Orbital

The astronauts pause their tasks to watch the typhoon on its approach toward Malaysia and the Philippines. The images they transmit are used to warn people in the Philippines to seek shelter or evacuate. Pietro is concerned for his friend, a fisherman who lives on the island of Samar, and his family, though he knows that they have nowhere else to go. Pietro met the fisherman on his honeymoon, during which he and his wife went diving off the coast of Samar. Ever since then, Pietro has been sending money to support the education of the fishermen’s children.

The station veers past the line that separates night and day, which they call “the Terminator.” This experience of night promises to be short since it is the time of the year when Antarctica experiences less than six hours of nighttime. It is also the season when the auroras appear. Roman beckons Nell to watch them as they pass over the display of lights. The other crew members follow to watch the auroras with wonder.

Anton has been having recurring dreams of the moon. His latest one is of the American astronaut Michael Collins from the first mission in 1969. He photographed his fellow crew members on the lunar module with the Earth in the background. Anton resents the humiliation that this mission brought upon the Soviet Union. Upon reflection, he recognizes the irony of the claim that the picture contained every living person on Earth. None of them are clearly visible, and, if anything, it is only Collins’s presence that feels clear to Anton as the person taking the photograph. As a child, Anton’s father had encouraged his ambitions by telling him fables about Russians landing on the moon. In his other recurring dream, Anton can hear the voices of everyone on Earth, including his own. He shouts to his wife, who is taking a picture of him from the moon.

Nell wants to argue with Shaun about his belief in God. Shaun interprets that everything in the universe has been carefully designed. Nell, on the other hand, believes that everything is an accidental occurrence. Their potential debate reminds her of a sculpture of a man-made tree that she saw in a forest as a child. It was impossible to tell the difference between that tree and the others unless they looked at it knowing that it was man-made.

Instead of arguing, Shaun recounts the time he watched a recording of the first moon landing with his father and uncle. It unnerved him to register the yearning frustration in their faces. He thinks it is ironic that the experience initially repulsed him, considering where he ended up.

Nell recalls the Challenger tragedy as the moment she began to entertain fantasies of going to space, even if the prospect of dying scared her. She realizes that her reverence for dead astronauts was the closest thing she ever had to religion. Her father had encouraged her practice of lighting candles for the astronauts as a form of comfort against demons. Though she found his comment absurd, she thinks about how her grief inspired her obsession with space.

Shaun privately feels that the hostility of space makes the human endeavor to explore it seem futile.

Chie attends to her test mice experiment. The experiment involves monitoring three groups of mice: One group is regularly injected with muscle stimulant, another group is comprised of genetically modified mice, and the third group is a control group. As she reassures the control mice, who are doomed to experience muscular atrophy, she thinks about how she will miss her mother’s bone-picking ceremony. She hopes to ask her uncle to retrieve her mother’s ulna bone because it always stood out to Chie when her mother was brushing Chie’s hair. She encourages the mice to learn to fly to make the most out of their lives.

Over lunch, Pietro reflects on a conversation with his daughter about progress. He thinks that progress is beautiful because it is representative of life and human nature, though this does not mean it is necessarily good. He overhears a radio broadcast about the lunar mission and considers it with envy. He then reconsiders his position on progress and thinks that it reflects humanity’s hubris. He concludes that progress is a feeling that he gets when he acknowledges the beauty of the conditions that brought him into space. 

Roman tries to operate a packet radio to talk to strangers back on Earth. A voice returns his greeting as they pass over Australasia.

Coming from a background in research meteorology, Nell can recognize the movement patterns of the weather as she looks down from the station. She thinks of weather patterns as the Earth’s expressions and considers the typhoon a face of defiance. Pietro and Nell talk about their experiences of the Philippines and comment on its natural beauty.

Chie writes a list of things that surprise her. The day she learned of her mother’s death, she looked at a photo of her mother on the day of the first moon landing. In the photo, Chie’s mother searches the sky for signs of Apollo 11. On the back of the photo are the words, “For the next and all moon landing days ever to come” (87). The caption surprised Chie because of how unsentimental and stoic her mother usually was. On deeper reflection, she realizes that the photo is a true portrait of her mother’s toughness.

Chie reflects on how precarious her life has been, considering that her grandfather and her mother both survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. She tries to make greater sense of the photo and wonders how it influenced the path that her life has taken. Her mother meant to encourage her to either chase her potential with daring or be wary of human endeavors because of “the price humanity pays for its moments of glory” (91). Though she has no way of knowing what her mother really wanted for her, Chie concludes that her mother intended for Chie to honor the miracle of her life.