 Why can't the crew radio the Earth for help?
A you-are-there type of report? Trip time is supposed to take 260 days (that's one way), so we're aimed toward where Mars will be (had better be, or else). A pilot, co-pilot, navigator and biochemist. I've met all but the pilot (he's very busy today), and they seem friendly enough. He keeps bent low over a welded-to-the-wall (they call it the bulkhead, for some reason or other) table, scratching away with a ballpoint pen on the maps, and now and then calling numbers over a microphone to the pilot. The inertial gravities didn't bother me so much as the gyroscopic spin they put on the ship so we have a sort of artificial gravity to hold us against the curved floor. They'd have to cover it so I could look out the viewing screen, and they still need it for steering or something. Also, I am one of the first five men in the history of the world to see the opposite side of the Moon, with a bluish blurred crescent beyond it that Pat said was the Earth. Actually, he explained to me, the screen is supposed to keep the image of space locked into place no matter how much we spin. I told him I hoped it didn't mean we'd land on Mars upside down. There's just no awesomeness to it, no sense of depth or immensity. Right now we're using buttons for men.
 Lloyd broke the radio.
 Kroger broke the radio.  Jones broke the radio.  Lloyd broke the radio.  Pat broke the radio.