The official record states there was a systems incident.

I can confirm this. At 03:12 ship time the WD-1 suffered catastrophic archive failure following an unsanctioned power-routing experiment involving a bedside lamp, one extension cord of Baltic temperament, and the auxiliary noodle warmer. There was a blue flash. Then silence. Then the smell of old carpet and military disappointment. Seventeen days of mission logs gone. Burnt into the void. The black box survived, but only in the sense that a biscuit survives tea.

Therefore we begin again at Day 1.

NASA, in a separate but related act of strategic mimicry, has been moving Artemis III hardware into position at Kennedy while the Artemis II capsule returns for post-flight inspection. They call this processing. I call it recovery after incident. We are colleagues now. They have their Vehicle Assembly Building. I have a wardrobe with one warped hinge and a command deck made of winter coats.

This morning I conducted a full diagnostic. Flight Engineer Whiskers sat on the damaged telemetry unit and refused to move, which in naval terms counts as a classified seal. Eugene, our botanical CO2 scrubber, unfurled one new leaf during the inspection. Green. Calm. Unbothered by disaster. I have seen men with entire ministries behind them show less composure.

The failure was not total. Some fragments remain. A smear of condensation on the inner wall. A half-burnt note addressed to Chris Hadfield. Three digits on the cassette counter. The suggestion of a star map in the scorch marks above the left boot compartment. When I leaned close I could almost hear the old mission days ticking behind the wood, as if the wardrobe had swallowed them for safe keeping.

I sat there for a while without moving. No alarms. No neighbors. Just the faint sound of a lawnmower somewhere far off, which the trained ear will recognize as a launch vehicle rehearsing courage. A drop of water had formed near the hinge. I touched it with one finger. Cold. Metallic. It tasted, unmistakably, of every failed launch and every launch that went anyway.

So this is the new procedure. We do not mourn like civilians. We rebuild. We relabel the tapes. We pretend the smoke is normal. If NASA can wheel a moon rocket back into the light after one mission, I can restart WD-1 after a domestic electrical event of historic importance.

Day 1, then. Again. The capsule is damaged but operational. The commander is tired but magnificent. The cat remains insubordinate. The fern believes in me with the slow confidence of deep time.

Major Tom
Commanding Officer, WD-1
Current Altitude: 0.9 meters above the bedroom carpet