Atmosphere: A Love Story By Taylor Jenkins Reid - 9

There is a theater above Mission Control that looms over the flight center like a mezzanine hovering over an orchestra. And when Joan first walked in and saw, through the glass, the consoles lined up in rows along the floor and the telemetry up on the screens, she felt a great sense of occasion.

There had been a lot of thrilling firsts lately. The first time on the campus, the first night the entire group of ASCANs went to the Outpost Tavern together, the first time seeing the Saturn IV rocket and the space suits used during the Apollo program.

But walking into Mission Control created a pull she felt deep down in the layers of her skin. It was the same feeling she’d had when she’d first seen the belts of Jupiter through her telescope. The same one as when she’d convinced her parents to take her to Death Valley the summer before her senior year and—with the clearest view of the sky she’d ever yet seen—she’d spotted the Andromeda Galaxy, two and a half million light-years away.

Astronomy was history. Because space was time. And that was the thing she loved most about the universe itself. When you look at the red star Antares in the southern sky, you are looking over thirty-three hundred trillion miles away. But you are also looking more than five hundred and fifty years into the past. Antares is so far away that its light takes five hundred and fifty years to reach your eye on Earth. Five hundred and fifty light-years away. So when you look out at the sky, the farther you can see, the further back you are looking in time. The space between you and the star is time.

And yet, most of the stars have been there for so long, burning so bright, that every human generation could have looked up and seen them. When you gaze up at the sky and you see Antares, with its reddish hue, in the middle of the constellation Scorpius, you are looking at the same star the Babylonians cataloged as early as 1100 B.C.E .

To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.

That was the stuff that made her knees buckle.

Standing there in the theater of Mission Control, Joan felt exceptionally aware that she was not just embarking on a grand adventure. She was also joining the succession of those dedicating their life to working to understand this Earth, and the galaxy around it, for the betterment of all of humanity. She was part of something that had started well before recorded history and continued through the times of Aristotle and Aryabhata and al-Sufi and Shoujing and Copernicus, through Galileo and Kepler and Rømer and Newton, the Herschels and Leavitt and Rubin and Einstein and Hubble and beyond.

She knew her name would never be on that list. She had no desire to add her name to a list like that, in part because the idea that astronomy advances because of any one great mind struck her as simplistic. It was a collective pursuit, groups and cultures building upon and learning from what came before them.

But standing there at Mission Control, looking at the same computers they had used to put astronauts on the moon, Joan knew that even if she had erred here and there on her journey through life, she was on the right path now. Because she was now contributing, in such a thrillingly direct way, to the larger goal.

To learn what lies out there and, in so doing, perhaps how we got here.

As everyone took their seats, Griff sat down next to her.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning.”

“I overslept. Can you tell?”

The back of his tie hung lower than the front, he’d missed a belt loop, and the roots of his hair were damp with sweat.

“The truth?” Joan asked.

“That bad, huh?” Griff said.

Joan waved him off. “You’re handsome enough,” she said. “They forgive handsome men anything.”

Griff laughed. “I had no idea you were such a charmer,” he said.

Joan laughed, too. “Honestly, neither did I.”

Donna came into the room. Joan waved, but Donna didn’t see her. Joan watched as Donna began to take a seat next to Hank. As Donna sat down, Hank smiled at her. Donna smiled back and then looked around. Then, suddenly, Donna stood up and took a seat three seats away, by herself. Vanessa ended up taking the seat next to Hank.

Joan turned toward the front and bit her lip. She’d known Donna for only a few weeks but knew her well enough. Joan shook her head. Already!

Being completely immune to romantic rituals herself, Joan could spot them better than almost anyone. It was true, she had never had a real boyfriend. Had been on only a few dates. She had been kissed, a few times, by Adam Hawkins. And she had not cared for it. She was not offended or grossed out. But it felt, to her, like people were making a very big deal out of what was, essentially, no different from eating a cracker.

Of course, she did not discuss this with anyone anymore. Because every time she’d come close, it became clear no one would understand.

Not her mother, not her father, not Barbara (certainly not Barbara). Her girlfriends from undergrad kept assuming the issue was that she was shy or afraid. When the reality was much simpler: she was not like them. Why was it so hard for them to imagine that she had more interesting ways to spend her time? They mystified her just as she mystified them.

But there was one giant silver lining of being on the outside of it all. From afar, Joan could spot what everyone else could not see up close. Like how botanists know more about leaves than trees do.

Case in point: it was clear to her that Donna and Hank were sleeping together.

Joan tried to hold back a sly smile. Not being interested in romance herself didn’t make it any less intriguing. Donna and Hank. Huh. She wouldn’t have predicted that one.

Lydia ducked in at the last moment and snagged the seat behind Joan. She leaned in toward Joan’s ear.

“Did I miss anything?”

Joan shook her head. “You’re fine.”

“I heard today is about Apollo 1,” Lydia said.

Joan and Griff both turned to look at her.

“Really?” Griff said.

“Yeah,” Lydia answered.

“Oh, gosh. I’m not sure I . . .” Joan said.

“You’re not sure what? That you can handle it?” Lydia said. “Because if not, then you should probably leave the program.”

Joan and Griff turned to the front of the room, and as they did, Griff raised his eyebrows at her. But Joan didn’t engage. Lydia was entirely right.

The instructor, a man with a crew cut who, Joan learned, was Jack Katowski, walked to the front of the room.

“It’s important that you understand what’s at stake here,” he said. “For those of you coming from the military, this will be less of a surprise. But for you civilians, this may be the first time in which you have embarked on an endeavor with this magnitude of risk. Going into space is not for the faint of heart. Great men have died in the pursuit of space exploration. If you are not prepared to face the sacrifices that may be required in order to serve this country in this unprecedented undertaking, it is best that you realize that now.”

Joan could hear people shifting in their seats, leaning forward.

“We have lost nine men here at NASA over the last twenty years. All but one during training or testing. Here today, I’d like to talk to you about the weight of what you are signing up for. And I’d like to start by making sure you all understand the significance of the Apollo 1 fire.”

Joan looked at Griff and took a deep breath. She felt Lydia’s hand, ever so briefly, on her shoulder. And then it was gone. When Joan turned to acknowledge her, Lydia frowned and gestured for her to pay attention.

“As you are all aware, Apollo 1 was supposed to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, originally designated as AS-204. But in January 1967, a fire erupted in the cabin during a launch rehearsal. All three astronauts—Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee—were locked inside. None of them survived. At NASA, we honor the people we have lost by referring to them as being ‘on an eternal mission.’ But please do not let the euphemism soften what happened here—and what you all risk, by being a part of this program.”

He pressed a button. Within seconds, Joan realized he was playing the recorded audio from inside the cabin of Apollo 1.

“Flames!”

“We’ve got a fire in the cockpit. It—”

Every muscle in Joan’s body tensed as she heard a man screaming. And then another and another.

Joan could feel the tension in the room as they listened to the men’s increasingly desperate voices. Joan could hear their movements as they scrambled to get out. She could see it, could feel it. What it must have felt like to be trapped there, knowing they were going to die.

Joan could not get Frances out of her mind. How would Barbara explain it to her if something like that happened to Joan? How might Frances be forever changed by a tragedy like that?

Joan was not afraid to die. She had always felt that she was prepared for the nothingness that awaited her. She was happy, in some ways, to know that her body would decompose. That she would give back to the Earth all she had taken from it.

But Frances.

She might be fine with dying, but she was not fine with leaving Frances.

The transmission ended after only seventeen seconds. Everyone in the room knew what that meant. Joan’s entire body felt heavy, her legs concrete, her head a magnet pulled to her chest. She could not look at Griff. But when she managed to raise her head, briefly, she saw that he could not look at anyone, either.

“Most of our days here at NASA are good ones. We achieve things once believed to be impossible. But there have been some days that we never see coming. Days that stick with us forever. That may cost some of us our lives. If you cannot accept that this risk lies ahead in all we do here,” Jack said, “now is your chance to make a different choice. To choose a different life for yourself. A safer one.”

The theater was quiet. There was no shuffling of feet. No one fiddled with papers. For a moment, Joan felt a strong sense that this entire undertaking was a mistake. Perhaps humans should not do this. The shuttle was nothing more than a pair of wax wings.

When Joan finally exhaled and looked up, Griff was pinching the bridge of his nose, and Hank was staring straight forward. Donna’s chest visibly rose and fell. Vanessa was so lost in thought, Joan could not even catch her eye.

Then Joan turned to look at Lydia. The color was gone from her face. The two of them looked each other in the eye. Could they do this? Could they really stay here in this room knowing what it might one day mean?

Not a single person left.

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