Elizabeth Nasri had been summoned to the Administrator’s office right when she expected to be. The new class of astronauts were getting their assignments and she had noted, despite their attempts at secrecy, which candidates already knew their missions. By her best guess, she concluded that the mission she wanted was still open—The One that would establish the first colony on Mars.

As she stood in the waiting room of the Administrator’s office, she weighed her chances: she had successfully managed ever-more-sophisticated assignments, including long duration missions and the habitat construction near Hadley Rille. She had done the political posturing and had strived for that coveted ‘cool under pressure’ proclamation that would get her the ticket to the first colony.

Jockeying for position was a childish NASA ritual. It reminded her of school with its cliques and backhanded friendships, social hierarchy and competition for popularity. She hated it all. To her, people who asked for others to define them did not know themselves and, even at school age, she already knew who she was—an interesting realization, given that she was a blend of such dissimilar backgrounds: her father, born of Syrian refugees; her mother, from an Indian family of standing in London real estate. The two had met while undergrads in Boston and, in graduate school, married. And at some time between her father’s patents and her mother’s political papers, Elizabeth Asala Nasri was born. Nasri for victory, Asala for originality, and Elizabeth for a past English queen.

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She had chosen the nickname, Z, herself. It was a modern extraction from an elegant, but anachronous name; abrupt and certain in its redirections, it embodied the agile life she wanted to lead, as well as the person she wanted to be.

...

Twenty minutes later, when she left the Administrator’s office, she leveled her stare, marched down the hall and through the nearest exit. This was it, the final straw. When this mission was over, she was leaving. She could get more done in the private sector—and she didn’t mind the idea of making a lot of money.

PRESS RELEASE

At 20:18:18 (GMT) today, NASA's Mars Habitat 3 touched down on the eastern slope of Arsia Mons, the second-largest volcano on Mars, marking the last of the exploratory series before the transition to NASA's upcoming colonization missions. Mars Habitat 3 has been sent to lava tubes thought to be the most promising location for an ongoing colony. For the next sixteen months, the crew will be focused on the vital preparatory work of surveying, deep imaging, and 3D scanning that will help NASA identify the best potential landing site and design a permanent habitat to be constructed by the colonization missions to follow.

Contact: Patrick Burke, Communications Director, Mars Habitat 3 [email protected]