The Last Astronaut

It is the year 2250. Earth's governments have been unified under the banner of the Global Federation. Still, despite the absence of competing nation states, problems persist. Population growth and resource depletion continue and together produce widespread shortages. There is too little food, water, electricity and money. There are too few jobs. Each year, there is less of everything. When the Global Federation announces deep cuts in the Global Space Agency's budget, GSA Director Marshall Huddleston demands to know why. He is told: "The public has lost interest in space." This is a lie, Huddleston knows. It is not the public that has lost interest in Space, it is the legislature. The public has no interest in space; its focus has become increasingly narrow over the last few years and it is now interested only in survival. Huddleston sees this as the beginning of the end for the agency, and possibly for humanity. Further cuts will follow year after year until there is no budget left. It must be stopped! Without GSA there is no space program; without Space mankind has no vision of its future. Huddleston knows what he must do. He tells his executive committee that GSA needs a stunning new triumph, something so dramatic that it will completely redefine the agency and the human future. "Gentlemen," he says. We must send men to the stars, and we must do it now!" The committee members are stunned. GSA's most advanced propulsion system produces a transit velocity only 10% of light speed. The round trip to even the nearest star would thus take over 100 years, requiring a huge "generation ship" with replacement crews born en route. Such a ship would cost at least 50 times the entire GSA budget. Impossible! So exactly what is Huddleston proposing? He describes a program called Diogenes, a fleet of four small starships to be built up out of decommissioned derelicts and unused spares, off budget and without authorization. Several committee members resist but the need is clear and Huddleston is persuasive. One by one the ships are built. Then the director faces his most difficult challenge, finding the astronauts who will fly the ships. They must possess special talents and special psychological profiles and they must be absolutely committed to the mission. Because before the ships can launch, each astronaut must die.