight, and all that wonderful black womb of space was created by an intern with a magic marker because we are prisoners in somebody’s sick experiment.

Open your eyes, she tells me. Stop dreaming.

I don’t think Saratov is well.

Saratov is the calculator. I am the enumerator. This is our mission: to calculate and enumerate. I have always been good with numbers. This is how I distinguished myself in training. The Chief Designer singled me out. He told me having distinguished myself I would be joining an international mission with Saratov. I told him it sounded very dangerous to go into space with a Russian.

We’re cosmonauts, son, the Chief Designer said. There are always going to be Russians in the cosmos. That’s why we need to send our very best. It is a special mission.

What makes it special? I wanted to know.

All that will be revealed at a later date, he said.

Then he shook my hand. The Chief Designer actually shook my hand.

And here we are. Saratov makes calculations but she is not so good with numbers. As she makes calculations, keeping us on the appropriate trajectory, she shouts out a number. I remember that number until she asks me to repeat it and insert it back into her equations. After finishing her calculations she flips a switch to deliver the transmission signal to those on earth to track our position. This is what we must do. Humanity depends on it. Saratov then relays this information through the radio. She says, Did you receive our transmission? Sometimes she will transmit unofficial information, her favorite being, I don’t see any god up here. Like I said, Saratov is not well.

But what can be done? These are the accounts. We all have our assignments and perhaps Saratov’s is not to be well. I have faith this will all be confirmed at a later date.

Only a few days after our launch I awoke and found Saratov with a knife to my throat. She demanded to know what my assignment was. I told her I was the enumerator. She said that was a lie. I admitted it was a half-truth. I said I was also here for research purposes, like her, and pointed to the mice and geckos and fishes in their respective cages inside the research chamber. She took the knife away from my throat. Our relationship has been a bit strained since then.

My true assignment is microgravitic reproduction. This assignment was given to me by the Chief Designer. When he called me into his office he inquired about my romantic status. I told him about Naomi. He told me the mission would require being unfaithful to Naomi, but sometimes science demands a little infidelity for the sake of the truth.

He let me read Document 12-571-3570 in the handbook. It detailed all previous experiments involving microgravitic reproduction. Apparently, the company had been running experiments for decades. The Chief Designer explained our sun was dying and the survival of the human species depended on interplanetary colonization. But interplanetary colonization requires perfection of microgravitic reproduction. Without microgravitic reproduction—space sex, for the neophyte—all would be lost. As recorded in Document 12-571-3570, a computer algorithm had determined the one hundred and eleven positions most compatible for sexual intimacy in microgravitic environments. Most positions had been tested on mice and geckos and Japanese koi, but less than twenty had been performed in human trials. This was our mission. Saratov and I would continue these trials. We would test hypotheses trying to determine the appropriate calculations for successful microgravitic reproduction. Then we would return and report.

So you want me to have sex with Saratov?

We want you, the Chief Designer said, to reproduce.

Before I could express my skepticism the Chief Designer told me it would be an important contribution to science. Then he hugged me. The Chief Designer actually hugged me.

But how will I know how to seduce Saratov?

All that will be revealed at a later date, the Chief Designer told me.

Microgravitic reproduction is difficult, even for a man of science like me. I have attempted to follow the guidelines in the handbook, but so far we have not been very successful.

The routine is simple. Each microgravitic copulation effort begins with the same exercises. I drink a gallon of fluid from the compartment. I perform my breathing exercise until my heart rate is a steady sixty-eight. I massage my scrotum. I consult the protocol in the handbook and memorize the instructions. Then I am ready to enter the research chamber.

The research chamber is full of cables, elastic belts, and inflatable tunnels. There is a cushioned object in the center which may be applied for comfort. Lying in the research chamber at the proper angle I can see the stars through the window. It is rather romantic.

The cosmonaut’s handbook is very precise. Each entry is a single page. Each page is equal to one day’s worth of reproductive activities. Each entry stresses the importance of exactness, provides a description of the position, and explains the necessary postcoital de-escalation techniques to ensure maximum success and avoid medical complications. There is always an illustration.

It has become apparent that microgravitic reproduction can only be successful if both parties are consenting. In four hundred and eighty-seven days I have successfully seduced Saratov twenty-seven times, all with the assistance of wine. In each coital-trial we required the assistance of a copulation apparatus, and each coital-trial proved ineffective. Ergo, sex in space is not as easy as it might appear.

Saratov says I am a fool. Saratov says that by all calculations microgravitic reproduction is inconceivable. She says it does not matter if consenting adults use the Dancing Judy or the Blind-Eye Harriet position. It is equally useless, Saratov tells me: the final frontier was not created for humans.

It is possible she is trying to sabotage my efforts. When I am in the research chamber alone I cannot verify Saratov’s calculations. Her handwriting looks like childish squiggles. I do not know if Saratov is completing her assignment or sabotaging mine, or if she is charting directions home or setting us on a course into the sun. With Saratov, there is no telling.

Regardless of whether I am able to seduce Saratov on any given day, I am still expected to perform reproductive exercises. For those occasions when Saratov refuses intimacy, there is a simulator. It is a bulky apparatus and not very pleasant. The handbook directions are simple. I place my genitals into the reproductive port. I assume the experimental position as outlined in the cosmonaut handbook. I release my fluids. I have nothing else to say about the simulator, other than the handbook lists these activities as transatmospheric reproduction. The handbook says the fluid deposits can survive the extreme conditions of the vacuum of space. The handbook also says that transatmospheric reproduction is the fail-safe option because perhaps, if all else fails, the fluids will continue in their trajectories across the galaxy and be discovered by an advanced civilization which can resurrect our species when our sun dies.

It is easy to get discouraged on days of transatmospheric reproduction. But I trust in the Chief Designer. I trust that Saratov will see my diligence and one day wish to join me in the research chamber of her own volition so together we might multiply and replenish the earth.

Saratov might be pregnant.

Last night was the first night we successfully performed microgravitic reproduction without the assistance of wine. Perhaps I benefited from Saratov’s desperation. I noticed she was more moody than usual. Saratov often cried. She had stopped making calculations and just stared out the window, looked at the stars, and cried. They were beautiful, but not worth that many tears.

Yesterday when I asked why she was crying she hugged me. Saratov actually hugged me. It was my first human touch in a long time. Then she kissed me. It felt almost alien.

We stumbled into the research chamber. We did not utilize the Cosmonaut’s Guide for Microgravitic Reproduction. We experimented. Saratov wore a cosmonaut helmet with the visor down. A strange thing happened. It was wonderful. Saratov was very sincere. I was very adept.

Afterwards she wanted to cuddle. It was just the two of us, pulled apart