The power in Charleston, SC had been brought back on from the past night’s severe thunderstorm, but there was still electricity in the air. Today, Ms. Appleton’s third grade class at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary would meet the crew of the starship Atlantis. Most of the kids in the class hadn’t been following the news very closely, but there was one kid who had a near encyclopedic knowledge of all things Atlantis. Sammy Smith had been following the ship’s story since its construction was announced. Sheamus McGillicuddy on YouTube had been talking about it since Sammy’s sixth birthday. And today, Sammy felt nervous, and a little lightheaded. In a moment’s time, James McAllister -- of the Atlantis crew, of an in-person interview with Sheamus McGillicuddy -- would address his third grade class.

Ms. Appleton was looking at her phone, trying to figure out how the Atlantis app worked. She could hear Wilson Higgs on the other end, but they didn’t have video. As she was attempting to figure this out, she took a passing glance at Sammy in his desk. She smiled. Sammy had been impatiently waiting for this moment ever since it was announced.

“Got it? Can you see us?” Higgs asked Ms. Appleton.

She beamed the overly enthusiastic smile that teachers often do and nodded once, “I sure can!” She then connected her phone to the class projector, which immediately broadcast on the whiteboard.

“Good morning, classroom. I am Captain Xiu Ling of the USS Atlantis.” Ling looked at her prepared English speech carefully while also trying to look at the camera. She seemed a little nervous. “And this is Commander James McAllister, and Wilson Higgs, our chief engineer.”

“Hey, kids!” McAllister responded.

“Wassup?” Higgs asked with a grin.

“McAllister, you’re my idol!” Sammy blurted out. “I just think it’s really cool that you guys are going to travel the stars! We all want to be astronauts, too!”

McAllister could see the nervousness in Sammy’s eyes. He recalled when he was a young boy himself, reading of the moon landings as if they were distant memories. Few from his generation wanted to be astronauts. He’d resolved to bring space travel back, and somehow, the corruption from the Achilles Documents had allowed it. And here was Sammy Smith, being inspired in the way that he hoped the youth would. McAllister then said, “What’s your name, son?”

“Sammy Smith!”

“Well, when we get an up close photo of Pluto in several weeks, I’ll call you back, Sammy. I think it’s still a planet! We may have to prove that with science.” McAllister responded.

A Pluto joke. “Nice one!” Sammy thought to himself.

But then Ling responded with, “It’s not actually a planet though.” McAllister raised his eyebrows at Ling, and an awkward pause ensued. “Oh. Yes!” she said after understanding McAllister’s intent. She then looked at the camera again. “We will investigate that!”

The class continued to ask the crew questions like, “Is it cold in space?” and “How do you eat?” McAllister led the conversations, deferring to Higgs for more technical questions. Ling concluded the conversation by reading from her prepared notes again, “A new era of scientific progress has come for the human race, and we here on the Atlantis are making discoveries every day. And although you cannot come with us on the journey, everything we learn will be made available to you. Perhaps, in time, Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, you will be members of the UESC Model 2 ship when it is built!” The class clapped at this.

McAllister whispered, “Good delivery,” to Ling on the hot mic just before Higgs cut the camera off.

Sammy sat there starstruck for a bit as Ms. Appleton began to go over social studies. She was talking about construction of the Panama Canal. His thoughts were still in the stars. And they remained there for the rest of the day.

When Sammy got off the school bus that afternoon and began the walk to his mother’s trailer, he saw Bobby Johnson outside. Bobby was a middle-aged guy -- roughly Sammy’s mother’s age -- and he was outside working on his truck. The carburetor needed a new gasket, but for the past three days, Bobby had been having a hard time getting it back together.

“Did the bolt strip again?” Sammy asked.

“Yes. Sheesh! I don’t get it. It fits right together, but for some reason, it rubs the teeth off the bolt as soon as I start tightening.”

“I don’t either. It’s like something in the hole is curving the bolt when you tighten it.”

“Sammy come over here and hold this thing for me.”

Sammy held the bolt in place while Bobby tried to tighten it. “That’s it!” Sammy announced. “The bolt is getting sideways and cross-threading. If I hold it here, maybe it’ll go!”

Bobby tightened the bolt, and the carburetor closed up. “I’ll be damned!” As Bobby began to put the carburetor back on the truck, he asked Sammy, “So did you see your space man today?”

“Yeah. I talked to James McAllister. It was so cool! He’s gonna send me a photo of Pluto!”

Bobby looked back at him. “Yeah. You have your dreams, Sammy. Keep ‘em. I hope it’s better for you than it was for me.”

“Things will get better. Science and technology will see us through to a better tomorrow!”

“You’re quoting McGillicuddy again! I’ve never seen that show, but I somehow feel that I have.” Bobby remarked as he attached a hose to the carburetor.

“Yeah.”

“Well, my truck is back in business now.” Bobby whispered to himself, “Now if only I had somewhere to go in it.”

“You’ll find another factory job soon, Bobby!”

“I feel ashamed sometimes, Sammy. I never imagined I’d fall so far in life that I’d be at risk of getting kicked out of a trailer park.” Bobby lit a Marlboro light and took a puff. “They’re up there traveling the stars and 200 people got laid off here. I put my soul into that place, Sammy.”

The problems of the world were not unknown to Sammy, but he was nine years old. His dream was to join United Earth Space Command and be an astronaut. The rising unemployment around him was an adult problem. And his mother wasn’t unemployed – not yet. Walmart’s bad experiences with AI in the 2020s made them keep human employees longer than most businesses. But he’d seen Bobby begin drinking heavily after the leather factory shifted to automation.

His mom wasn’t home yet. It was a Tuesday, which meant her shift didn’t end until 4:30 PM. Sammy turned on his tablet and checked YouTube for the latest episode of The Future of Science with Sheamus McGillicuddy. Sheamus had been pretty consistent with weekly content for the three years Sammy had been watching him. “When I started this channel 15 years ago, we explored what it would be like to build a generational ship, and now, that dream has been realized.” The video shifted to footage of the Atlantis crew boarding a Space Shuttle on Earth followed by a 3D model representation of the ship. “So I thought it might be interesting to go in a different direction. We know we can make safe structures in zero-gravity. What are we going to do with that knowledge? I’m joined today by Richard Ortiz, former Launch Planner at SpaceX and CEO of the startup Astronomical Living. He has a plan to make apartments in space!”

This was the future, or so Sammy believed. Ortiz explained his plan and how the Atlantis demonstrated the relative ease with which an O’Neill Cylinder could house tens of thousands of people. Sammy watched this until his mother came home an hour later, at which point she made him do his homework.

Three weeks later, Ms. Appleton gave Sammy Smith a printed photograph of Pluto which read, “From Atlantis with love!” on it. Sammy taped the photograph to the outside of his bedroom door. Each day, he would take a moment to look at it. Pluto was an icy world full of untapped mystery. And yet it had been demoted to be a dwarf planet. A thought entered Sammy’s young mind briefly, “What the astronomers did to Pluto, the leather factory did to Bobby.” He held it for a moment, and then he checked for the latest updates from the Atlantis crew on atlantis.gov.