It lasted generations. Research, exploration, colonisation, further research, published papers. We made gains, had major setbacks, won back ground. Countries formed coalitions that came and went. The USA had been a player, once. The New Civil War put paid to that, along with much of the Deep South. Only a crater the size of western England to show for their efforts. The UK took part too, but before long they also retreated into the distance like a stationary figure. By the time Leyton, Anis, Bai and Emilia were born and came of age they were the best team for the job, and their regions of origin were joint-principle players. No warped sense of guilt or history there.

Two hundred and four years from that first discovery, a plume of radiation escaping a half-moon sphere. Shorter than the length of time between Newton’s 1687 opus Principia Mathematica and the grasped ability to free ourselves from gravity’s grip, some might have argued.

And they’d be right.

Because in August 2220, after countless trials and deterrents, scientists finally reached the conclusions they had craved.

A four-person crew. Two women, two men. One couple married, the other common-law. No children. No living parents. EASN made that mandatory, it wasn’t a secret. They’d tried separating people from their immediate families for extended time periods. It drove their astronauts mad.

Two women, two men. All fuego, according to my wife. Neither of us was sure if EASN made that mandatory too, but it certainly helped sustain public interest. Global media being what it was, we knew everything. Where they were born, how they grew up. Where they were educated, how they met. Where they trained and how they did it, what takeaways they liked, what came back up, all being unwell, what time they went to bed. What movies they watched, their favourite songs. Hell, we even knew if they were having regular sex (they weren’t – at least not in their own relationships). We knew it all from A to Z and the Network encouraged us. We’d long forgone ideas of privacy. It was the price that came with the future, someone had said decades before. We were chipped and monitored and we liked it that way. The crew were young, we were bored for the most part and it was habitual. There they were, every day. And so were we.

The Mimas 4 crew members, in no order of importance, were:

Leyton Shaw: 27, married to Anis Creighton-Shaw; Jamaican-British, 6’ 3”, Professor of Physics at Trinity College, Cambridge. Keen football player and 21st-century film enthusiast. Position: Research Scientist. Rank: Lieutenant.

Anis Creighton-Shaw: 33, married to Leyton Shaw; Ghanaian-British, 5’ 11”, Professor of Astro-Physics at Trinity College, Cambridge. Former pilot for the Ghanaian Air Force, Wing Chun 2nd Dan. Position: Research Scientist/Pilot. Rank: Captain.

Bai Liu: 30, common-law husband of Emilia Jonas; Chinese-French, 6’ 1”, Professor of Engineering, ENS, Paris. Tennis enthusiast with a love of the dramatic and written arts. Position: Chief Engineer. Rank: Lieutenant.