You wake up on a space station. The lights are off. The fans have stopped. And the capsule meant to bring you home is damaged beyond repair.
Your forty-five-day assignment becomes a year of failing equipment, postponed rescues, and messages from a family growing older without you. When help finally arrives, getting home demands the one thing you no longer know how to do: let someone else take over.
An original fictional what-if story from If It Were Real. Meridian and its mission are fictional near-future designs; the story draws on real challenges of life support, isolation, and survival in space.
What would be harder for you: keeping the station running, or hearing another rescue date change? Tell us in the comments.
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00:00 The station goes silent
00:45 The forty-five-day promise
01:53 Finding breathable air
02:56 The return capsule is lost
03:45 The first rescue date
04:31 The maintenance routine
05:22 Sophie’s message
05:48 Moving the deadline
06:18 The cost to your body
07:01 Repairing the water processor
07:59 Day ninety passes
08:27 The solar storm shelter
09:18 The aborted launch
10:12 Ordinary news from Earth
10:48 The unexpected laughter
11:21 Cargo without a ride home
12:15 Making the station livable
12:48 Elena is coming
13:17 One year and a spacecraft
13:53 The docking failure
14:42 The spacewalk transfer
15:55 Letting go
16:20 Off duty
16:47 Returning to gravity
17:15 Sophie’s question
17:40 The light and the open door
#WhatIf #SpaceSurvival #IfItWereReal
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