#spacestory

Andrew tries to get chummy with Manny, even though they can't understand each other yet. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well this was silly and fun! I haven’t drawn a few of these characters in a while so it was nice getting to do that again. I’m not sure how many you may recognize, but I’ll give a brief info dump on each one.

StatCat was drawn a LOT last year. They’re just a giant living weird statue cat! Shira was originally my Journey RP blog character, now she’s just a fun muse to draw. I may re-purpose some of her story elements in something one day. Numair is one of my oldest characters and hasn’t really shown up til recently. He’s a mage, that’s pretty much all I know since I scrapped his whole original story. Andrew is an astronaut for my scifi comic that’s in the works! He’s a goofball. Cliffe is a big ol’ fluffy alien bounty hunter! I also stole their name for my online handle. Mikael is a human version of Swolster and now has his own story in the works! Kaprese is my current D&D character! She’s a Summoner and has Guill as her eidolon, he’s the angry armored guy in panel 3. Manny, another character in the scifi comic with Andrew. He’s an enthusiastic alien researcher that wants to learn everything about humans!

Looks like Andrew and Mikael somehow interacted so much that they’re buddies now I guess. Mikael even ended up cheering on Manny and Andrew to smooching!

May 27th, 2020

Dear Diary,

If I had the most number of butterflies in my stomach, it would be this day.

Two years of rigorous training, space simulations, and various classes has led to this day. You have no idea how much I had to train to be an Astronaut. Lifting heavy dumbbells, running literally a thousand miles, millions of jumping Jack’s and burpees, thousands of hours in the Mock-Up Facility, getting used to weightlessness (before the actual weightlessness you feel in space) by surviving the Vomit Comet (AKA the KC 135, where even the veterans throw up), learning to spacewalk by being in a sweaty, bulky, second-hand spacesuit and moving underwater, moving large things in the Precision Air-bearing Floor. And the list goes on and on. Well, not really, it kind of ends there. Anyways, all the training finally paid off, because I get to take my picture taken for the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, where I can be seen walking (very dramatically, ‘cause why not?) towards Spacex’s new Crew Dragon spacecraft. Taking long strides, hair neatly combed as a pompadour, helmet on my bosom, smiling that Colgate smile. I was looking towards the cameras, then gave one final glance at that huge missile-shaped capsule before I entered the Lift. “This must be what Trump meant by ‘make America great again!’ hehe” my colleague Bob Behnken said. That guy has a wicked sense of humour.

We enter the capsule, and it wasn’t like anything I ever saw, it wasn’t anything like I ever felt. I mean, of course, we sat in the simulated one before, one with all the controls and the simulated launch and all the mumbo jumbo, but this…. this feels surreal. To sit in the actual thing brought out a whole new level of nervousness. I suddenly feel the weight of the mission falling on my shoulders. This is NASA’s and Spacex’s first ever collaboration, the first time a private space organization is sending a manned spacecraft to space, the first launch (in a really long time) from American soil. I could see the pressure getting to Bob too, because he was shivering and breathing heavily, like as if he was trapped in a freezer in Antarctica. I put a hand (which was in vibrator mode) on his shoulder and said everything’s gonna be alright. That seemed to calm him down. “Plus, we look like goddamn Avengers in that Endgame movie in these space suits.” That cracked both of us up. I was right though, we did look awesome in our suits, spotless white, with TRON-like dark blue inlays, sleek and slim (unlike its predecessors), really cool and surprisingly roomy helmet. The Dragon itself was a work of wonder. Imagine the richest guy on earth has his own chartered airplane, but flip it 90 degrees upward. That would be an apt description of the Dragon, I think. Real comfy chairs. Dude, it even has CUP HOLDERS!

Okay, enough writing. I can hear Elon Musk giving us both a pep talk, and now we have to prepare ourselves for the launch. That includes fastening our seat belts, getting comfy, pressing all those buttons, pulling those levers, and announcing everything we do to Mission Control. Yes, I know it sounds tedious, but then we have to be alive and well for the mission to be successful, so I can’t really complain.

Falcon-9 is in start-up.

Dragon is in countdown.

FPS is armed for launch.

FTS is armed.

SpaceX Dragon, we are go for launch.

Let’s light the candle.

(based on SpaceX’s historic first manned space flight, the launch of Crew Dragon. The next entries in this series will be fictional.)