Once NASA had one successful shuttle mission, they were going to start scheduling many more. Everyone wanted to be chosen for a crew as soon as possible.

Already there seemed to be an unspoken hierarchy emerging, with favorites and leaders, long shots and outsiders.

Hank, Teddy, Duke, and Jimmy were training to fly chase—to be the pilots who guided the shuttle to the landing site once it reentered the atmosphere. Vanessa and Griff were spending a lot of time in the dunk tank, experimenting with what was possible on spacewalks.

Lydia and Harrison had been added to the team working on the thermal protection system—the shuttle’s complex protective skin of tiles and blankets—which meant they had the most hands-on time with the spacecraft itself. And Donna, Marty, and Joan had been assigned to Spacelab, an orbital science laboratory designed by NASA’s European counterparts.

Donna was studying the effects of weightlessness on the human body, for which Joan was immensely grateful. She was still puking in microgravity.

Joan, herself, was preparing for ultraviolet and X-ray astronomical observations from space. She’d helped design experiments for a set of planned solar instruments, and soon would begin making calls to geologists and physicists she’d known in her time in academia to get their ideas about potential shuttle experiments in those fields, too.

Despite how necessary each of these jobs was, Antonio was partial to certain people in Group 9, and he showed it. He favored Lydia, Griff, Harrison, and Hank. He gave them more scheduled time on the most relevant and urgent skills that one would need to fly.

So, yes, Hank probably was the favorite of the pilots. But this was not something Joan was particularly interested in talking about at 11:30 on the last day of the year, when everyone was trying to—for one small moment of their lives—let go.

“I think Hank will get assigned first,” Lydia said.

“Can we talk about this another time?”

Lydia sighed. “Sorry for trying to remain focused on the objective.”

“I’m just saying that you could back off a little,” Joan said.

“Do you honestly not realize that everyone here is clocking everyone else? That Antonio is going to hear about everything that happens here tonight? Someone gets drunk and passes out in the bathroom and trust me, all of JSC is going to hear about it and there’ll be a little mark next to their name.”

Joan knew this was true for all of them, herself included. Who she was, what she did in her spare time, how she chose to conduct herself…it all mattered. It would be weighed in terms of passing training and would be a factor in what roles she was assigned. It would no doubt be considered when—or if—they put her on a mission.