oopsie

"Ok boys, I assume you know what you're doing, but here's the basic idea. All you really have to do is sit back and wait until the rocket ship has broken through the sound barrier. Then unbuckle yourselves and make sure that the ship is going fast enough and, that it's staying on course. There's a communicator in the side of the wall here. See? Press the button and speak loudly and clearly if you need us. Oh, right, we also didn't put an antigravity function in, because if you're only in space for an hour, it's not necessary."

A crackly voice then sounded through the communicator's speaker. "One minute 'til take-off. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. . . . . ."

The scientist helped the three astronauts into their chairs and showed them how the buckles worked, and then he scurried off the ship and waved. "See you in an hour!"

The men took deep breaths and waited in silence. The only sound was the loud, staticky voice of the man as he counted down the seconds until they left earth. It felt like hours, but finally the words the astronauts had been waiting to hear bounced off their eardrums.

"Three. Two. One. TAKEOFF."

There was a deafening boom as the giant ship blasted itself into the sky, along with three of NASA's astronauts.

It was getting faster and faster, so fast that you would not been able to see it zooming through the air.

There was a violent shaking as it rocketed through the sound barrier. Joe Osborne, David Hollenburg, and Bob Olivers pressed their hands to their head as the deafening sound hurt their eardrums.

And then - silence.

The ship stopped shaking. The three astronauts felt themselves lifting up slightly in their special chairs as they left the atmosphere of Earth.

They were officially in space.

There was no time to lose.

"Ok, so the Earth's diameter is 12,742 kilometres. We've wasted a few minutes getting into space, and we'll waste time getting back as well. We're also not on the border of the Earth, which means we'll travel more than that diameter getting around. We need to speed up if we're going to do this in time," Joe voiced his thoughts as he unbuckled himself from the seat. He drifted forward and pressed a button on the dashboard. He pushed a lever down, and they sped up slightly.

"All we need to do is make sure we're going fast enough."

He glanced at the clock. 55:12 seconds to go.

Bob unbuckled himself and did a little victory flip in the air. "We got through the takeoff, woohoo! Hey, remember that ship they launched a few months ago? How it exploded on the way up? And that other one, the one that started flipping and crashed into the ocean by India? It exploded in the water and caused a little tsunami!!"

David gritted his teeth. "Bob, we're trying to stay positive. You're NOT helping."

The men flapped around pushing levers and poking buttons. They had a mission, and they weren't about to fail.

"We're almost halfway there!" Joe hooted with excitement.

"But there's 27 minutes left on the clock. We're not going fast enough!" David yelled back. The friction on the outside of the ship was starting to sound deafening as they improved their speed.

"Hey, guys, what's that?" Bob yelled from behind the others. He took another bite of his lettuce sandwich and made a grab for his juice box, which had left the table and was floating through the air. Little droplets of orange juice escaped from it, contorting into weird blobby shapes in the atmosphere of the rocket.