Flashback to inside Dr. Bauer’s office in Ground Control prior to leaving for the ISS. Dr. Bower is sitting in one of two interview chairs, making some brief notes. His door is open, he looks up when he hears a light tap at the door.

Dr. Bauer: Come in Grace, I’m Dr. Bauer, it is lovely to meet you.

Grace: Great to meet you as well.

Dr. Bower: Please, please have a seat.

Both sit and Dr. Bauer closes his notepad and holds it on his lap.

Dr. Bauer: Hopefully, administration let you know that today’s session is not about your fitness to go on your upcoming mission. You are going to space. My role is to learn about how we better prepare Astronauts for long space missions. I meet with every astronaut before and after their mission. I also monitor them from the ground during the mission.

Grace: I understand.

Dr. Bauer: Today I want to find out more about you, who Grace is and what makes you tick. Maybe you could start by telling me about yourself.

Grace: Ok, I have two degrees from MIT. Undergrad was in Electrical Engineering followed by a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering. I was going to start a PHD however the opportunity in Flight Engineering at NASA came up. You don’t say no to your dream job. Nowadays ISS missions don’t usually have a Flight Officer. Flight control is mostly managed from the ground. However we are testing some new equipment and running some simulations for future missions. I get to go Off Planet and test in space.

Dr. Bauer: Thanks, I have your file and I have read all of it. I am more interested in what is not in the file. Who is Grace? What drives her? Very few people go to space or “Off Planet”, what sets you apart from the pack, how did you earn this mission?

Grace: Should I tell you about my family?

Dr: Bauer A great place to start.

Dr. Bauer opens his notepad and starts taking notes.

Grace: Well, mother, father, naturally, two older brothers. Grew up on a farm and went to MIT rather than go into the family Agribusiness.

Dr: Bauer Tell me about the farm and the family life on the farm.

Grace: That is a longer story.

Dr. Bauer: We have time.

Grace: The farm has been in the family for generations. Passed down from father to son. It is not a simple farm. It is a significant business with 7 different crops in rotation and livestock. We supplement income with carbon sequestration however my father only does that for the money. He says that God doesn’t care about carbon dioxide. It is natural and God made it.

Dr Bauer: What is your relationship to the farm?

Grace: I grew up there and went to school locally before MIT. My brothers are thick as two planks. I inherited all my father’s brains. He wanted me to take over the business and run it but have my deadbeat oldest brother as Chairman and CEO. He would own the farm and his son would inherit it. I had to do the work and my brother would take all the money and glory. Oldest son and all that.

Dr. Bauer: Is that why you went to MIT rather than stay on the farm?

Grace: Partly…

Grace hesitates a little before deciding that she needs to be candid.

Grace voiceover: Whilst I hesitated initially, I had been through so many tests and interviews and evaluations that NASA must already have known everything about me. I decided to be more candid.

Dr. Bauer: Go on.

Grace: Well, I always loved science and took as many STEM classes as I could through school. My father was worried that I might take a different path. He insisted that I get a broader education. He made me take a Social History class in middle school. He hoped that I would see the benefit of a farming life and learn how vital it is to the community. It was his big mistake. I was given an assignment to research my family history. With the Internet that is very easy to do. I was able to trace my family in Georgia back to 1835 when they arrived from Wales. They had managed the same piece of land for their entire time in the US.

I was curious so I dug further to learn about their history in Wales. That is where I discovered the skeletons in the family closet. The family had lived for generations in a place called Monmouthshire in Southeast Wales. Their farm was surprisingly advanced for its time. They had diversified crops and livestock. Few had the capacity to do that in those days. The only way that they had afforded to grow bigger and better than their neighbors was by using slave labor. Slaves were used in parts of Monmouthshire, but it was nowhere near as common as in the US.

The banning of the Slave trade in Britain in 1807 was initially destabilising to their business. However it was the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 that caused significant economic hardship. The farm really struggled without the slaves. It appears they held on until the 1833 Slave Trade Reparations Act paid them enough along with the sale of their lands to emigrate to a new life in America. However instead of a new life they adopted the old ways and employed slaves to build the same business. The business that my father eventually inherited.

Dr Bauer: Did you ever discuss this with your father?

Grace: I confronted my father about it, but he was unrepentant. He always said “It is God’s will that these people worked for us on the land. We are a vital part of the community. We keep people alive through the food we grow “. He could justify anything with malarkey like that. It was ingrained into him from a young age. His father’s favorite saying was “The Civil War ain’t over, the fightin just stopped”. My brothers are both cut from the same cloth. I am the only hope of breaking that cycle.

Dr Bauer: Is your father more open on other issues?

Grace: My father is very strong willed.

Dr Bauer: Did your father rely on you in other ways on the farm?

Grace: As I said, it has been tradition in the family that my oldest brother will inherit the farm. My father sees me as a means of ensuring the continuation of the family business. He sees me as useful to the family rather than an individual with a life of my own choosing.

Every year for my birthday he gave me a card with some type of monkey on the front. I was always mucking about on the farm, fighting with my brothers. I was never the “little girl”. He called me his little monkey. Inside every birthday card was the same bible quote. The same bible quote that his father gave him every year.

Proverbs 12:11, “He who tills the land will have plenty of bread, but he who pursues worthless things lacks sense”.

It was his way of saying, stay on the farm.

Dr Bauer: Tell me about your mother.

Grace: She married for duty and has been obedient ever since. She is a closet alcoholic and probably addicted to over-the-counter painkillers if that is possible. She is not a drunk but someone who keeps themselves steady from day to day with a little help from a bottle or a pill. That is her way of coping with a loveless marriage to a man like my father.

Dr. Bauer: What does your mother think of your trip to space?

Grace: She wants me to get married and settle down and run the farm. She knows my brothers are idiots and that I am the only hope of the farm surviving my generation. She disbelieves my sexuality. I came out in college. I am proud of who I am despite what my parents and their conservative friends think. I keep telling her it is not a phase but a commitment to me being who I really am. She put up with the college study, but the lesbianism is too much for her. I am however; who I am. I won’t pretend otherwise.

Dr. Bauer: Tell me about your brothers.

Grace: Not much to tell really. Farm life suits them. They rise early, do what they are told, work hard, go to bed early and repeat. They share the same outdated conservative views with my father. Neither are married, Daniel, the oldest, is engaged to someone that he “met” at church. It sounds exactly like the arranged marriage of my parents. I have no idea what David will do for love. He will probably marry the farm. It is all he knows or does.

Dr. Bauer: Did you get on with your brothers growing up?

Grace: I always fought with them. Daniel pushed me out of a tree that we were all climbing when I was twelve. That is how I got this scar. I fell and cut my face open. I was just entering puberty and looks were starting to become important. I will never forgive him. I have this scar to remind me every day.

Dr. Bauer: You were the first in your family to go to college. Was that a source of pride for the family?

Grace: My father is actually very intelligent. He did not go to college. It was his duty to stay and run the farm. Like many traditional families the eldest son always inherited the farm and was expected to devote his life to the farm. He fulfilled his duty.

Dr Bauer: Why does your father see your duty being to the farm?

Grace: He also knows that Daniel will destroy everything once he is left in charge. God knows David will be no help. Daniel once tried to turn the northern paddock into a bamboo plantation. Dad had given him that paddock to manage. As a way to prove himself. We had always run sheep there as they could handle a hillier and rockier environment. Bamboo needs water, a lot of water. He sold off all our breeding stock, then the bamboo failed. We had to start again with the sheep, that cost us several years.

I suggested carbon sequestration to my father as an income stream whilst we re-established the flock. Despite his climate denial, my father is at least pragmatic when he absolutely must be. The carbon income gradually paid for the restocking. However, it is a constant reminder that the prize idiot of the family will one day be in charge and the only child with brains is a lesbian in space.

Dr Bauer: What was the family reaction to your going to college and not staying on the farm?

Grace: My going to college was tolerated as I initially started my Science Undergrad in Agronomy and Environmental Sciences. I guess I chose to start there to appease the family. My love of space was soon impossible to ignore. I switched to Electrical Engineering with a view to moving into Aerospace. None of the family came to any events or my graduations. At first it bothered me. I quickly realized that it meant that I was breaking free and establishing my own life. Them not coming validated my choices.

Dr. Bauer: Did being away from the family change you as a person?

Grace: College was liberating for me in so many ways. It allowed me to break away from the family. It allowed me to be me. I was able to explore my sexuality and like many college students I found myself. I came out in college as I was so proud of who I was. I had no reason to hide. I had relationships, I even tried taking a couple of partners home to meet the family. Winters in Hell are warmer than those visits home with my lesbian lovers.

Dr. Bauer: Do you currently have a significant other and how do they feel about you going to space?

Grace: Let’s just say I am between relationships. She didn’t want me to go. I was not enough in love to listen to her. I’ll see what happens when I return. We might pick up where we left off or we might go our separate ways. I will deal with that issue then.

Grace voiceover: Sensing some resistance from me, Dr. Bauer nodded and moved on.

Dr. Bauer: When did you first dream of going to space?

Grace: I had a massive fight with my father when I was in my mid teens. No idea what it was about but I wanted to get off the farm and go anywhere. I remember lying in a field, crying to myself, looking up. It was a clear night. Being in the country the sky was full of stars. I thought “I want to go there”. Initially it was just a reaction to my father’s unrepentant ways however I stuck to my guns. I started studying and soon built a genuine interest and love for space. My capabilities in the sciences certainly helped. It was easy for me to read extensively and learn. The bonus was that it kept me away from my brothers. My parents were happy to see me studying so hard.

Dr. Bauer: I understand that none of your family came to the launch.

Grace: They gave excuses about lambing season, harvest, church obligations but I know that they have not yet forgiven me for walking out on the family farm. They see college, space and my sexuality as youthful flings, not real-life choices. One day I will convince them.

Dr. Bauer: Can I ask a delicate question?

Grace: Of course, anything.

Dr. Bauer: Are you trying to convince them or yourself?

Grace: Them, always them.

Dr Bauer voiceover: I thought to myself, despite the fact that she has chosen a different life; She is her father’s daughter.