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Chapter 8
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Atmosphere, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love, Relationships, and Meaning
Courage and Identity
Sexism and Misogyny
Heteronormativity and Family
Summary
Analysis
In December of 1984, on the day of the accident, Vanessa dons her spacesuit and leaves the cabin once more. Attached to the ship, she makes her way out into space to the payload bay. The door is warped from the accident, though, and Vanessa struggles to get it shut. She works at it and is eventually able to shut it, but there’s a one-centimeter gap that shouldn’t be there. Vanessa then begins securing the latches to keep the door shut, but because the door is warped, many of the latches won’t close.
The novel flashes forward once more to the accident on the space shuttle on December 29, 1984. Vanessa braves leaving the shuttle to try to fix and shut the bay doors, but she is not entirely successful. The novel suggests that even the 1-centimeter gap in the doors could pose a problem for the shuttle when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, illustrating the precision necessary for space travel.
Active
Themes
Meanwhile, in Houston, someone raises a concern about Griff’s heart rate. It’s at 21 beats per minute and falling. Not much longer, someone announces that Griff has died. Jack tells Joan not to tell Vanessa because it won’t help her. In space, Vanessa keeps trying to secure the latches but can’t get all of them shut. When she tells Joan that, Joan says that she should go back to the beginning and try again. Vanessa asks if there’s enough time to do that, considering the urgency of getting Griff and Lydia back to Earth. Joan then tells Vanessa that Griff has died. Vanessa asks Joan if she’s okay. Joan says that she’s not but that the primary objective at this point is making sure that Vanessa is able to return to Earth.
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