Ah, space.
It's always been an attraction for me. While I didn't come up in the aerospace industry, or make my career in one of the hard sciences, I've always been attracted.
A couple of years ago, Elon Musk announced his intention to go to Mars. I followed every announcement with rapt attention. The first time the Falcon Heavy flew, I felt like I might burst with with emotion. It didn't take long before SpaceX was sending regular flights to the moon. And they weren't the only ones.
I turned 55 shortly after the first SpaceX landings on the moon. I suddenly felt my mortality like I had never felt it before! I was going to die, but before I did, I was going to make sure that I left my mark on the world.
Not having any particular experience, I quit my job and gathered a group of friends together and we started to brainstorm ideas. Soon we had the beginnings of a small company.
Our focus was on returning mineral samples from the moon. It looked set to be a big business for a while, as nobody quite knew yet what the content of the moon's geology was like. Everybody wanted to explore it; everyone was hoping to make big money.
Our first few rocket loads of robots arrived almost 2 years to the day after we started planning. We jumped and hugged each other like 10-year-old girls.
I watched the monitors as the first robots rolled off the spaceship and on to the lunar surface.
"Easy there," the engineer beside me said.
I followed his pointing finger to see that I was twisting the pen I had been holding so hard that it had broken and was now jammed into my hand hard enough to start drawing blood.