Genre: Fiction

Subject: Space Trash

Nation-X

Trash From Above

CHAPTER 1: Comet, Meteoroid, or Asteroid?

One Friday afternoon, Travis and his friends were leaving Happy Valley High after soccer practice to walk the block or so to the train station.

There was: Savannah Brown (12 y/o), White Tail Deer; Antonio Hazlett (13 y/o) Zebra; Brandon Jackson, (13 y/o) Jack Rabbit; and Amelia Armstrong (12 y/o) Arctic Hare. They laughed and joked around as they walked, looking forward to the weekend.

 Amelia was showing Savannah how to do the electric slide dance move, and they were walking slightly ahead of Travis, Antonio, and Brandon.

The two girls were strutting down the street in time together, counting and laughing, turning simultaneously. Amelia turned to Travis, “Hey, Travis!” She exclaimed with excitement, “film us and send it to me!!”

Travis had his phone in his hand, “OK,” he shrugged, holding the phone up in front of him, he lined the girls up in the frame, “just say when…”

The girls had stopped, and Amelia counted them in, “1 and 2 and 3, now!” They stepped forward in unison, looking like trained professionals; Antonio and Brandon were cheering them on. Travis was walking behind the girls and recording when suddenly there was a loud boom, and a very bright object streaked across the sky behind Savannah and Amelia. It had smaller objects shooting off it as it arched and disappeared very high in the sky.

“WOW!” Antonio yelled with excitement, “what was that?”

“I bet it was a comet!” Amelia yelled with enthusiasm.

“No Way!” Brandon disagreed just as loudly, “I bet it was an asteroid!”

“I think you are both wrong,” Travis added with a laugh, “it was a meteoroid!”

“Aren’t they the same thing?” Savannah asked incredulously.

“Not really,” Travis replied, “it depends if they are made of ice, rocks, or tiny dust particles and flecks that have broken away from comets.”

“Yes,” Amelia confirmed, “it looked like it burnt out, so that would be a comet. They’re made from ice and dust, you know,” she shared knowingly.

Travis realized he was still recording, “OMG GUYS! I just recorded that whole thing!!”

They gathered around Travis as he played back the footage. Watching again, they could see a bright center and long tail that seemed to break up and send smaller bright particles off it, which looked like sparkles as it streaked across the sky.

“Look,” said Travis triumphantly, “you can see how it disappears, so that means it burnt up, so it’s definitely a meteoroid,”

“I don’t think so,” Amelia disagreed once more, “if it burned up on re-entry, it means it was a comet because they are made of ice, so it would definitely melt.”

“You guys are all wrong,” Brandon chimed in, defending his case, “Asteroids are made of rocks, so they would break up on entry to the atmosphere.” He turned back to Travis, “Play it again; you can clearly see the tail and that it breaks up… definitely made of rocks!!” He nodded, wide-eyed to his friends.

Travis played it again. They all agreed they could see bits flying off it, and it disappeared into nothing.

The rest of the way to the train station, they argued whether it was a comet, which Savannah and Amelia believed, or, according to Travis, a meteoroid. Or an asteroid, as thought by Brandon. Antonio was unsure and went from side to side, listening to why each thought it was what they said.

As they said their goodbyes, they still had not agreed on what it was.

“I’ll show this to my cousin Bill; he will know.” Travis declared.

“I’m sure it will probably be on the news or something anyway,” Savannah said knowingly, “I mean, gee, there are plenty of people heading home and stuff. I bet lots of cameras caught it.”

“Yeah,” Antonio agreed, “I’ll definitely watch the news tonight.”

“Me too,” Brandon concurred. Amelia laughed, “funny all we need is a comet streaking across the sky, and suddenly we are all about watching the news.”

“Right?” Savannah agreed.

“I’m still going to send this to Bill,” Travis said, “I’m interested to see what he says it is.”

“Hey, would you send it to me too?” Brandon asked.

“And us!” Antonio added. Travis sent it to all of them.

As he walked home from his train stop, he thought about watching the news but was more interested in Bill’s thoughts. Travis looked up to Bill and hoped he could grow up and be an inventor or engineer himself.

 He could feel his phone was vibrating in his pocket.

“Hey, Bill!” Travis answered,

“Hi, Travis! Did you film that?” Bill was excited too, and he didn’t wait for Travis to answer, “that was incredible! Talk about being in the right place at the right time! That is amazing footage!!”

“I know, right?” Travis replied, feeling proud of himself. Receiving praise from Bill meant a lot to him. “What do you think it is? Amelia and Savannah thought it was a comet, but Brandon thinks it was an asteroid, but it’s a meteoroid, right Bill?”  Travis asked for confirmation. “Especially since you can see the particles burning up as it enters the atmosphere! Right?”

Bill laughed, he hadn’t spoken to Travis for a while, and he was impressed at how much he knew about space and celestial objects. It seemed like not very long ago, he was the little guy at family gatherings running around with his toy cars.

Travis continued, “What do you think?” Travis continued, not giving Bill a chance to answer. “My friends say we should watch the news because they’ll know,” he paused, “what do you think?”

Bill laughed again, “those are all good guesses, but I think it might be space trash.”

CHAPTER 2: What Is Space Trash?

“Huh?” Travis replied. “What sort of space trash?” Travis imagined household trash orbiting Nation-X.

“Well,” started Bill, “space trash is also called space junk, space pollution, space waste, space debris, or space garbage. It’s made up of artificial objects in space which no longer serve a useful function.”

“Oh yeah, I think I’ve heard of that before,” Travis replied, “but what is it exactly?” he asked.

“All sorts of stuff,” Bill continued, “items left in orbit like derelict spacecraft and abandoned launch vehicle stages—mission-related debris, and a whole lot of fragmentation debris from the breakup of derelict rocket bodies and spacecraft.”

“Wow, so they just leave that stuff up there? And it just orbits the planet?” Travis was amazed that the sky was treated like a trash dump.

“Yes,” Bill confirmed, “once they use them up or they malfunction and stop working, there is no way for them to get it back down to the ground, so these items just orbit the planet.”

“That’s so crazy!” Travis exclaimed, shaking his head.

 “Besides the derelict objects left in orbit, other bits of space debris include fragments from their disintegration, erosion, and collisions. There are even paint flecks, solidified liquids expelled from spacecraft, and unburned particles from solid rocket motors. Items as small as a paint speck to as large as a dump truck,” Bill paused, “yeah… it’s becoming quite a problem.”

“That’s so crazy.” Travis said again in disbelief, “Is there any way that stuff is tracked?” Travis asked, struggling to understand how a bunch of discarded junk could be floating around the planet. “How come there is so much stuff up there? How many missions have the Nation-X Space Agency launched?”

“Oh, it’s not just the Space Agency. There are all sorts of industries launching satellites for business and commercial reasons,” Bill explained, “phone companies, weather tracking, global positioning companies, to name a few. I mean, how do you think GPS tracking works?” Bill asked Travis. “I’ve never really thought about it, honestly,” Travis admitted.

“Well, the information gets relayed from satellites, for those instant updates and travel conditions.”

“Of course,” Travis said in wonderment, “there are so many industries that would need satellites!” He paused. “So, there are no rules or anything about how much a company can send into space? Or if they must bring it back? Or if they must clean up after themselves? That’s insane!” Travis was starting to comprehend the entire situation. “They can just leave their used-up junk and broken-down stuff out there? Like just polluting space??! That’s environmental pollution! What is wrong with them?”

“Yeah, it is pretty crazy,” Bill agreed, “there are no rules.”

Travis’s reaction had sparked Bill’s scientific indignation. Bill had known about space trash for a long time. Still, he had never thought of it from that perspective before, never thought about what it actually was: waste and pollution. It was no different than pollution on the ground. Bill wanted to do something about it. “You know Travis. When I was your age, it was always so exciting to see a space launch on TV, what might they find, and what’s out there. Nobody ever asked what happened to the used-up and broken-down components. Wow.” It was Bill’s turn to be speechless. “This is a game-changer….” He trailed off. His mind was already thinking of different ways the junk in orbit could be reclaimed and returned to the ground.

“Do they track the garbage out there?” Travis asked.

“I do not know,” Bill replied, “I imagine the Space Agency must track it ….” He was still thinking of all the industries using satellites. There must be a massive space economy.

“I think I’ll check out the Space Agency website and see what they say about it. This needs a closer look.” Bill thought out loud.

“Hey, so I’m at home, Bill. I’ve got to go and get my chores done,” Travis said.

“No problem, good to hear from you, Travis,” Bill said as he ended the conversation, “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Cool, thanks, Bill.” Travis hung up.

Bill put down his phone on his workbench and headed upstairs to get a glass of water. He was still thinking of all the items floating around the planet, increasing exponentially every year. Every month, it seemed like there was a new “satellite this” or “global that.”

Surely there must be a limit or plan in place to retrieve all these items, but even as Bill was thinking it, he knew there probably wasn’t.

Well, he thought firmly, he would have to invent something to collect the space trash.

Bill spent some time on the Space Agency website. He discovered the Catalog of Planetary Orbital Objects, updated daily via a long-range satellite at the very edge of the gravitational field. They were called high orbit satellites, and because they needed a lot more energy to reach the outer limits, they required a lot more power to achieve that elevation. And, in turn, would shed their booster rockets once they had burnt out and reached the correct altitude. Ironically, adding more debris.

It was a lot of work to keep a satellite in orbit. Since Nation-X wasn’t a perfect sphere, they had to use the planet’s natural gravitational pull to launch and keep it in orbit. When these satellites expired, they would remain floating but could easily be pulled out of orbit and collide with other pieces of trash. 

  Bill discovered that there had been a collision between a mapping satellite owned by a Midland company, and a non-functioning satellite just three years ago. Both satellites broke apart, adding two thousand pieces of debris of varying sizes to the orbital mass circling the planet.

Eventually, pieces of debris of all sizes lose altitude and drop into the planet’s atmosphere. He was amazed to discover this happened almost every single day!

By the time he turned off his computer to get some sleep, it was very early in the morning. Before he went to bed, Bill went outside and looked up at the dark sky. There were hundreds of stars visible. The whole galaxy stretched out above him. As he watched, he saw a shooting star. He realized that too may have been a piece of trash entering the atmosphere.

It kind of took the magic out of it.

CHAPTER 3: Clean Up Ideas

Bill headed back down to the basement early the next day. He was aware that he woke up thinking of catching or eliminating the debris. What about vaporizing them? Or blowing them up? He wasn’t sure if that would work, though. Bill opened the design program that he used to theorize his inventions and entered the parameters he could think of.

Exploding or vaporizing would not work. He quickly realized he would have to build an unfeasibly large and costly laser to generate the power to cover that distance to evaporate anything effectively.

No problem. There would be more ideas.

Bill’s next idea of blowing up the debris would only result in more trash, potentially making the problem so much worse!

He discovered that Eastland’s leading satellite communications company had blown up one of their defunct satellites eight years ago, which then crashed into another operational satellite, destroying that and making at least twelve thousand more pieces of junk in the process.

Bill kept researching.

Satellites in a low orbit were pulled out of their orbit by drag from the atmosphere. Though satellites in low orbit travel through the thinnest layers of the atmosphere, air resistance is still strong enough to tug at them, pulling them closer to the ground.

Gravity then causes satellites and other debris to speed up. Over time, a satellite will eventually burn up as it spirals lower and faster into the atmosphere or falls to the ground.

Maybe he could make a giant net or a magnet or both. They would need to be installed on one satellite. However, it would also be affected by the atmosphere’s drag which is more robust when the Sun is active. Just as the air in a balloon expands and rises when heated, the atmosphere rises and expands when the Sun adds extra energy to it. When the Sun is quiet, satellites in low orbit must boost their orbits about four times per year to make up for atmospheric drag. When solar activity is robust, a satellite may need to be maneuvered every 2-3 weeks.

Bill pondered this for a long time. It took a lot of labor and surveillance for individual companies and the Space Agency to monitor all these items.  Since the satellites had collided and broken apart, the surveillance satellites have had to move at least four times.

He scoured the web for as much information as possible about space trash and what different lands were doing about it.

He realized that using a giant magnet would not work either, as not all pieces of orbital debris were metallic. They were aluminum, copper, lead, tin, titanium, zinc, and alloys such as brass and bronze. Since most satellites were made of titanium and aluminum or aluminum alloys, a magnet would be useless, never mind all the other things that made up space trash, like paint chips or specs of glass or sand.

Bill went upstairs to take a break; he was surprised to see it was lunchtime already. No wonder he was hungry.

Magnus was in the kitchen, absorbed by the newspaper. Saturday papers were his favorite. “Did you see the paper today?” Magnus asked Bill, pushing the first section closer to him. A close-up picture of the object Travis had filmed yesterday was on the paper’s front page. It looked like the photo had been taken through a telescope. The bright center and smaller offshoots were clearly visible in the picture.

Magnus continued talking, “I heard that thing yesterday late afternoon, but I didn’t see it. There was quite the buzz at work, though.”

“Yeah, Travis filmed it. He sent me the video; do you want to see it?” Bill asked.

“Sure,” Magnus replied, “the news coverage wasn’t that great. It looked like the footage had been taken from a security camera.”

Bill pulled up the video on his phone and showed Magnus.

“Yup, that looks like classic orbital debris re-entry. Lucky it burnt up and didn’t land in any built-up areas, that could have been a catastrophe.” Magnus commented, taking another bite of his sandwich.

“I know, right?” agreed Bill.

“Lucky for us, the objects end up picking up so much speed on reentry they usually end up burning with such intensity they are vaporized,” Magnus said with his mouth full.

Bill started to get a new idea.

He sat down to read the article. It featured an interview with the Space Agency Director, Louise Griffin. They declared the object was space trash, a discarded booster rocket from a launch fifteen years ago.

The article discussed the growing problem of orbital debris in-depth, and various environmental groups weighing in on the need for pollution control in space.

Bill sent Travis a text to make sure he saw the paper.

Travis did not reply until later in the day. He had been at soccer and had not seen the paper yet. Travis had seen the news the night before and was disappointed to officially find out none of them had been right in their guesses of the object. In fact, he had not even considered space trash until he had spoken to Bill about it.

Travis and his friends were very disturbed by the amount of trash floating around in the orbit of Nation-X.

Antonio had spent the weekend investigating the increasing volume of space trash.

 Amelia and Savannah enlisted the boys’ help to start a petition to send to the Space Agency and government to keep companies responsible for their discarded space objects. They all agreed if companies had to be accountable for pollution on the ground, they should also be responsible in space.

Brandon was horrified when he found the link on the Space Agency’s website that kept track of all the pieces of debris and discovered the most common debris, more than 100 million pieces, was the size of a grain of salt and could puncture a spacesuit. According to the most recent report by the Space Agency, at least 26,000 of the millions of pieces of space junk are the size of a softball. Whizzing through space at 17,500 mph, they could destroy a satellite on impact. More than 500,000 pieces were a mission-ending threat because of their ability to impact protective systems, fuel tanks, and spacecraft cabins.

It was irresponsible to keep adding to the junk orbiting the planet without a plan to have it removed.

After all, if a company figured out how to get the satellites into orbit, they should figure out how to bring them back.

CHAPTER 4: Raising Awareness

At school the five friends took their petition to the principal of Happy Valley High, Mr. Freeman, to request permission to collect signatures at school. Mr. Freeman thought that was a great idea and suggested they get up on stage at the morning assembly to tell the rest of the school about it. He had also witnessed the reentering of the space trash and watched the news and read the paper that weekend with interest. He made sure their petition had a clear statement of intention, supporting facts, and a request for action.

Mr. Freeman was proud of his students for taking the initiative. This problem of space pollution was only going to worsen as time wore on and technology rapidly evolved. Everyone wanted to feel connected and access information from all over the nation instantly. This undoubtedly meant more satellites and more space pollution overall.

Mr. Freeman encouraged all classes to get involved, not just the science and technology teachers, as it was a problem that would end up affecting all people who inhabited Nation-X.

They decided that Travis and Amelia should speak at the school assembly. They played the edited version of Travis’s video for the school first. Dozens of them had also witnessed it in real-time on their way home from school too.

Amelia talked about how loud it was and how lucky they were that everything had burnt up and nothing had hit the ground. She also mentioned that this happened every day somewhere over Nation-X.

Travis talked about all the industries that used satellites and what happened to them once they had outlived their use or broke down.

“Space trash has been a growing problem for years as man-made objects such as old satellites and spacecraft parts build up in low orbit until they decay, deorbit, explode or collide with other objects, fragmenting into smaller pieces of waste.” Travis shared.

There was a ripple of disapproval amongst the students when he pointed out that there were no rules or laws to make companies retrieve their trash. When Travis told the assembled students about the petition they were starting, there was an outburst of spontaneous applause. Travis and Amelia were overwhelmed by the positive response. They instructed the students that they, along with Antonio, Savannah, and Brandon would have the petitions to sign at recess, lunch, and study hall. As they left the stage, there was more applause. Travis felt hopeful that they would be able to have new laws to stop space pollution.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Travis’s classmates surrounded his desk at every class, wanting to sign the petition and asking if they could help collect signatures. It was the same for Amelia, Savannah, Brandon, and Antonio.

They had collected almost six hundred signatures by the end of the day. Travis discovered they needed to get ten thousand signatures within 30 days to present to the relevant Government Department to be considered for a law or Bill. This would be easy. If they could get six hundred signatures a day, they would easily have the amount needed in about half the time. They felt enthusiastic and proud as they walked to the train station after school together.

“Imagine if we could influence the law?” Antonio thought aloud.

“That would be amazing,” replied Savannah.

“Something needs to be done. They can’t just keep ignoring the issue,” Brandon chimed in. “I can’t believe this has happened for so long…” he trailed off. “It blows my mind that they have allowed so much pollution to happen in orbit. It’s like the plot of some crazy movie.” Travis added.

The others agreed. “We need a definite plan to raise awareness about this. I’m sure if more people really knew what was happening right above our heads, people would want to do something about it.” Amelia said.

“Yeah, it’s like the excitement of space exploration has blinded everyone over the years. They forgot to ask what happens to all the stuff that gets launched when it doesn’t work anymore,” Travis said, echoing Bill’s thoughts from their conversation a few days ago.

“Why can’t they just fix the broken-down satellites?” Antonio asked, “I suppose they would have to bring it out of orbit to have it repaired and then launch again.” He answered his own question.

“That would be expensive,” Savannah agreed.

“But isn’t just abandoning a satellite and making a new one and having to launch that to take its place also really expensive?” Amelia pondered.

They agreed on the insanity of the situation.

“But there’s all that other discarded stuff too, old rocket boosters and that sort of stuff.” Brandon added, “it’s just a giant mess. There are so many industries sending satellites into orbit in private launches there doesn’t seem to be any sort of rules or guidelines that they should follow.”

“I know,” said Amelia, “I mean, who is in charge of space?”   

All five fell into silence after that question, who was in charge of space? Was it the Space Agency? It did not seem like it. With so many private companies and launches that happened, did an industry have to request permission to launch things into space?

They spent the rest of their journey home figuring out the best ways to get the word out that this needed attention soon.

Travis had the idea to set up a social media page and link it to a website to raise awareness about the problem. Everybody was on social media. Then with the link to the website, they could collect signatures online. After all, the issue of space trash affected the whole of Nation-X, not just Peace City. They felt people would act if they could let everyone know that space trash had the potential to threaten the services relied on for modern life on Nation-X, including weather forecasting, telecommunications, and GPS systems.

As the week stretched on, they managed to involve other students and their science teacher, Ms. Wilkes (33 y/o) Chimpanzee, whose brother Kevin (29 y/o) worked at the Space Agency. He sent her a link to the Catalog of Planetary Orbital Objects live feed that she kept on the monitor at the back of the class so that the students could see the vast field of debris in real-time orbiting the planet.

Amelia emailed the local news channel to request the topic be raised on one of their news talk shows. Savannah went to the local mall and got permission to spend a couple of hours each afternoon talking to shoppers and requesting signatures for their petition.

Brandon and Antonio walked through the crowd at soccer practices and games when they were not playing, talking to people, and requesting signatures. They had collected five thousand signatures by the beginning of the following week, of which two thousand signatures had been collected on the website from people all over Nation-X.

Amelia and Savannah had been invited to appear on the mid-week news talk show and were informed a reporter would be sent to school to interview them and speak with Mr. Freeman about the school’s support of their students and the cause.

It was exciting to see the building momentum.

CHAPTER 5: Coming Together

Travis called Bill to tell him about the petition. Bill was impressed with their idea to push for change on a government level and asked for the website link so he could sign it too.

“You know,” started Bill, “I’m working on an invention I think might also help.”

“Oh yeah?” Asked Travis, “what is it? Can you tell me?” Travis was excited to hear about Bill’s invention. Travis knew Bill was resourceful and could create practically anything he could think of. Travis also knew Bill was very guarded about his inventions, to the point of paranoia.

“Basically, it’s a smaller satellite equipped with AI technology to be able to guide the larger debris like dead satellites and discarded rocket boosters out of orbit so that they would enter the atmosphere and burn up,” Bill explained the basic premise, he didn’t want to go into too much detail, because he didn’t know if it really would work. There was no way to test it except to spend the money and launch it into space. It looked good in theory. Bill knew that his cousin was always interested in whatever he was working on, and he wanted to encourage him to follow his ideas.

“Wow!” exclaimed Travis, “That is brilliant!”

“Thanks, I’m still figuring out the logistics, but it’s better than previous ideas, which have included blowing the larger stuff up.” Bill paused, letting that sink in.

“Wouldn’t that just create more trash but smaller pieces?” Travis asked in disbelief.

“Yes, and that has been tried before. Which is how they figured that out.”

“Good grief,” Travis exclaimed. “It really doesn’t seem like much thought goes into doing anything in space, beyond hurling things into it,” Travis observed.

“Yeah,” agreed Bill, “that’s what it seems like.” He didn’t know what else to tell Travis. The more Bill had researched, the more obvious it was that every industry had put so much effort into launching satellites into space and relaying instant information that minimal research had been put into the other end of it all. Blowing up a dead satellite accurately demonstrated that fact.

“So how much longer do you think it will take you to put together a plan or prototype to present to the Space Agency?” Travis asked.

“Probably another week or so,” replied Bill. He had been working on it obsessively, “why?”

“It would be good if we could present both the petition and your invention in the same week.” Travis speculated. “Then they would have to pay attention.”

“You know, that is a good idea,” Bill said agreeably, “how many more signatures do you need on the petition?” he asked.

“I think we should be able to have ten thousand by the end of next week, for sure,” Travis predicted.

“OK, let’s stay in touch and see where we are both at next weekend,” Bill suggested.

“Good idea,” agreed Travis.

 They said their goodbyes, and Bill returned to his invention. He did not mention to Travis that he would be making it solar-powered and able to catch smaller pieces of debris. He had nicknamed the satellite ENOT, which stood for End of Nation-X Orbital Trash.

It would launch from the Space Agency’s launch site to the south of Peace City. It would have a robot on board who could alter the altitude and lock onto dead satellites and push them into the atmosphere to burn up on re-entry and return to the ground. The AI robot would be programmed to perform such actions above the ocean to inhibit the destructive potential of any ground impacts by pieces of satellites that did not break up.

ENOT would have four arms and deploy a lightweight titanium net that would scoop up the smaller debris, baseball to golf ball size. Once the net was full, ENOT could release the contents at the lowest altitude it could return from without getting pulled into the gravitational field, ensuring the items would be drawn into the atmosphere and burn up into nothing. Bill was working on catching the smaller pieces from golf ball to paint fleck size.

He was inspired by his design and how well it performed in his design app. After almost eighteen days of working on it sixteen hours a day, he felt he had got it.

Bill decided it would be best to build a smaller, fully operational model to demonstrate the concept and was happy with how quickly it came together.

Next, he emailed a brief outline of his invention to Abelard Diaz, the Assistant to the Space Agency Director, to request an audience to present his creation.

He then left a message for Travis and asked him to call back after school. Bill wondered how Travis and his friends had been doing with the petition. When Bill worked on a project, he didn’t watch TV or engage in social media. He found the lack of distractions beneficial to keep his thoughts focused on his project.

Much to Bill’s surprise, he received an email back from Mr. Diaz’s office that very day, expressing interest in the invention and inviting him to the Space Agency Headquarters located not too far from the Midland Capital Buildings, in downtown Peace City. It was a short email stating the time and date of the appointment next week and a reminder to report to security 15 minutes before to complete any necessary security clearance that would be required.

Travis called Bill

 early that evening.

“Hi Bill! Guess what?” Travis started with excitement, “we are at 12,000 signatures, and have an appointment with our local congressional staffer, to ask for assistance in having the petition presented to congress by Miles Keyes, the Minister for Science and Technology, or Louise Griffin, the Director of the Space Agency!” His words ran together with excitement.

“That is great work, Travis!” Bill responded, equally excited for Travis.

“And guess what? I have an appointment with the Office of Mr. Diaz to present my invention, just next week!”

“NO WAY!” Travis yelled into the phone. Bill laughed with surprise. He had never heard Travis this excited about anything before, “the Space Agency Director’s Assistant?” He squeaked.

Travis took a deep breath, “This is so exciting! I wonder what’s going to happen. Do you think they’ll pass new laws? Do you think they’ll want to start making clean-up satellites? When will that happen?”

“Whoa, there Travis,” Bill said. “This is the beginning of the process; it may take up to eighteen months to start to see any progress.”

“Oh,” Travis was disappointed, but in a moment, he had rebounded, “well, it’s a start. And now at least 12,000 people know that this issue is a thing.”

“That’s a good way to look at it, Travis, good thinking.”

CHAPTER 6: Successful Awareness

The following week flew by in a blur of activity and excitement for Bill and Travis.

The meeting that Travis, Amelia, Savannah, Brandon, and Antonio, had with the congressional staffer Rosemary Jenkins (26 y/o) Ring-Tailed Lemur, had gone very well. She had been highly impressed with the petition and how well they explained their cause and the desired outcome. Miss. Jenkins had agreed that this was an important issue. She would personally present the petition at the next congress meeting. All five and their families received invitations to sit in the gallery for the session in three months.

Miss. Jenkins also would bring it to the attention of both the Minister of Defense and the Space Agency Director, which would speed up the process somewhat. The wheels of bureaucracy turned very slowly, no matter how pressing the issue.

Travis had already told the others what Bill had said about the possibility that it would take many months to see any positive action, so they were not surprised by what Miss. Jenkins had told them and were excited that they had made it past the first hurdle.

They had made a petition, raised awareness about the issue, and clearly outlined the desired result, and 12,000 people agreed with them.

The friends were jubilant as they left the office.

Bill had an equally productive week. His meeting with Abelard to present the ENOT satellite had also gone very smoothly. The following afternoon, Mr. Diaz had set an appointment for Bill to present ENOT to Louise Griffin, Director of the Space Agency. He had been very interested in the ENOT satellite and asked multiple questions. Bill took this as a good sign.

When Bill met with Ms. Griffin the next day, she was very interested in the ENOT technology and revealed the Space Agency had also been working on a similar concept. She took Bill to the Research and Development Lab to show him the prototype they were working on. Although this one almost looked like a garbage can with arms, they were having problems with the AI onboard robot. Bill was impressed to see other attempts at the same idea and was slightly amused that they had taken almost one year to get to the mock-up stage.

After Bill had helped one of the engineers troubleshoot the AI program they were using. Ms. Griffin offered Bill a short-term consulting role with the project, but it was Top Secret, and he had to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) before she even offered him the position.

Bill was thrilled. As a short-term consultant, it was an easy commitment on his terms, and he would see the results come to fruition much sooner than if this was a brand-new project.

A day later, when Travis called Bill to update him on the petition’s progress and find out about the future of the ENOT satellite, they had both had a chance to absorb everything and decompress.

Travis felt satisfied, knowing that he and his friends had successfully done something about trash falling out of the sky. Hence, thousands of people had learned about the potentially disastrous situation right above their heads! He was eager to see what happened next.

“You know Bill,” he began, “I am so grateful for this whole thing. I mean, this last month has been such a whirlwind of productivity,” Travis reflected. “I am super impressed at how people just come together when they all want change.”

“I know what you mean,” replied Bill, “I would never have dreamed when you sent me that video that I would end up as a short-term project consultant for the Space Agency!”

“WHAT?” Travis shouted enthusiastically. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“It’s super-secret and only for a very short time, so don’t tell anyone.” Bill replied in a whisper, “OK?”

“OK,” Travis whispered back, feeling special that Bill had shared that with him.

Bill quickly changed the subject, “So, do you see yourself as an advocate or campaigner in the future?”

Travis thought for a moment, “not unless it’s about something cool, like space stuff.” He stated firmly. “All that signature collection was tiring! So much talking.”

Bill laughed, “yeah, I couldn’t do it.”

“That was a lot of work!” Travis said with a laugh.

“Welcome to maturity, Travis,” Bill chuckled, “anything worth having is always a lot of work!”