The Space Ship

When I finally arrived to the briefing room my two colleagues were already sketching something on their plans. Weeks and months, it has been and we were still in the process of drawn plans, no builds yet. We had conducted few flight tests with kites and different flying instruments made ourselves but nothing that could at least reach the stratosphere. The real goal was challenging.

“So, any new leads on our space mission?” I asked my colleague as I took a look at the sketches they had drawn.

“Nothing new, we are trying to figure out what material we should use on the outer parts of our space ship. Should be strong enough to withstand the friction, heat and the pressure when it reaches the outer space.” Said Yehan while turning over the large encyclopedia.

“I think we figured out a way to get the engine…fuel”

“You mean liquid oxygen?” We had researched about rocket fuel for months and how NASA used the most efficient fuel methods for their rockets.

“The chemical combinations are too complex for us to figure out. So we found an alternative…” Ahmed, who was my other colleague said as he took out a few papers. Some crumbled and torn.

“Buddy gas!” He said with excitement.

I looked at Yehan. Was he serious?

“He’s been telling me the same, I think it could work” Said Yehan as he shrugged his shoulders.

“How is LP gas going to launch our ship Ahmed?” I asked.

“Well, our rocket is going to be super light since it won’t be accommodating any passengers, right?” Ahmed started unveiling his plans. “So, I was thinking the other day… Have you seen how they are highly flammable? So that’s the conversion of energy…and the residue is energy which gives us enough power for a takeoff.”

I started thinking, maybe he was correct.

“Let’s research on that. A bit more research and we will see if it would work”

“Leave it to me” Said Ahmed. “I was thinking of using a buddy gas.”

At first I wasn’t sure what buddy gas meant then Ahmed explained to me about the small blue LP gas tanks they sell in stores. I was delighted. It was very light and would be enough for the take off. The real question was how are we going to get our hands on one.

“We will have to consult more people. Get in touch with everyone we know, and acquire one of them LP gas tanks. Just one will suffice right?”

Ahmed shook his head.

“What’s the progress on communication?”

“Communication with the ship after launch?” Asked Yehan. “We haven’t talked about that yet… have we?”

“Well we did talk about using a walkie talkie. Attaching one to the ship and use it to monitor all the sounds in space once it reaches there.”

“That is a splendid idea!” Cried out Yehan. “But we will have to buy a pair, right?”

“I don’t think they sell any around here.” 

“Ah my dad said he has a cop friend. They have really good walkie talkies you know…” I said with pride. “He said he will talk to him. Get us a pair”

I saw the distrust in my colleague’s face. I was often known to promise a lot of things then fail to provide any. But this time they could trust on me, I knew it.

“Alright we can see about comms later. We need to get our hands on the LP gas and we need to plan the landing.”

“Didn’t we have the parachute tested?” I asked.

We had spent hours on the highest place in Ahmed’s house. Dropping weights tied to parachutes to test the ability to find the landing zone for our rocket or what’s left of it once it starts descending back to land.

“Leave the landing and the navigation to me” Said Ahmed with pride. “I’ve been experimenting with kits for months now. Our rocket is not gonna be much different from the kite. Plus I am very well qualified to do this”

He was right. He had a collection of kites. He had a sense about the physics, how kites worked, how he had to plan every bamboo stick in such a way it captures the best of the wind and fly higher than any other kite. So, I was pretty sure he had the rocket launch figured out.

“We need to draw some more blue prints on the structure of the ship” Said Yehan as he ransacked through a bunch of paper. “We also need to write the contract and sign it”

The contract was a piece of paper we had taken an oath on about the extreme privacy of our project and to vote our dedication to it. It was everyone’s job to keep the rocket project as a secret from everyone else we knew. We knew other had no capacity to even start thinking about a large project as this.

“I thought we signed the contracts already.” Said Ahmed.

“Yeah but this is the second copy with updated policies. You can take a look. We got the logo and everything.”

Yehan was saying the truth. We had a nice contract with a beautiful emblem of a kite. Kite’s association. That’s what we called ourselves. Since we started with creating the most effective kite at first then came the idea of the rocket. Conquering the space. Get a man-made object to reach the space.

“I love it.” I said as I signed the contract once again. It was added among the top secret file which had all our rocket ship blue prints.

“Ahmed!” We heard a female voice from the living room. It was Ahmed’s mom. “Your friend’s moms are here to pick them up! Are you guys coming? It’s late”

The three of us rushed as Yehan quickly collected the papers and filed them in his top secret file.

“Are you guys still planning on the rocket ship?” Asked Yehan’s mom while smiling.

“Such creativity for 12 year olds!” Laughed Ahmed’s mom. “They’ve been at it for months now. Flying kites and everything”

My mom and Yehan’s mom joined the laughter. Obviously they had no idea about our great success.