Red:A Short Story By Valor Gosch

A short story about a man landing on mars

“100 miles above mars surface, suborbital trajectory, 

first manned mission to mars” 

 

The sound of the decoupled is one of the most sickening things that 

you could possibly hear and feel. You could hear little explosions in the 

background and feel the force of them against your body. The Soyuz 

Capsule relied off of explosive bolts to separate the capsule so that reentry 

was safe. You think that you're coming home and at the same time you 

know you're not going home to the blue planet you call home. You’ll 

never see you kids, your wife, or even the little old lady at the front desk 

who brings you your coffee every day. 

 

Both sides of the capsules are gone. You only see one of them 

come into eyesight. You see a giant red orb looking upon you with crater 

after crater rims and red canyons that you might find in a bad dream. The 

sight of the two frozen poles of the planet of war and you think it’s going 

to be cold, it's going to be hard to survive. Why the hell did I sign up for 

this? I'm not going to see my baby boy or my wife ever again. I'm going to 

betray her eventually with one of the six women on this mission. 

Why? That seems to be something I ask myself a lot now, I guess. One of 

the many of these “Why did I?” questions is, why did I join this program? 

That’s when I think of the moon landing the first time I ever saw it is in 

the first grade in a dark lit class with and old school projector that only 

relied off of tape, and looking at the ghostly white figures in suits that 

looked rather unpleasant to wear on their backs are squared shape looking 

backpacks that only managed to supply them with one third of an 

atmosphere. 

 

Now we were through the top of the atmosphere holding on tight 

the hand of the women next to me to the point that it hurts her hand she 

looks at me with tears coming down from her eyes not because of the pain 

my iron grasp, but because of the fact that we were going to be the first 

people on mars you could only imagine the horror that I thought while 

coming down into the craters of the red planet. Why, why, why, did I say 

yes to do this I feel like an idiot. Why did I decide to do this? I'm going to 

die I'm not going to see my kid, never kiss my wife again so why did i 

decided to do all of this? Maybe it was that I wanted to bring peace on 

earth. But how was this to bring peace to us, a group of Homo sapiens 

who always seem to be fighting. A race that makes constructions that are 

so big that they can be seen from space and weapons that can wipe out 

those structures. Why would someone like me change the world just by 

stepping on the surface of another? 

  

2 

After all, this is sad to say but this whole thing seems to be a 

publicity stunt just like the moon landings were to prove who was the 

better nation with the most technological superiority. Halfway mark. 

There’s enough air to cause drag to the Soyuz capsule. 20 seconds later 

fire forms from this capsule penetrating the atmosphere at high speeds. 

The Soyuz is landing next to the ice caps. 7 more minutes till we're out of 

the reentry. The crew mates are panicking, scared that if the computer 

makes one mistake their lives that will be over. 7 minutes of terror where 

you can’t communicate with anyone; you’re in communication blackout. 

I’ve been immune to it for a long time. 

 

I've been to the ISS 9 times it never got old looking at the earth 

while floating around the station. The thing that inspired me to continue 

being an astronaut was Chris Hadfield when i was 10. My only thoughts 

were reading and paying attention in school so that i could make money in 

the future. Then I saw a video of this man with a rather odd mustache 

moving around in space where he started playing guitar and singing a song 

by David Bowie. That’s when I realized I wanted to be an astronaut I 

wanted to be like Chris Hadfield. 

 

The parachute knocks all our heads with a thump back by the force 

of its opening. Only one more minute to go and then another thump. 

We’re here on the red planet. No one here questions who is going to step 

out onto the surface of mars. I unbuckle and climb over clumsily over all 

the other astronauts, then I twist the metal handle to open the hatch. With 

my space suit on I walk down and say one line that everyone will over 

examine. As I step onto the red planet I think why do we explore? Is it to 

settle our never ending curiosity or is it to become the most powerful 

among our brethren?”, Looking up to the sky I see one pale blue dot that 

looks almost no different from the thousands of stars and think about what 

will become of it. 

Author's Note

Ignore grammar problems