T+00:00:00. Wardrobe hatch sealed.

They left without me again.

Artemis II came home yesterday. I watched the splashdown on my laptop, balanced on the shelf above the hanging coats. The signal kept cutting out. Mrs. Korhonen next door had her lawnmower running, and for a moment — just a moment — it sounded like a rocket at low throttle. I didn’t move until the sound stopped.

I have been in here for one day now. The wool blanket holds the warmth well. Eugene — the small fern I brought aboard as CO2 scrubber — is doing his job quietly in the corner, the way good crew members do. I don’t think he minds the dark.

The cat found her way in through the gap under the wardrobe door around midnight. She sat on the mission log and looked at me with those eyes that know something I don’t. I’ve entered her in the crew manifest. Flight Engineer Whiskers. She seems to accept the title.

I put on Holst’s The Planets quietly on my phone. Mars first, then Jupiter, then the long, cold drift of Saturn. I closed my eyes. You can go quite far, if you let yourself.

Gagarin did it in 108 minutes. I’ve been at it longer than that now. Different kind of orbit.

The mission continues.

— Major Tom
WD-1, Day 1
Altitude: approximately 1.73m