Atmosphere

At the end of December 1984, astronaut Joan Goodwin goes to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. She’s working in the role of CAPCOM, a ground-based astronaut who is the only person at Mission Control to directly communicate with the team in space. Two astronauts will be doing a spacewalk that day. When Joan arrives at Johnson Space Center, her boss, Jack Katowski, is already there. Joan takes her place at the control panel. She’s especially valuable in the role of CAPCOM because she’s been to space before.

The two astronauts doing the spacewalk are Vanessa and Griff. They began their training at NASA at the same time as Joan, and Joan thinks of them as family. The spacewalk goes according to plan, and Vanessa and Griff successfully prepare for the launch of a satellite before making their way back to the airlock. When they return to the airlock, though, against protocol, they leave the outer door open so they can watch the satellite deploy. When the satellite launches, though, there’s a malfunction, and debris goes flying. One piece of shrapnel hits Griff’s spacesuit and tears a hole in it. He tries to cover the hole with his hand, but he quickly loses oxygen.

A second piece of debris hits the space shuttle and breaks open a hole, causing the cabin of the shuttle to lose pressure and oxygen. The astronauts in the shuttle, including the commander, Steve, and two other astronauts who Joan trained with, Hank and Lydia, rapidly pull everything off the wall to try and locate the leak. As they do, Vanessa shuts the airlock door, restoring pressure so Griff can breathe. Before the air pressure is completely restored, though, Griff passes out.

Over the radio, Lydia tells Joan and everyone in Houston that Steve and Hank have also passed out. She says she’s going to keep working to find the leak, but then she stops speaking. A reading in Houston says that the air pressure in the cabin is returning to normal, suggesting that someone on board found the leak and patched it. Joan keeps trying to reach the astronauts on board to see what is happening, but no one responds. Finally, Vanessa gets on the radio. She says she thinks she is the only one on board still alive.