Sixty-Eighth Entry

March 14^th, 2037

1201

Dear Space Diary.

They'll have to come up with a new definition of “bad” to describe the luck that I'm having.

All I want to do is launch one little GPS tracking satellite using only duct tape and salvaged robotics. Is that too much to ask?

Less monologue, more action! One more beep and that missile's out of here!

Just have to hope I can reach it in time.

CLICK

Argh! That light's bright. Still, the lightdog's on. And it seems signal based lightdogs are purple.

No time, just jump in a direction. Any direction.

Need to get far enough -

BEEP.

…

FWOOSH

1203

Can see again. And it's off. The missile is shooting into the atmosphere as I watch. Due to the low gravity, it'll get a lot further than on Earth. On Earth it wouldn't even get halfway, but here, it'll get to low orbit before it runs out of fuel.

I hope.

Or possibly it'll get too far, drift into space, and I'll be able to have years of fun tracking it as it drifts further and further away and I'm stuck here searching for a spaceship in a giant pink haystack.

1206

I really do have a knack with this whole worst case scenario thing don't I.

1215

Can't see the missile anymore. Hard to tell, anyway. The sun's pretty bright.

I've been looking over the tracking device. Aside from it's worrying similarity to a remote control for a toy car it looks fairly straightforward. A red light flashes when there's an active tracking signal nearby, and stays on when I'm pointing directly at it. Next to it is a green light if it has a current connection to the GPS. There are two levers I can twiddle to try to adjust the signal if required.

Effectively as follows:

Green light on. Good.

Green light off. Bad.

Red light on: Very good.

Red light flashing: Kinda good.

Red light off: Bad.

Both lights off: Check batteries.

I've just put in the batteries from the lightdog I destroyed while it was helpfully trying to repair the roof. I did try and fix it, but it seems I hit it good and proper, no turning it off and on again for Blue.

Feel pretty bad about that, actually. I killed it.

And no other lightdogs around to repair the roof, so looks like the sun roof is staying.

Note to self: stop destroying things.

1220

Let's give it a shot. No idea how long it'll take for the satellite to reach orbit, but I'm getting bored and I don't feel like lunch yet, so let's try.

1222

Turned it on. Both lights flashed on, paused, then turned off again. Green light is blinking occasionally.

Guess there's no signal yet.

1230

Nothing.

1240

Still nothing. Going to eat.

1254

A signal! The satellite is working! Green is on! Green is on! Green is... fading?

1255

Fading.

1256

Off.

1258

Batteries are flat.

...Sigh.