Summer Creative Writing Contest 2021: ‘Project Venus’

The Palisadian-Post is running a selection of winning pieces from the 2021 Pacific Palisades Library Association’s Summer Creative Writing Contest, which featured the theme “Help!”

The following piece was penned by Alexander Vari, who was awarded third place in the fifth and sixth grade Scrawlers category.

Joe Brown was always very interested in space. Joe applied to join NASA as a spaceship designer after his college graduation with a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics and math, since they desperately needed more employees. Four weeks later, Joe got an email from NASA saying that as long as he could impress them by doing something amazing without their help, he was hired.

Joe got to work immediately. He was studying images of spacecraft to decide what model he was going to build, when he noticed the reddish glow of Mars behind it. Do I really want to go there? He thought, It looks awfully creepy. Then he had it. “No, I don’t want to go there!” He exclaimed out loud. If he could find a good planet, his ship would barely matter. While he was looking at planets, he noticed that Venus in particular had a strange magnetic substance around it. Joe realized that if he could build a strong enough magnet combined with an LSPR (Lightweight Solar-Powered Rocket), he could make it to Venus and back. Now he just had to figure out how to build his ship.

He took his plan to NASA. They refused to assist him. “We told you we couldn’t help you with your project,” a NASA executive told Joe stubbornly.

Joe was disappointed that NASA wouldn’t help, but he wasn’t one to give up. He went to the junkyard to get materials and worked day and night to fix the salvaged scrap pieces. The end result looked a lot like a broken refrigerator with an LSPR and a magnet attached to it, but it just goes to show to never judge a book by its cover.

Joe’s rocket was ready to fly, but he still needed a launch pad. Once again he pleaded for assistance, but the answer was still no. It looked like he needed to build that too. He took out his power tools and got to work. It took him a year to build the launch pad. Then he was ready.

On a sunny Saturday morning, Joe got ready to fly. He reviewed the plan in his head. Once I get up to orbit with my LSPR, I turn it on and turn my magnet on. I’ve also got to remember that once I turn on my magnet, I’ll be heading to Venus at Mach 102, so I’d better be ready to steer away from space junk with my thrusters. Once I get to Venus, I plant the American flag on the highest place I can find and take a photo of it. Then I fire up my magnet and return to Earth.

Joe was ready. Three. Two. One. Blasto! Whoa! Joe thought as his rocket suddenly lurched forward, spraying his coee all over the place. Two hours later he was approaching Venus, when he saw something that almost made his heart stop. A meteor, and he was heading straight towards it.

He swerved left. Whew, He thought, That was close. When he looked up, he was rocketing towards another. After fifteen more minutes of this, he arrived at Venus.

He climbed a five-foot hill with his space suit, which Joe had also built. He planted the American flag, took a picture, and zoomed away.

He received numerous rewards for going to Venus. And he was hired by NASA. In fact, Joe assisted NASA so much that they started a massive space initiative called Project Venus. But in the end, he was still Joe Brown. Rocket designing, world changing, Joe Brown.