The astronaut stared ahead of him into the dark sky. He was sitting in the sort of couch thing, right at the top of the rocket. Next to him on his couch were two other astronauts, who had maybe different roles. They all had their seatbelts on.
He had been training to be an astronaut for maybe four or even ten years. A long time, possibly. He looked over at the other astronauts, who had all also been training for a long time. They were all lost in thought, staring up into the sky or space, whichever comes first.
Their mission was critical. They were going to get to Mars, which could take weeks or months, and change whatever they had there into oxygen so people could walk around and slap their heads and check their email without suffocating or exploding. He thought deeply about whether, on Mars, if there was no atmosphere, you were in space even when you had dug a hole and were ten or eleven feet underground. Or maybe there was an atmosphere.
The tannoy buzzed. "We are going to send you into space in maybe ten seconds," said the man over the tannoy. The man was in charge of going into space. He was not an astronaut, but he probably had some kind of applicable degree or at least a significant amount of training.
The rockets at the bottom of the rocket began to turn on. They were full of petrol or probably something like petrol, maybe ten or fifteen cars' worth of petrol. They would go fast.
The astronaut flipped some switches on the console in front of him, turning on some equipment and maybe turning off some other equipment. He knew what he was doing.
Suddenly, the tannoy buzzed again. "Off you go, then," said the voice, and the rockets began to burn even more petrol or fuel, until they were burning enough petrol or fuel to start pushing the rocket up into the sky.
Almost immediately, they were going hella fast. Space was getting closer and closer. Their faces weren't necessarily doing that 'christ, it's hella fast in here' thing where the cheeks roll back like a dog out of a car window, but maybe they were, if it was windy in there or something. Either way, it was super fast in that rocket, and even if it wasn't windy, they could tell how fast they were going by how much bigger space was getting all the time. Their understanding of physics helped them see that this meant that they were going off the earth, where space isn't, and towards space, where it is.
And then they were in space, and the rockets stopped and detached from all the rest of the rocket that wasn't made of rockets. The rest of the rocket sailed into space, pointing towards Mars, where they would arrive maybe soon.
"We did it," said the astronaut. He took off his seatbelt and took a long walk around the rocket, if it's a big thing, or maybe just sort of kicked his legs about, but either way his legs were tired.
The tannoy buzzed. "You did it," said the man in charge of sending them into space. "See you when you get back."
"Alright," said the astronaut.
Alright.