A lot has gone on in the past five hundred years. The human race finally pushed technology to what was once science fiction. One of the great mysteries that remained is what happened to the first manned long distance space mission funded by the private industry. When we remotely started mining the asteroid belt a lot of rare metals and industrial materials became available in an industrial scale.
There's all kinds of conspiracy theories about what happened to the ship. Probably just an accident, maybe the math was wrong or some computer glitch set them off course. Life out here on the space base orbiting earth is different compared to terrestrial life. Mother Nature seemed to be the best designer so we finally took a page out of her book. A little mini planet in geosynchronous orbit. The focus fusion reactor started a new way of thinking about harnessing energy. We were always converting heat instead of just creating an electromagnetic reaction in the first place. The spherical space base rotates creating artificial gravity. An insulating outer shell protects habitants from the radiation. A series of towers creates an ionosphere that creates an artificial atmosphere. My job was botanist at the time we received the signal. I grew up on a farm but farming is not what it once was. Getting a degree requires knowing how to do things the old way without autonomous equipment but it also covers maintenance and programming. On Earth farmers rely heavily on the equipment but for the space program we have to assume the computers might break down and we might have to do things the old way. Humans are driven to be curious and explore beyond our scope. We finally realized how to collect water from space and use it. Eventually our space base would leave orbit and head for a potential hospitable planet. Nobody really knows how long the planet has left. Our industrial revolutions and war finally changed our thinking. We converted fuel sources and we are just barely starting to regrow some of the coral reefs lost. The base is almost sustainable and we will be put to sleep and sent out to explore. When we get to our target planet it may not be inhabitable and we may have to live on the base for several generations. Everything was going as planned until we picked up an object transmitting a signal.
Word traveled fast around the base, maybe it would be our first confirmed encounter. Myself an other astronauts have observed objects but they usually had an explanation. There's always the rumors that governments have long been in contact with beings from somewhere else. The truth is we are dangerous creatures driven more by emotion than logic. Even now with all we have done we might not be ready. For the record I am Dan Hendricks named after my father who was a farmer. He saved enough to put me through school and here I am looking down from space pointing out where the farm is to whoever is around when we go by. The signal was finally identified as a type of radio wave no longer in use. It was Zeus the shipped lost nearly five hundred years ago. We needed to send a probe and isolate the ship. It appeared to have a trajectory that would bring them back to the planet. A recorded message repeated intended for a base in earth that no longer existed named Posiden which was an engineering marvel when it was built. "Zues to Posiden, we are on approach to return to Earth heading for geosynchronous orbit". A large floating base in international waters on the Pacific Ocean. The location meant to avoid any government regulations or laws. Some of the experiments done there were rumored to be unethical. It however was where they first figured out how to suspend animation and the aging process and reanimate humans. Who knows how far they really went. Had astronauts somehow survived five hundred years in suspended animation. That would be incredible with such antique technology. Everyone was betting on a space coffin which would give an opportunity to study what time did to a human that long in space. We could always recycle the materials from the ship after studies were conducted. After getting a drone to scan the ship for unknown life forms and retrieve data from the computer storage. Diagrams of all spacecraft technology was archived on the quantum computers used for the artificial intelligence that helped controlling and monitoring the base. After it was determined that it there were no nightmare space creatures trying to eliminate humans the ship was brought back to the base. All but two astronauts were dead and the bodies were incinerated after studying. The two individuals had aged significantly a make Jack Thompson and female Sandra Evans. They were young when they left and should not have aged if they were in suspended animation. They had lived out part of their lives doing something. It took two weeks to reanimate the two survivors. They had no idea who they were or how they got there.
Luckily one of the technologies available on base was the ability to download a human consciousness and observe it as if you had been them. The epic that unfolded from their memories changed things forever. As Evans and Thompson regained their memories they were assigned to help with the plant research on the base. I got to know them pretty well as they remembered their lives. Obviously I'm back here on earth to tell the story so things didn't quite work out the way I thought they were supposed to. I will document everything as well as I can so this type of thing doesn't happen again. I should be frozen traveling to our new home but here I am back where I started and probably where I will meet my end. There's other bases out there that will wake up one day far away and alone and no way to return home. Since the data on the base was lost I am left to tell the story.