Planchette

imagine forcibly sending your second in command to space and erasing his memory and having made peace with it for 26 years but then you finally get the back the information that will save the world and you find out that he woke up all alone because the other two died on the way and he didn't know what was going on and he was so scared but he manages to make first contact and he figures it all out anyway AND he might be able to go home with the astrophysics the alien gives him and you feel a part of your heart that hasn't felt alive in decades start to beat again because he might come back in just a few months if what he's saying is right and then you watch the last log and it turns out he needs to go back to save an alien species and he is going to starve to death and you feel the grief all over again.