by Dukasaur on Wed Jun 16, 2021 2:19 pm
Okay, I'll admit it: it was me.
Had some windowpane acid in cold storage from 1979. I'd forgotten how strong that shit was. Took off on a roughly northerly heading but the Coriolis effect took over and had me spinning. Covered three quarters of the northern hemisphere in vague spirals of yellow, green and blue. Mostly subsonic and below the radar. Somewhere over the Pacific, I realized I was bored with the whole subsonic thing and wanted to try some real speeds. Hard to do supersonic when you're on the floor: random fluctuations in the contours of Gaia's navel can crush you. So I climbed for altitude: up, up, and away! The air got cooler and the colours got brighter, but I also attracted the attention of some radar on some random naval boat on maneouvres near Lisianski Rock. That's when they started sending planes up. Fat chance to catch me! The sky got dark and I realized I was free of Earth's stifling atmosphere. Was traveling uprange at about 148 metres/second, which would be about Mach 17 if I was still atmospheric, but of course Mach numbers are meaningless with no atmosphere to contend with. Saw a sparkly little thing, realized it was a GPS satellite. Tried to match velos with it but couldn't quite get smooth. I did manage to pull off one of its antennae on the flyby, though. (Sorry if you have trouble finding your way to Walgreen's this morning. Shoulda boughtta map.) Pressure in my brain was building like a supervolcano; I realized it's not good to spend too much time in a vacuum. Cut power, did a 90° roll to reenter parallel to my Sagittal plane (to minimize heat on re-entry). Whistled down and landed with a "shloop!" Awesome navigational instinct -- from high orbit near the lower Lagrange point, I had successfully nailed a landing in the mud of the little creek less than half a mile from my house!
“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
― Voltaire
