Project Hail Mary

---

PLOT Ryland Grace awakens from an induced coma on an interstellar spacecraft. Initially erratic with retrograde amnesia, Grace discovers that he is the sole survivor of the three-person crew on board, and that he is light-years away from Earth in a distant solar system. Grace slowly remembers that he is an American middle-school science teacher and former molecular biologist. In the past, scientists observe the Sun dimming, and the formation of an infrared line from the Sun to Venus called the Petrova line. The dimming, caused by a microorganism known as an astrophage (Greek for "star-eater") exponentially increasing its population on the Sun's surface, will result in a catastrophic global cooling of the Earth within 30 years. Government agent Eva Stratt recruits Grace and other scientists around the world to study astrophage. Grace discovers that astrophages are single-celled organisms impenetrable to any form of electromagnetic radiation. Further work learns that Astrophages breed on Venus, feeding on the planet's carbon dioxide atmosphere and energy from the Sun, and they have infected other stars within Earth's solar neighborhood. Researchers have also found that astrophages can be used to construct a reactionless drive, albeit their extremely powerful energy release makes them dangerous to use. Stratt discloses Project Hail Mary, an international effort to send a crew to Tau Ceti, the only undimmed nearby star, to learn why that star is not dimming. It is a suicide mission as the Hail Mary spacecraft can only carry enough astrophage fuel for a one-way trip, but will carry probes to send the crew's findings back to Earth. In the present, as Grace approaches Tau Ceti, he sees an alien spacecraft. The spacecraft, which docks with Hail Mary, is made of a metallic form of xenon that Grace dubs "xenonite". The pilot of the other ship is a rock-like, five-legged alien from 40 Eridani, whom Grace names "Rocky". Grace deduces that Eridians see via echolocation and creates a machine translation system for Rocky's musical speech. Rocky explains that he is a mechanic and also the sole survivor of a mission to stop the astrophage. Neither can survive in the other's atmosphere, so Rocky enters Hail Mary using a small, pressurized ball as a spacesuit. Following Tau Ceti's Petrova line, Grace and Rocky find that the planet Tau Ceti e – which they name "Adrian" after Rocky's mate – harbors an organism that preys on astrophage, controlling their population. After learning that Grace cannot return home, Rocky offers enough astrophage to refuel Hail Mary. While gathering the organism from the upper atmosphere of Adrian, a fuel leak causes an uncontrollable spin that renders Grace unconscious. Rocky breaks his spacesuit and saves Grace, but is severely injured. While Rocky recovers in hibernation, Grace finds a way to breed the astrophage-consuming organism, which he names "taumoeba." Rocky revives, and he and Grace part as friends to their home planets. In the past, Grace meets Hail Mary's commander, engineer, and scientist, and their backups. While doing an experiment with astrophage, an accident kills the scientist and their backup three days before launch. With no time to train a replacement, Stratt asks Grace to take the place of the deceased scientists. When Grace refuses, Stratt has him drugged and forcibly put on Hail Mary. During the trip to Earth, Grace discovers that the taumoebae have evolved the ability to pass through their xenonite containers and are eating Hail Mary's astrophage fuel. Grace fixes the problem on his ship but realizes that Rocky's entire ship is made of xenonite, allowing the taumoeba to consume all of his fuel. Left with the choice of returning to Earth or saving Rocky and his homeworld, Grace chooses the latter, sending the taumoeba and his research to Earth via the probes. The probes deliver to Stratt what humanity needs to stop astrophages from absorbing the Sun's energy output. The Eridians create a biodome on their planet for Grace to live in. Rocky tells him that Eridian scientists have finished preparing Hail Mary to return to Earth. While contemplating the news, Grace begins another day of teaching science to Eridian children.

STAR SYSTEMS

Tau Ceti: the only star to have an active Astrophage infection and not lose any luminosity. It is a single star  in the constellation Cetus, 12 light-years from SOL. It has at least 4 confirmed exoplanets and 4 additional unconfirmed exoplanets. After Rylan Grace arrived in the Tau Ceti system, he has confirmed that one of these exoplanets orbiting Tau Ceti have an atmosphere made up primarily of Carbon Dioxide and is inhabited. Dr. Grace names this planet Adrian after Rocky's mate. In addition to Astrophage, Tau Ceti appears to be home to a diverse biome of species like the Taumeoba.

40 Eridani: a triple star system, most notable for its planet Erid, home world of the Eridians as well as the Threeworld planet.

SOL: The sun which Earth orbits.

PLANETS Erid: Located in 40 Eridani amd Inhabited by Eridians. Its Terran scientific name is 40 Eridani A b. It appears blue and had many rings of blue, black, blue, orange and blue hues. It is the first planet in in the 40 Eridani star system, being extremely close to its central star. Erid has approximately 2 G, and an extremely high pressure atmosphere composed of mostly ammonia. Erid's strong magnetic field and dense atmosphere block almost all incoming light, including radiation. It is for this reason that life forms on Erid, evolved to use echolocation. One Eridian day is equal to 5 Terran hours and one Eridian year is equal to 42 terran days. It is a rocky planet with thick atmosphere, high in metals, low in gaseous oxygen and an average surface temperature is 210°C. The boiling point of water in their atmospheric pressure is 230°C. Liquid water is present on the surface and covers a big lart of the planet. The planet has a lush, complex ecosystem that Eridians are just one small part of. The bulk of the energy capture for the ecology is done by airborne microbes that live in the higher parts of the atmosphere. They absorb sunlight and consume the gasses in the air to multiply. Larger microbes eat them, then small animals eat those larger microbes. Similar to Earth’s oceans. There is a boundary life layer that is critical to the ecology, they are the creatures that fly, but also come to the ground. Land life preys on those species and fuels the land ecology. Eridians are the apex predators of the land ecology. Owing to the thick atmosphere and the sheer volume of microbes and life at various layers, almost no sunlight penetrates all the way to the ground. As a result, the land-based creatures (including Eridians) have no eyes or sense of sight.

Adrian: Tau Ceti e, renamed by Rocky as planet Adrian is an exoplanet orbiting the star Tau Ceti. It is a very beautiful rough texture planet of green color with orange spots. It has an atmosphere of 91% Carbon Dioxide, 7% Methane and 1% Argon. It is the homeworld of Astrophage, Taumoeba, and various other kinds of life. there are flares of fire on the inner atmosphere of the planet.

Earth: the third planet from the SOL sun, and homeworld of all humanity. The Hail Mary is assembled in orbit above Earth, and proceeds to head to Tau Ceti from there.

Venus: the second planet from the SOL sun. Due to the fact that it has a higher carbon dioxide percentage in its atmosphere than any other planet, it attracted Astrophage which require carbon dioxide to breed, and so must travel to a carbon dioxide rich planet, like Venus, resulting in a Petrova Arc. After Earth received the Taumeda from Ryland Grace, they sent it within to Venus, which quickly multiplied and now keeps the Astrophage population in check.

Threeworld: the third planet from its star, 40 Eridani, and is one end of its system's Petrova Arc, similar to Venus. The Astrophage population is reduced when Taumoeba is introduced to its atmosphere. It was only recently discovered by Eridians and was unimaginatively named due to the fact that Eridians, not being able to see any sky at all, never evolved to wonder about some of the things humans have.

HAIL MARY SPACESHIP Description: The Hail Mary is the spacecraft built by the nations of the Earth to travel to Tau Ceti and find a way to get rid of the Astrophage contaminating Earth's sun, Sol. It is an Astrophage-powered craft, using 1,009 spin drives for propulsion. Operation system: Hail Mary has a feame computer voice that can only hear commands and voice warnings. Outer Appearance: The Hail Mary is divided into two main sections: the upper section, (crewed compartments) and the lower section, (fuel/ engines). It has 3 cylindrical fuel tanks, each with 3 sections of their own. At the rear of each cylinder are spin drives. There are about 16 spin drives used for fine maneuvering on the lower and upper section, for a total of 32 maneuvering spin drives. (Four clusters of four thrusters). There is an adapter which smoothly connects the lower section to the crew compartment, which is a cylindrical tower construction. At its tip, there is an isolated compartment which houses four smaller beetle craft, to bring data home to Sol. It is divided into five main areas: Storage, Dormitory, Lab, Control Room, and Fuel. Crew Area - Storage: This the small space between the crew compartment and the engine compartment in the Hail Mary. The storage area is approximately 1 meter tall and only has one access panel from the dormitory. The floor of the storage area has 6 access panels to access various parts of the ship, including the power generators. Crew Area - Dormitory: The dormitory is the next section of the crew compartment. This is a rounded room with 3 oval beds attached to the walls within reach of the "nanny bot" arms to take care of the three crewmen as they were in the coma for the duration of the trip from Earth to Tau Ceti. The height of the room is 3 meters. In the ceiling is a hatch to the next section of the crew compartment. The floor contains an access hatch to the storage area under one of the crew beds. Crew Area - Lab: The lab is the room after the dormitory. This room is equipped with scientific equipment including microscopes, spectroscopes, instruments and a 3D printer. In the center of the room is a table with chairs fixed to the floor. The walls are lined with additional storage for a variety of scientific and engineering tools and equipment. The entire ship is equipped with WiFi and the computers can access the entire catalogue of human knowledge. There is also a rack with small plants. And an inclosed section with mounted gloves which can be used for unsafe foreign objects to be interacted with safely. Crew Area - Projecrion Sphere: A small polygon spherical room with screens mounted on all walls. It offers a 360 projection of various places of Earth. Crew Area - Control Room: The control room is at the front of the ship in the nose. It has slanted walls to match the conical shape of the front of the ship. The control room has two airlocks with windows but there are no windows in the front of the ship. The control room has a variety of monitors with the center monitor being the largest. Each monitor has the ability to display any of the ship's functions, for redundancy. There is one pilot's chair in the center of the monitor area. Fuel Tanks: The fuel tanks are at the rear of the ship. It has 3 parallel cylinders that each contain Astrophage, that act as the fuel and also supplies power. The tanks store 2 million kg of Astrophage. The tank also contains the spin drives that the ship relies on. When spin drives are activated, they produce 1.5 g of acceleration. Artificial Gravity: The Hail Mary is able to generate artificial gravity in 2 ways. The first is Accelerarion but is only viable for long periods while the ship is in transit, continuously pushed by its spin drives. The Hail Mary also has a centrifuge for the science instruments. Making a centrifuge in order to use existing science instruments designed for Earth gravity was deemed less of a technological risk than designing entirely new hardware to work in zero g. When the centrifuge mode activates, the upper and lower sections disconnect, connected by cables which unspool to provide clearance between the two sections. Using RCS spin drives, the ship "spins up" and the crew compartment rotates 180 so that centripetal force will pull them toward the floor.

ERIDIANS Description: Eridians are the life forms that inhabit Erid. They do not have eyes and use echolocation to determine their surroundings. They have a photographic memory, and are able to quickly calculate things. Appearance: Eridians have 5 identical legs evenly around their thorax. They are entirely covered with an articulated light brown exoskeleton shell. They will shed pieces as necessary when growing new ones. Their average height is about 50cm. They have worker cells that assemble and maintain the body, but the bulk of their mass is inorganic. They have a hard carapace which is made of oxidized mineral material. Their internal bone structure is metallic. Their joints are literally hinges. Their muscles are powered by water state changes. The body is like a ship and its crew are the worker cells. They weigh around 400kg. They can stand on 3 limbs and use 2 to reach upward, being effective to a height up to 1.3 meters. Each limb has a ball-and-socket joint at the point of connection to the thorax. The next joint is a hinge joint, located about halfway along the limb. Each limb ends in a trifurcated claw. When the claw is closed, the limb comes to a point, usable as a weapon. It can open to the point that the three prongs are coplanar, allowing it to serve as a foot. They can use any of their limbs for any purpose based on convenience. If they use all 5 for motion, they can be extremely sure-footed on uneven terrain. When using just 3, they can move very fast. When idle, an Eridian typicaly stands on 3 limbs and uses the other 2 like arms. They have no concept of facing a direction. Sight: Eridians have no sight, nor any ability to detect electromagnetic radiation. Hearing: Their carapace is surrounded with auricles which cause electric flashes that lead directly into the nervous system, providing extremely accurate hearing. Each auricle is tuned to a specific frequency. From any ambient noise, the Eridian is able to have a mental image of its three-dimensional environment and be aware of the sound absorption qualities of the surrounding matter. In the absence of ambient noise, they will tap the ground. Magnetoreception: Most complex life on Erid, including Eridians, has the ability to sense magnetic fields. On their homeworld, an Eridian has an intrinsic knowledge of what direction is north. In space, their ships maintain a light magnetic field to simulate their homeworld. It is not necessary for their health, but it is more comfortable for them. Language and Communication: Eridians communicate with sound. This is done by means of gas bladder sets inside the body. Eridians also have a means of communication beyond simple pitch. The can use their 6 vocal systems to speak in chords. The information transfer rate for Eridian speech varies from language to language (languages are diverse on their world). In general, Eridian speech is about 6 times as information dense as human speech (therefore 6 times faster). Eridian body language: Eridians do not have a face, meaning body language is used more than a human would. Raising of body or higher pitched speaking means Happiness. Lowering of body or lower pitched speaking mea s Sadness. Rapid shaking of hands means Yes. Balling fists and tapping together means No. Bouncing around in small area means Nervousness or Anxiety. Tilt to the side means Smiling. Wiggling carapace to the left and right means Mild Annoyance. civilization: they have complex culture and history. They use base 6 as their mathematical system. They are more advanced than humans in some fields – especially math and materials science. But they are behind on many technologies, notably computers and they have no notion of relativity. Lacking a sense of sight, their writing requires texture or acoustical changes. Modern handwriting uses a “pen” that lays down a thick layer of substance on a substrate. So, slightly thicker paper equivalent, and much thicker ink – it stands around 1mm off the surface. Printed writing is much more efficient and crisp, and takes the form of holes in the page. The primary output device for an Eridian computer is a textured monitor. Eridians can hear through walls and make out the environment beyond those walls. they can hear conversation through walls extremely well. So their walls are very soundproof. The normal “comfortable” means of being for an Eridian is three limbs on the ground and two to use tools. As a result, they have a base-6 counting system (two hands, three fingers each). Their counting system is: ℓ, I, V, λ,+, V. Timekeeping: Though the land level of their homeworld is shrouded in darkness, Eridians still have an intrinsic knowledge of the day-night cycle,simply because the temperature goes up and down as a result. Blood: Eridians are semi cold blooded. Their blood is made mostly of liquid mercury. It serves as both a heat regulation system as well as transport mechanism for the worker cells. They have two unconnected bloodstreams. One is about 210°C and contains worker cells. The other system is kept at 300°C, is much smaller, is lined with layers of polycrystalline amd js an extremely efficient thermal insulator. Eridians have 5 hearts, each near the main joint of a leg. Muscles: Eridians have two distinct types of muscle. Skeletal muscle, which performs the main muscular movement, and micromuscles, which exist only inside the bloodstream. Skeletal muscles are spongey. They move by their bloodstreams vessels changing pressure. Unlike skeletal muscles, micromuscles are not powered by temperature change. They are made of crystal and powered by the piezoelectric effect. A signal comes from the brain via a fiber optic nerve, which causes a chemical change to the blood vessel wall at that point, making it conductive and causing the crystal to deform. This small but strong deformation is used to curl a flexible flap from one branch to another. In this way, worker cells are not required for any portion of micromuscle movement. Dormancy: At irregular intervals, an Eridian will go into a dormant state, so deep the Eridian is helpless. They sleep in shifts with one watching over the other. No conscious thoughts or dreams occur. The Eridian does not experience any sensation of time. They sre essentially paralized. Theit secondary blood system is allowed to cool to the same temperature as the primsry ACS, at around 210°C, enabling worker cells to do whatever repairs or maintenance are necessary. Their hearts do not beat, and bloodflow stops. Eating: The mouth of the Eridian is ventral, facing down. When open, food is placed inside, and then the orifice is sealed by worker cells. The hunting behavior of an Eridian is to kill many creatures and store them in a collective location. Eridians are social and work together to maintain and protect their food storage. Part of eating for an Eridian is to butcher the carcass and separate out the useful or needed parts. Eridians have many different types of hunger. They know what they need to eat at any given time. They use their limbs to grind the desired material together into small pieces, similar to chewing. An Eridian only brings food into its body once per week or so. Its ventral carapace will crack along a pre-weakened spot, and it will eject the waste from the previous feeding cycle. Brain: An Eridian’s brain is crystalline. Impulses are made of light. Their nervous system is located mainly in the brain but fiber-optic-like tendrils of crystal convey nerve impulses around the body. The brain is also the home of the worker cells and hence is completely suffused with blood. There are many aspects of intelligence that Eridians are far better than humans at, and many other aspects where the reverse is true. Eridians are far better at multitasking and memorization but have less focus, spatial memory and limb coordination. Reproduction: Eridians lay eggs together in a common area and bury them. Two parents are needed but Eridians are a single-gendered species. Both parents have a parental instinct toward the offspring. The typical litter size is five. Fives, in general, show up all over the place in Eridian biology. Biological requirements: Eridians are most comfortable at 210°C. They start suffering from heat exhaustion at 230°C . They will die if exposed to temperatures of 240°C or higher for extended time periods. A temperature of 280°C or higher is instantly fatal. Eridians exist in 28 atm of pressure. A pressure below 19atm is fatal. They can handle quite a lot of additional pressure, up to hundreds of atmospheres so long as the air is ammonia. When Eridians eat, they have lower pressure tolerance. Eridians are carnivores. The most valuable parts of their pray are its energy nodules, however the bones and other metals are also critical for the Eridian’s nutrition. They also eat certain minerals to supplement their diet. Radiation issues: Eridians did not evolve radiation resistance. Their planet’s extremely strong magnetic field, plus the very thick atmosphere prevents almost all radiation from reaching the surface. Due to their inability to sense electromagnetic radiation of any kind, the Eridians are unable to detect any objects in space. They have no concept of relativity.

ASTROPHAGE Description: Astrophage is an alien microbe, which acts similar to an interstellar mold or algae. It grows upon the surface of stars, decreasing the brightness and leading to a dramatic decrease in temperature of any celestial bodies in orbit of the affected star. This will lead to a mass extinction on any planets with life in the affected star's system. It can travel from star to star. It originated from the star system Tau Ceti and went on to infect many more stars afterward, namely Sol and 40 Eridani. Astrophage can travel a maximum of 8 light years from its infecting star in spore form. Life Cycle: Astrophage absorbs energy from the closest star . Once it can store no more energy, it travels to a planet with lots of carbon dioxide. It uses carbon dioxide to reproduce and then both the parent and child cells travel back to the closest star to begin the process again. Uses: Astrophage has nearly limitless scientific and engineering applications, which leverage one or more of the following characteristics: Energy Storage (Astrophage is capable of storing massive amounts of energy by converting energy directly into mass, later converting this mass back to energy. This effectively makes Astrophage the most efficient possible energy storage system in the universe.), Propulsion (Astrophage propels itself through space using Petrova-wavelength IR light, which can be leveraged to propel a spacecraft. Heat Sink Astrophage is an incredible heat sink for temperatures above 96 Celsius, as well as a heat source for environments below this temperature), Radiation Shielding (astrophage prevents all light from penetrating its cell membrane and can also be used to block radiation)

TAUMOEBA Description: Taumoeba is an extraterrestrial micro-organism native to the planet Adrian. It lives in Adrian's upper atmosphere at an altitude of 91.2km from the surface. It is the only known natural predator of Astrophage. The presence of Taumoeba in Adrian controlled the Astrophage population in the Tau Ceti system. nitrogen (a gas not present in the atmosphere of Adrian) is highly toxic to it. It therefore requires adaptation before it can be used in the atmospheres of Venus and Threeworld. Taumoeba doesn't have a definite shape, similar to the amoebas of Earth.

LORE Spin drives: a form of propulsion utilizing Astrophage. Spin drive uses a three-phase cycle to achieve this. First, it attracts Astrophage fuel to coat one side of a transparent triangular drive mechanism then rotates the now coated surface to be exposed to space and increases the intensity of said light to cause the Astrophage to push even harder against the slide, imparting momentum to the craft, and finally the slide is rotated back into the engine housing where the now dead Astrophage is scraped off to allow the cycle to repeat. Spin drives have an extraordinary specific impulse and delta v for even a small amount of fuel, as Astrophage are very energy efficient.

Blip-A: the ship used by the Eridians to travel to Tau Ceti in search of a cure for Astrophage. The Blip-A's name comes from what the Hail Mary's radar labels the first object it encounters. It is constructed mostly of Xenonite and uses Astrophage as fuel and it set out with 31 million kg of Astrophage fuel. It is three times longer than the Hail Mary, at a length of 140 meters. After the Hail Mary enters the Tau Ceti solar system, the Blip-A heads over to investigate. Eridians were unaware of relativistic physics, and as a result, had far more fuel than they needed to get to Tau Ceti. They were also unaware of how high the radiation risk is when travelling in space. The entire crew died except one Eridian, who was in the engineering section and surrounded by Astrophage. Rocky is the only surviving crew member of the Blip-A, but at one time there were 23 Eridians aboard the ship. The ship provides 29 atmospheres of ammonia at a comfortable 210°C.

Petrovascope: a device used onboard the Hail Mary, tuned to look for the exact frequency of light that Astrophage emits whilst traveling, named after its discoverer. Astrophages are noted in a red bright color. The Petrovascope cannot be used when the ship's spin drives are active. It can be used even if the Hail Mary's RCS is active. It has a small disc to block direct light from the sun, as stars emit light in all frequencies. Ryland Grace uses the Petrovascope to discover Tau Ceti's Petrova arc and remarks that it is probably just a high-resolution camera tuned for the Petrova frequency.

Project Hail Mary: a project dedicated to exploration of the Tau Ceti System to explore why that system is not affected by Astrophage. The Project was founded by Eva Stratt and several countries.

Rocky's message cylinders: cylindrical containers fabricated of xenonite. These cylinders were used by Rocky used to convey messages between the Blip-A and the Hail Mary via shapes representing such things as stars and their ships.

---

Grace is in an enclosed lab room with a window and from the othrr side are Stratt and a small group of scientists, ambassadors and military. Grace and Stratt speak through comma Stratt: “Please examine the cell. And try not to rip your suit, the whole room is filled with nitrogen” Grace: “Am I expandable?” stratt turns thebcomms on and talks to the other scientists and military Grace: “You have to talk about it?” Stratt: "The consensus here is that it would be preferable if you did not die." Stratt: “Please, examine the cell" Grace does so, putting it through a microscope Grace: “It’s a tiny alien cell.” Stratt: “Are they alive?” some hours later, outside after Grace examines the cell and reports some information he learned Stratt: “Thank you for your help. I’m glad you didn’t die.”

Grace and Carl go shopping to build a box to study how the Astrophage breed. They buy a lot of duck tape and plywood cashier: “Do you have a coupon?” Carl: “We don’t need a coupon. We’re the government.” Cashier" “which one?” Carl: “all of them”

Grace: "Alien are water based. Xeno is a solid. I’m wrong about everything and everything is wrong.

Rocky sends a cylinder box from Blip A to Hail Mary spaceship Hail Mary: Blip-B detected Grace: “What are they doing, Mary?” Hail Mary: Blip-B detected Grace: "what even is a Blip-B, Mary?"

Grace: "Astrophage on me star. Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad"

Grace opens the hatch door to get to 6he corridor to Rocky's spaceship and instead finds Rocky in a polygon sphere transparent spacesuit Grave:"Rocky? What are you doing here? Ricky: "Rocky live here. Grace and Rocky study Astrophage together. Save Earth. Save Erid* Grace: "But- Hey, Rochy, wait! Where are you going?" Rocky rolls inside to the lab Rocky: "Dirty. Dirty. Is this room for garbage, question" Grace: "Well, I wasn't expecting company now, was I?"

Grace: "That’s not half bad." Rocky: “It’s full good.”

Grace: " I just woke up from a coma, I’m several light years from my apartment, and I’m not an astronaut.”

Stratt: "Dr. Ryland Grace?" Grace: "That's me!" Stratt: “I need you to come with us.” Grace: “I’m just a teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle.” Stratt: “And you have a doctorate in molecular biology.” Stratt: “The sun is dying. You are the only scientist who might know what this is.”

in the project hail mary scientific conference Stratt: "The sun is not the only star dying. Every star was infected by its neighbor except one.” Grace: "why?" Stratt: "Why?" turns to the rest of the scientists of the conference "Tell him" Scientists: "we don't know!" Stratt: “Which is why we build a ship to go there and find out" Grace: "You want to built an.. Interstellar spaceship? In months?" Stratt: "The ship is not the problem. We already have it built. The problem is how to power it." Grace: "so... You want to use Astrophages to power a ship?" Stratt: "It’s what you Americans would call a long shot. Hail Mary.”

Stratt: "If we do nothing, everything on this planet will go extinct.” Grace: "No. I can't do it." Stratt: "If you don’t go, you die. With the rest of us.” Grace: "You’ll find a solution.” Stratt: “You are my solution.” Grace: "I don't think you're hearing me, I'm NOT an astronaut. I put the not in astronaut. I’ve never done anything… I can’t even moonwalk!” Stratt: "The world is counting on you" Grace: “Look, I understand the stakes, but my place is in the classroom. Some people are not good at things.”

Grace: recording a video on ship "So, I met an alien. He’s kinda growing on me. At least he’s not growing in me. Which was a concern for some time... His sun is dying too. We're figuring it out together. I have made a small database with translations. We have about 250 words. Together, we’re pretty smart.”

Grace: first seeing rocky "I’m Grace. I’m gonna call you Rocky" Rocky: make some noises Grace doesn't understand Grace: "We’re here for the same reason." Rocky: makes more noises and shows Grace a marking on his side which has a carving of the Petrova line Grace: “Right. If we’re gonna save our planets, we have to learn how to communicate"

Rocky: "It is time go.” Grace: “I think you mean go time, pal"

Rocky: "If Grace and Rocky save stars, we can go home.” Grace: "yeah... about that... I think this is a one-way trip for me.” Rocky: "what mean, question" Grace: "I have enough fuel to get here but not enough to go back" Rocky: "Grace will die? Why did you not tell me, question" Grace: "I have enough food to keep me two more years. Maybe a bit more if I ration it." Rocky: “I will not let Grace die. How many Astrophages do you need, question" Grace: "6 million kilograms" Rocky: "I can give. Rocky will go home 6 years later."

Rocky: "Words of encouragement” Grace: “You can’t just say ‘words of encouragement’ Rocky: “Words of great encouragement”

Grace: "Now comes the fun part." Rocky: "Graces goes out to collect… No fun at all!?!" Grace: "It's a joke." Rocky: "Oh humour. Confusing."

Grace: "Fistbumb!" Rocky: "Fist my bump" Grace: "No" Rocky: "same thing" Grace: "No, no it's not."

Stratt: “Knock. Knock.” Grace: “Who’s there?” Stratt: “I’m not good at jokes.” Grace: “I’m not good at jokes who?”