The Things They
Carried, in Space
by Joseph S.
Pete
“We may even have a
‘space force.' We have the Air Force. We’ll
have the space force. We have the Army, the Navy.
I
said ‘maybe we need a new force. We’ll
call it the space force”
–U.S. President Donald
Trump
It
was just like the Army and Navy, but for space.
The
things they carried were largely determined by
necessity—not just ordinary, earthbound
necessity but space necessity. Among the
necessities on the Space Force were space can
openers, space pocket knives because spacesuits
finally got pockets after enough people
complained, space heat tabs for heating space
food in the near-absolute zero coldness of space,
space wristwatches, space dog tags, space
mosquito repellent for the nasty space mosquitoes
that lurked off the shoulder of Orion and in the
dark near the Tannhauser Gate, Shrike repellent
if you ended up on Hyperion, space chewing gum,
space candy, space cigarettes that somehow didn’t
explode in the 100-percent oxygen atmosphere
inside a pressurized spaceship cabin, space salt
tablets, space packets of space Kool-Aid, space
lighters, space sewing kits for quick patches to
one’s spacesuit or space crafting to pass
the time, Space Force Payment Certificates, and
two or three space canteens of space water, which
was like water but in space. Together, these
items would have weighed between 15 and 20 pounds,
but it was space so there wasn’t any gravity.
They
carried space stationery, space pencils and space
pens, to pen soulful missives to their loved ones
back home about the campaign against the Cylons,
who proved the Space Force was a tremendous idea
and who had a plan, no really, they did. They
carried space Sterno, space safety pins, space
trip flares, space signal flares, spools of space
wire, space razor blades for when space beards
eventually fell of fashion, space chewing tobacco
after a smoker accidentally blew up the
Battlestar Galactica, space statuettes of the
smiling space Buddha, space candles that
illuminated one’s quarters while writing
eloquent space letters back to the homefront that
could be intoned drawlingly with great pathos if
any space documentarians ever wanted to make a
PBS special more than a century later, space
grease pencils, The Stars and Stripes Space
Edition, space fingernail clippers for basic
space hygiene, space Psy Ops leaflets, space bush
hats, and space bolos for hacking through
particularly thick asteroid belts. Twice a week,
when the resupply spaceships came in, they
carried space chow in green mermite space cans
and large canvas space bags filled with space
beer and space pop.
They
carried the traditions of the terrestrial armed
forces: the Army; the Navy, which was like a
water army; the Air Force, which was like a sky
army; the Marines, which was like a beach
invasion army; and the Coast Guard, which was
like an army for rescuing stranded boaters.
Like
freight trains, they carried the metaphor
generations of English majors would have to
dissect; they carried it on their backs and
shoulders—and for all the ambiguities of
Space Force expeditions, all the mysteries and
unknowns, there was at least the abiding
certainty that they would never be at a loss for
space things to carry in space and also that
space war is hell, but like space hell.
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