Ramon Hernandez was a familiar face at the NASA facility in Houston, having spent nearly two decades as a maintenance man there. At the age of 48, he had become something of an institution himself, known for his distinctive blend of competence and clumsiness. While he was undoubtedly the go-to guy for fixing leaky pipes and unjamming stubborn doors, his colleagues often shared stories of occasional mishaps that earned him the endearing nickname of "Disaster Zone Ramon."
Not that Ramon was without skills; he was literally a jack-of-all-trades. An electrician, a plumber, a house painter, a roofer, an auto mechanic, a household appliance repairman, a landscaper, and a gardener, you name it. With minimal schooling or practical training, Ramon could do it all. Sometimes, he was a little hasty in his approach, covering up imperfections and even working them into the finished job.
Ramon relied heavily on instincts, common sense, and a can-do attitude. Every task was manageable for him. He'd find electronics, computers, and TVs discarded by neighbors, take them home, disassemble and reassemble them like new. His home was filled with items he had either made himself or refurbished. A home, by the way, he built from the ground up. Okay, so what if the front porch was a little lopsided? It was built to last forever.
One fateful day, while Ramon diligently did his routine cleaning tasks, he found himself inside a high-security facility area. There, set about on a launch pad, stood Ganymede, a top-secret space exploration craft whose name was derived from the largest moon in our solar system. Ramon stood back and admired the craft, perched high atop a rocket launcher extending through an opening in the facility’s rooftop, reaching the sky above. It was a sight to behold.
"Ay, chingado!" Ramon excitedly blurted out to himself. "Check this shit out! Mamacita, mamacita! All of my friends, with their dumb-ass low-riders—they haven't seen anything!"
Unable to resist, Ramon's eyes wandered around Ganymede's exterior. His rough hands traced the sleek exterior as he marveled at the technology before him. It was as if the dreams of his youth, long buried under the daily grind of maintenance work, came flooding back.
"You are a real beauty, my friend! A real beauty! I want to take you to the moon! Yeah? No, maybe further than the moon, damn!"
Ramon's aspiration to become an astronaut traced back to an inspiration kindled by the achievements of the first American of Mexican descent to venture into space: Jose Hernandez. While it was confirmed that Jose Hernandez had been born in the United States, much of his formative years were spent in Mexico. In a remarkable twist of fate, Ramon and Jose shared not just a surname but also a familial connection, both hailing from La Piedad in the state of Michoacan.
Ramon couldn't help but share this intriguing connection with his co-workers, proudly declaring, "He's like a second or third cousin to my father's family." It was as if the cosmos had conspired to link him to the world of space exploration, and that bond, however distant, resonated deeply within him.
As a young adult, Ramon began to dream of becoming the first Mexican-born astronaut, a dream nurtured in his early adulthood by the stories of Jose Hernandez's achievements. However, as life's practicalities and responsibilities took hold, the dream slowly receded into the background, obscured by the everyday demands of life and raising a family. Nevertheless, he jumped at the opportunity to work at NASA and took pride in being at the facility daily, even though his work was far from being an astronaut's.
Now, Ramon was many things—curious, adventurous, and, of course, a bit too impulsive—but he was never one to back down from a challenge, especially when it came to anything resembling a "fancy" gadget. As Ramon stood before this remarkable vessel of human ingenuity, he couldn't help but feel a resurgence of that youthful ambition of flying to the stars, even if it was just a fleeting moment to satiate a fanciful dream.
Ramon looked around carefully, hopped onto a long ladder extending to Ganymede's capsule, and entered the space vehicle through an open hatch. His heart raced with excitement as he contemplated the possibilities that lay before him.
"Hey, poca madre! This is some jazzy stuff in here!"
Ramon's attention shifted to the ship's expansive instrument panel—a dazzling array of lights, buttons, switches, and screens, each piece of technology more intricate and mysterious than the last.
Ganymede's master control panel seemed like a canvas of the future, an invitation to explore the boundaries of human knowledge and ambition. Ramon touched the smooth surfaces with trembling fingers, his rough hands now caressing the epitome of cutting-edge engineering.
For a maintenance man who had spent most of his work life wrestling with leaky pipes and stubborn doors, this moment felt like a dream, a journey from the mundane to the extraordinary.
And then, in a moment of impulsive daring, he let his gaze fall upon a shiny red button that seemed to beckon him.
Emblazoned with the stern warning "DO NOT TOUCH," the button appeared to challenge Ramon's adventurous spirit.
"Do not touch? What about that raise you promised me, NASA, huh? I'm tired of listening to you pinche people about what to touch and what not to touch!"
With a hint of trepidation and a sense of anticipation, Ramon extended a trembling hand and pressed it. What he didn't know at that moment was that this seemingly innocent action would trigger a cataclysmic chain of events, setting in motion a 20-minute launch sequence that would lock the exit hatch AND SEND HIM ON LIFE-CHANGING JOURNEY INTO OUTER SPACE!!
In that split second, the world around Ramon exploded into chaos. Klaxons blared, lights flashed, and the entire spacecraft vibrated unnervingly. Ramon, gripping onto any available handhold for dear life, realized that he had just set off something monumental. Ganymede began to rumble and was set to launch.
“Ah baby, lemme feel ya’! Lemme feel ya’, little mama!”
Meanwhile, inside Mission Control’s confines, the launch sequence’s sudden activation triggered a wave of panic. Alarms blared, and a frenzy of activity ensued as NASA officials, who were caught off guard, desperately attempted to reverse the sequence and abort the launch. Their voices, laced with urgency and anxiety, crackled over the intercom.
"This is Mission Control! What in the Hell is going on?"
"Yo, it's Ramon. I was just cleaning up in here, you know, and I never been inside one of these rockets. So, I got curious and such, then something happened!"
"Ramon?! Who is Ramon? JESUS CHRIST! WHO IS THIS GUY?!"
"Ramon Hernandez from maintenance! I'm the guy who cleans the toilets, yo!"
"The what?!"
"I pressed the button that says 'Do Not Touch.' I guess I shouldn't have!"
Ted McDavid, the chief engineer at Mission Control, turned to a colleague to ask who Ramon Hernandez was, but no one knew.
"He says he cleans the God damned toilets!" a flabbergasted McDavid screamed across the room.
"Oh, that must be 'Disaster Zone Ramon'!" someone chimed back.
McDavid clutched his head, "You mean to tell me a maintenance man whose nickname is 'Disaster Zone Ramon' activated the launch codes of a top-secret multi-billion dollar spacecraft?!"
"Yeah, but he's like Primo Segundo to Jose Hernandez, that other Mexican astronaut."
"What other Mexican astronaut?!"
Meanwhile, Ramon discovered a NASA spacesuit and helmet and tried them on for size. They fit nicely, and pleased with himself, Ramon began to strut about the craft's interior.
"Hey, Captain Kirk! Beam me up, Homes! Haha, I'd like to get one of these with a Mexican flag, right?"
As the clock ticked relentlessly toward the point of no return, the communication channels crackled to life with Mission Control's frantic attempts to reach Ramon inside the spacecraft.
“Ramon, are you there?!”
“Oh, yeah, man, I’m here. Where else am I gonna go?”
“Listen carefully, Ramon! I need you to stop the engines right now! Is that clear? Cut the power!" McDavid shouted in desperation.
"I just want to know if there's enough oxygen and food for me to get to the moon, Ese."
"The moon?!"
"I'm just kidding, man! I don't know how to cut the power! I tried to open the hatch - the pinche hatch won't open! Everything is crazy in here!"
"You are unauthorized to be in that spacecraft; it is the property of NASA and the U.S. government! I want you to follow my orders and cut the God damned engines right now!"
"Ah, man, don't get so impatient! You're spoiling all the fun!"
"Mr. Hernandez, this is a life-or-death situation! You could get yourself killed in there!"
"Since when are you guys so concerned about the health and well-being of your staff, yo! Seriously! I take my life in my hands every day on this job! Do you know how many times I’ve fallen off a ladder or something? I broke my forearm one time, no healthcare. Nada! I just wrapped it up in some old sweatshirt and came to work the next day, Homes!"
"Ramon, I need you to take this seriously!"
"I'm serious as a heart attack, bitch! Just tell me what to do!"
Mission Control proceeded to give Ramon specific instructions to abort the launch. Ramon scrambled to follow their instructions, his heart pounding in his chest, but his inability to decipher the complex array of buttons and switches before him did not change anything. The spacecraft vibrated with an unsettling intensity as the engines roared to life, defying his every attempt to regain control.
"Turn the damn thing off, Ramon! Find the shutdown procedure!" another voice urged him, the tension in Mission Control palpable.
With sweat trickling down his forehead, Ramon scanned the control panel frantically, his fingers darting across buttons in a desperate search for the elusive shutdown mechanism. Each moment felt like an eternity to the maintenance man who found himself in the cockpit of an interstellar vehicle, wrestling with technology foreign to him.
"Look for a green switch, Ramon!"
"Red to turn it on, green to turn it off - doesn't that sound a little backward to you?"
"Just follow our instructions!"
"Usually, I can do anything I put my mind to, you know? I can drive a tractor, a forklift, an R.V. - I can even drive a 16-wheeler, but this spacecraft thing, man, this could take me a few minutes to pick up!"
Despite Mission Control's unwavering guidance, Ramon's efforts seemed futile as precious seconds ticked down and the two-minute countdown began.
"T-minus two minutes and counting. Houston, rocket boosters are activated."
"Get the President on the line!" McDavid cried as he reached for a hotline that directly connected to the Oval Office.
"Mr. President, this is Mission Control at NASA. We have a situation here! An unauthorized launch is set to go off in less than two minutes!"
"What'd ya' want me to do? Shoot the damn thing down before the Russians get their hands on it!" the President blurted out.
"It's not in the air yet, sir!"
"Then blow the damn thing up!"
"There's a man inside the craft. He's a maintenance man, sir, a Mexican; I don't think that would be wise!"
"A Mexican maintenance man? What the Hell are you people doing down there in Houston? Call ICE and have him deported! On second thought, send him the Hell up into space and teach him a lesson for all I care!!"
"Thank you, Mr. President," Ramon, who had been listening the whole time, added, "I'm definitively going to make you proud! On second thought, I'm going to make Mexico proud, and you can go to Hell for all I care!"
As the countdown climaxed, a thunderous roar filled the air, and the rocket's engines burst to life, spewing flames and billowing smoke. The ground shuddered beneath the colossal force of raw propulsion, and the rocket began its ascent, defying Earth's pull.
Ramon, fitted with a space helmet and strapped in tight for lift-off, cracked an uneasy smile across his face as Ganymede lifted off from the launch pad.
"Houston, we have lift-off! Repeat, we have lift-off of the Ganymede Space Explorer!"
McDavid watched from the windows of Mission Control in stunned disbelief.
“Lord in Heaven, what have we done?”
As Ganymede soared higher and higher into a beautiful blue Texas sky, panic swept through the room; the realization set in that Ramon, a maintenance man turned astronaut, was hurtling toward the unknown, forever altering the course of his life and the NASA space program.
The incident that saw Ramon launched into space was a colossal embarrassment for NASA. As the dust settled and reality set in, officials at the space agency were left with the daunting task of deciding what to do next. Their first and most immediate decision was to keep the entire ordeal under wraps. They believed that the less the public knew about Ramon's accidental journey, the better.
Behind closed doors, a sense of hopelessness hung heavily at NASA. "The technical glitch" that had propelled a maintenance man into space was a problem they had never anticipated. They realized they had no immediate means of retrieving Ramon from his unexpected voyage. The sheer magnitude of the error left them speechless.
Meanwhile, Ramon was in awe at the views he saw through the craft's windows.
"Yo, Houston! Que pasa? This is Captain Ramon Hernandez! Haha! You can call me Captain from now on, right? Check this out! Ave María purísima! I can see Mexico from up here! Oh, can you do me a favor, Ese? Hey! Call my wife and tell her I won't be home for dinner tonight! Seriously. Tell her I had to go to the moon on a secret mission or something. Haha! Oh, and also, I need someone to water my chilis! They won't survive without me!"
Back at Mission Control, McDavid rubbed his temples as if trying to erase the nightmare unfolding before him magically.
"Did he just ask us to water his chilis?" he muttered incredulously to his colleagues.
"Captain, um, Hernandez," McDavid said, clearing his throat, "Yeah, um … we're going to try to figure out how to get you back. You should be concerned about that, too, you know?"
"Oh, I'm not worried, amigo. You know how they say, 'What goes up must come down.' That's physics for you! Now, is there a manual around here somewhere? Or maybe even a YouTube tutorial? Oh, wait, no Wi-Fi, huh?”
"You could try the glove compartment," someone at Mission Control sarcastically suggested, getting some eye rolls and a few chuckles.
"I'll have you know, I once built a whole gazebo using a three-page IKEA manual, so I think I can handle this," Ramon chuckled as he rummaged around the cabin, accidentally pressing a couple more buttons, which changed the lighting inside the capsule to a disco-ball effect.
"Oh, nice! Party mode! Ay, caramba, all we need now is some Selena music!"
McDavid was a step away from pulling out his hair. He sighed deeply and turned to his team, "Alright, folks, assemble our best minds. We'll need a very elaborate plan to get um … Mr. Hernandez back safely. And I mean safely. We already have an international incident on our hands; let's not turn it into a tragedy."
While the boffins at NASA scrambled to figure out a recovery mission for their accidental astronaut, Ramon was floating effortlessly in the cockpit, munching on some freeze-dried tacos he had found among the rations.
"Hmm, not bad! Needs some salsa, though. Hey, picture this: Ramon’s Moonbeam Tacos, si or no? Call the President, man! See if he wants to send all the Mexicans to the moon! Turn the Sea of Tranquility into like a Taco Haven, no?"
The communication channel crackled back to life, and McDavid's voice was tinged with urgency. "Ramon, are you listening? We at NASA want to thank you for injecting fun into the situation. But we’re dealing with a serious … “
“I get it! I screwed up! Just chill out!”
“We will try to guide you through some procedures to stabilize the spacecraft. Can you focus?"
"I can fly this baby by the seat of my pants!"
"Seat of your pants or not, let's not test our luck more than we have to," McDavid responded with a slight chuckle. "First, we need to adjust your orbital parameters. You will manually engage the Orbital Maneuvering System—OMS—for a corrective delta-V burn."
"Delta-what-now?" Ramon joked, scanning the control panel in front of him. "Ah, here we are. OMS button glowing like a Christmas tree."
"Exactly. Initiate a prograde burn for 4.5 seconds. That should give you a slight boost along your orbital path to circularize your trajectory," instructed McDavid.
"Prograde burn. 4.5 seconds. Man, you make it sound like I'm reheating leftovers in a microwave," Ramon quipped as he initiated the burn.
The telemetry data showed the spacecraft's velocity increasing steadily. "We have a good burn. The trajectory looks more circular," announced Ellen, the flight dynamics officer.
"Great. Now, to ensure that you remain in a stable orbit, we need to calibrate the gyroscopes. Navigate to the 'Stabilization' submenu in your control interface," McDavid continued.
"Stabilization submenu got it! Yeah, yeah, yeah, looks like my mom's old TV remote," Ramon said, pressing buttons with a newfound confidence.
“Select 'Gyroscope Calibration.' The onboard computer will start the automated sequence. Your role is just to monitor and confirm the calibrations."
"Call a Mexican to get the job done right! You feel me, Houston! Haha! Engaging Gyroscope Calibration. Ah, this old spinny thing is doing its dance, Ese," Ramon reported, eyes flicking over the readouts.
"Excellent. You're doing great, Ramon. I mean, Captain Hernandez. Now, listen carefully. We need to minimize fuel consumption and unnecessary torque, all right? Therefore, we will deactivate any non-essential reaction wheels. Go to the 'Power Management' section and toggle off 'Reaction Wheel 3' and 'Reaction Wheel 4.'"
"Deactivating non-essential wheels. Are we going green or what?" Ramon chuckled, carrying out the command.
"We're going efficient, which I guess is a shade of green," McDavid answered, smiling. "Now, confirm that your Orbital Stability Indicator has changed from amber to green."
"Orbital Stability Indicator is green. And not the Hulk kind," Ramon relayed, his voice tinged with relief and disbelief.
The team in Mission Control erupted in cheers. "We did it. Ganymede's orbit is stable," Ellen confirmed as she looked at the orbital parameters on her screen.
"Great work, Ramon! You might be flying by the seat of your pants, but you've got a whole team of experts stitched into the fabric," McDavid said, the relief palpable in his voice.
"I told you I got this! Teamwork makes the dream work, baby!" Ramon replied, echoing the sentiment.
Indeed, miraculously, and with considerable expert guidance from Houston, Ramon had managed to stabilize Ganymede's orbit, further solidifying his unlikely yet unforgettable role in space history.
"Okay, Ramon, you're temporarily stable. We're going to be working on a recovery plan for you, but it's going to take some time."
"Take your time! No rush. And by the way, if I encounter aliens up here, I’m going to give them citizenship. If that’s cool with you guys.”
End of part one
© Michael Arturo, 2025
Michael Arturo is a playwright, screenwriter, and fiction author who also writes random essays on social and political issues. He was born and raised in New York City. His plays have been produced in New York, London, Boston, and LA. He also created the Double Espresso Web Series from 2010 to 2014.
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