Commercialised space travel began in the twenty-twenties, near on twenty years ago. Since then over sixteen thousand flights into space have been made.

My Mother was the first in my family to go. She was rich so it was no skin off her teeth to pay a small fortune to see the world from above.

Then my brother and husband went together on my husband’s stag do. I’ve never been a traveler, I’m a woman with a very weak stomach, that’s what my mother used to tell me. Every time someone I knew went to the heavens I prayed they’d return to me safely, and every time they did. That was until Monday the eighteenth of August twenty forty two. The day I almost lost my daughter.

It was a school trip she was invited on. She was nervous about flying just as I was. “You’ve gone and given her your nerves you silly woman” mother would scold me. My husband promised our daughter everything would be okay, but I was convinced something bad was going to happen. We argued for weeks about it, but eventually I gave in.

“Flights to space happen every day, she’s only going around the moon she’ll be back by tea time.” That’s what my husband said that finally convinced me. So that morning I packed her bag and sent her off on the bus. I felt sick all day, it became so bad that I couldn’t take it anymore. I left work early and drove as fast as I could to the space port.

I got there just as my daughter’s class was about to board the ship. “Fiona you are not boarding that ship” I screamed to her, halting her and her class in their tracks. “Mrs. Gillespie you can’t just show up and disrupt the class like this, your daughter is in safe hands” her teacher attempted to reassure me. I wasn’t having it! Fiona was coming home with me no matter what.

By the time the teacher had realised there was no way to make me come round it was too late. The ship left without her and the rest of the class. Children began shouting at me and Fiona, some were crying, the teacher looked so angry she could have exploded and then…

BOOM!!!

We all looked up to see the debris falling from the sky. The ship had exploded just a few hundred feet after lift off. We all stood silent. I cradled Fiona close to me as her teacher and I shared a look of horror and bemusement.

They say a mother always knows when their child is in danger, and that day I knew.

I saved the lives of fifteen students and their teacher that day because of my instincts. Even after the event the space port remained open, people carried on like it was nothing. Like forty-two lives hadn’t been lost. I demanded my husband or my brother swear to never board a ship again and they promised.

My mother? Well, she was on the ship that day. Wanted to surprise her granddaughter.

My family will never board a ship again. We will always remain down on Earth.