was in painful conflict with his awareness that any objections he might make to my going would be construed as lack of confidence in his own work. Thus, I put him in a rendingly difficult situation; and now I wish, almost more than anything else, that I had the means to tell him that it is not through any shortcoming of his that I shall not be going home to Earth. . . .
The launch took place on the 9th of December, a Wednesday. The preliminary jump was quite uneventful and we followed the usual supply-rocket practice in our intersection with the Satellite orbit, and in taking up station close to the Satellite itself.
I felt sentimentally glad the Station was Esatrellita Primeira; it made the expedition even more of a family affair, for it was the first spacestation, the one that my great-great-grandfather had helped to build—though I suppose that most parts of it must have been replaced on account of war and other damage since those days.
We crossed over to Primeira, and put in more than a week of earth-days' there while the Figurao's atmosphere-protection envelope was removed, and she was refueled, and fully provisioned. The three of us carried out tests in our various departments, and made a few necessary minor adjustments. Then we waited, almost wishing there had been more readjustments to keep us occupied, until Primeira, the moon, and Mars were in the relative positions calculated for our takeoff. At last, however, on Tuesday, the 22nd of December, at 0335 R.M.T., we made blast, and launched ourselves on the main journey.
I shall not deal here with the journey itself. All technical information concerning it has been entered by Raul in the official log, which I shall enclose, with this supplementary account, in a metal box for safe keeping.
What I have written so far has two purposes. One is, as I have said, to cover the possibility that it may not be found for a very long time; the other is to provide factual material by which any more imminent finder may check my mental condition. I have read carefully through it myself, and to me it appears to offer sufficient evidence that I am sane and coherent, and I trust that that will be the opinion of others who may read it, and that they may therefore con-
