Wow. That's all I have to say. Such an amazing view.
This is my first log entry as I start the mission. Not sure how many of these I'll actually make. I have a lot to do. I'm only doing this one because I'm bored and waiting for the tanks to fill, for the fuel to be transferred, the batteries to charge. All things I have to keep an eye on, and nothing I can do anything about to make go faster.
I've been up here in orbit a few times, but there has never been any windows. A lot of people just cannot deal with it, so they don't have windows. There are just displays showing what people think is out there. Not what really is. I get to see it now, because I need to. It was actually one of the tests I passed. Soooo many tests.
Ah! There's the fuel finished. Store load completed. 5% left to 100 on the batteries. Last thing will be the fuel for the drive. The new drive. The reason I am sitting in this chair, trained up like the astronauts of old. It has been centuries since we trained real astronauts. But the robots cannot do this, they fry the second the drive comes online if they are active. The tech's say that there is no kind of insulation or shielding that can prevent it. So no robots on this mission. Therefore I have to know EVERYTHING!!!
Here comes the fuel rods. I don't know how it works, not really. I understand the theory, kinda... If it works. It'll make traveling to the colonies take a few hours, instead of the months using the current drives. They call it an ARC drive. The fuel for it is, if you'll believe it, rods of braided Exotic, 14 dimensional matter, and Dark Matter. Or so they told me. How am I to know? If, and this is a big IF here. If this works, I will be a hero. If it fails. Well... I'll trust the techs. It is going to work.
Time for the final check list. It's almost time.