Five o'clock in the morning and all was not well. Capt. Timothy Andrews was about to make the first exploratory trip to the planet Zicon-2. His breakfast of crushed and frozen oatmeal did not go down too well. Nervousness had taken over Capt. Andrews' body. His valet came in to tell Timothy that he had better get dressed, because he was leaving in three hours on a rocket-pad for a 12 year trip to Zicon-2. He put on his space suit, his helmet, and his heating unit.
Charles Williams, the flight director, came into Timothy's room. Dr. Williams was there to tell Timothy about the trip. He told the Captain that Zicon-2 was discovered by Prof. John Corru on the planet Mars. At first, he thought it was a star, but he found out that it was a very large planet.
Over the intercom, a voice said, "Okay Captain Andrews, we're ready for you. Zicon-2 is ready for you." Timothy excused himself and told Dr. Williams that he had five minutes to get to the rocket-pad. Timothy stood in the wind tunnel, and it zipped him to the pad, which was four miles from the dressing room of Timothy Andrews, in six seconds. (The tunnel needed some work done on it.) When he got there, he was met by 70,000 technicians and 6,000,000 people that were cheering him on.
The rocket was a mile high and 57-feet in circumference. It had sixty compartments for fuel; 25, 4x6. rooms packed with concentrated food; and one room for Timothy to stay. There were magazines and newspapers from all over the world for him to read. This trip was to be non-stop. He stepped into the rocket and adjusted his foam-padded seat to fit him.
The countdown was approaching the one minute mark. 59...58 seconds to go and Timothy was checking his instruments. His nervousness was increasing with every tick of the clock. He realized that he might not come back. 32...31 seconds to go and Timothy ignited his fuel cells. All was in order for the lift-off. 15...14 seconds to go and Timothy grasped his throttle and closed his eyes and prayed. The last seconds were ticking away, 5...4...3...2...1...0. The earth shook from Cape Kennedy to Ankara, Turkey. The blast of light was 200 times brighter than the Sun. Timothy was flying at a rate of 100,000,000 miles per hour. His first stage ejected by the moon of Neptune. He was really moving.
A crisis arose. When it came time for Timothy to have lunch, he opened his first box of food and found nothing. He looked in the other boxes and found the same thing to be true. NO FOOD! He tried his water fountain, but it was empty. NO WATER! He got on the radio, but no one heard him. An idea cropped up in his head, "Could I turn back?" The rocket was so big that he would have to go into an orbit in order to turn it around. He looked at the star-map, and he saw the nearest place was Zicon-1, which was four years from Zicon-2. He put out a S. O. S. call, but nobody heard it. Timothy recorded in his log that he was dying, and nobody could hear him. He tried one last thing. He dropped off three of his fuel stages and ignited them with the fourth one. The blast of light covered the solar system, but no one saw it.
Another thing came up. Timothy spotted a star that was blocking his path. The star's gravitational force was pulling the rocket closer to it. Just a few more feet, the rocket would melt. The outer coating of metal was melting. The cabin in which Timothy was sitting started to cave in. Timothy screamed.
He jumped out of bed. Timothy asked his wife where he was? Then he realized that it was all a dream. A voice came over the intercom in his bedroom and said, "Captain Andrews, your rocket to Zicon-2 is ready. Please Sir, it is going to take off, please hurry." Was it real?
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