For all astronauts working hard in the ISS, and their ability to work together, and also Oswald and Hina which are dogs

EXPOSITION

    “Here is your assignment,” General Cunnington said. This was my first assignment after graduating from school, and I was even more excited than someone who had won the lottery! “Your mission will be to join the ISS.” Every word he said made me more and more excited! “Your team is Brian Caddel, Katy Madden, Yumi Umiyama, Ivan Rotko, Anna Volkov, and last but not least, Kade Oshiro.” Kade… Kade… Kade… I fell into a deep rabbit hole of memories. Kade was my rival back in school. He always chewed spear-mint gum and claimed that he was better than everyone.  

Kade was always the one who was making others mess up and hurt them in the process. I'm surprised they allowed him on a mission. In the end he basically was expelled because he knocked his teammate unconscious once. It's just now that I wonder if he even could have been assigned a mission. I  was woken up by the voice of general Cunnington saying,“Your training will start in one week at 1700 hours.”

It was now the time for training. We all met each other for the first time, except, of course, Kade and I. Kade didn’t change. He still wore the same circular shades, and  chewed thesame spear-mint gum. This led me to assume that he thought he was the best and hadn’t changed, either. He was always so smug and always in his head. He always claimed he was right and was too stubborn to admit anything. When he was wrong, he would throw a fit when the teachers weren't looking. He would talk badly behind their back but they never found out.

Hello, students! Today we're going to simulate...

    I always hated him. He was such a self-centered person. Then, I snapped back into the present. General Cunnington was there, telling us what to do. “Today we are going to simulate repairing a solar panel while weightless, using neutral buoyancy.” I read about this method in middle school. The way that neutral density works is by making an object the same density as the liquid it is in. By matching the densities of the water and the object in it, the object neither sinks or floats. So, we went into a large pool of water and used a series of weights to make us simulate weightlessness. The General was still talking. “...space suits you will wear will be extremely heavy. Now, we will commence the simulation in 3, 2, 1, start!” 

    I went to my station. Hovered there, to be exact, because the neutral buoyancy was working. I looked at the solar panel. There was a tear on one part of it. I started grabbing what I needed to repair it when I saw what Kade was doing. He grabbed what he needed and got to work at the speed of light. He was going faster than me! I quickly grabbed the things I needed and got to work as fast as I could. He seemed to have noticed my sudden actions and started to go even faster. I knew what I had to do. 

Task: Repair the broken solar panel.

By using stabilizers and wire, I could strengthen the solar panel’s structure. Kade knew this, too. We both quickly started threading together the solar panel to repair it. Kade messed up a part, boosting my morale. I threaded and threaded until I messed up myself. Kade started gaining on me. So I went faster and faster, and he did too. I was winning, and I was almost finished… But then it all broke.

The wire had been pulling on the solar panel and started breaking it as opposed to fixing it. Kade hadn’t been doing so well, either. Both of our solar panels broke into pieces and sank to the bottom of the pool, just like my chance of showing Kade who was better. In frustration, I kicked the solar panel, breaking it more.

!

    We have been training for a year now and have learned much. We had walked outside to the launch zone then the next thing we knew we were in the shuttle. General Cunnington came on the coms and said, “Congrats on making it this far we hope to hear from you on the ISS good luck.” The next thing we heard was the loud blaring speakers from outside saying 10..9..8..7..6 - we knew one of two things could happen - 5..4..3 - fly or die - 2..1… WHOOOOOSHHHHHH

IN THE ISS

    We were now in the ISS. The flight took 2 days, and it was such a relief to be able to get to the ISS safely. Because of the earth’s gravitational pull, we orbited around Earth. I looked at my surroundings. Even though I saw hundreds of pictures back on Earth, it was incredible to see in person. 
Even though I was overflowing with joy to be in space, it wasn’t enough to make me forget about Kade, because he “kindly” reminded me of him. The first thing he did was bang me into a wall by “accident” and shove his boot onto my face. It was gonna be this way for a long time, I thought. However, we needed rest, so I went to my bed, which looked like a sleeping bag taped to a wall, put on my eye mask, and dozed off. 

The next day we had a lot of work to do. I woke up an hour before I normally did and quickly began to do all my chores throughout the spaceship. I didn’t want Kade to annoy me while doing all of my chores.  I checked all of the systems on board the ship, we’re all good. I also was tasked with checking the plants in the pressurized environments to see if they would grow nicely in space. 

The plants give us a larger variety of food and release oxygen into the ISS. However, someone interrupted my thoughts. Somehow, Kade still managed to beat me at my chores even though he woke up much later than me.  “Psh, you can’t even do your chores'' Kade snickered, “How did you even pass all of your classes?”  That was it.  I was tired of Kade always thinking that he was better than me at everything.  “Whatever Kade, I’m gonna go eat”.