Mission Mars: How to Get into the Space Program (Book 1): Make it to the On-site Testing (Part 1): (Chapter 1)

    

 "Plants Discovered on Mars", the headline read. What??? I raced to tell my best friend, John, the news. John and I wanted to apply to the astronaut training program, but we weren't sure if we would be able to get in. My brother, Asher, had already applied the year before, but had been sent home on the second day. right now, Asher is helping John and me train. We only have a month left before it is time to apply online. The online application is to decide who gets to actually go to the training school for tests to see if we qualify. That is why John and I spend all our free time training.

    I headed over to John's house, where we trained together. Asher and John were already there. 

    "Have you heard the news?", I asked them.

    "No, what news?", Asher and John asked.

    "The news about the plants they discovered on Mars. Now, the astronaut training school will be more popular than ever.", I told them.

    Asher, always the no nonsense person said, "We better get started then." And that was the end of the discussion on the plants for now. I knew that we would get to that in the science portion of our training later.

    We always started with physical training. Then, we moved onto emotional training and then science and math training. It was a very hard schedule, but Asher was sure that it was the only way we would have a shot at making it into the training program and eventually making it onto Mars. The problem is that this is the dream for most high schoolers. This makes it a very competitive, so we will need to train a lot.

    To begin our physical training, Asher led us in some stretching and other warm-up exercises. Next, he led us through exercises targeted to increase our flexibility muscular endurance, muscular strength, and cardio-respiratory endurance. After that, we did our cool-down exercises. Finally, we analyzed the data that we recorded to see how we were doing. We were both improving, but not as much as Asher would have liked. (If you haven't figured out by now, Asher has very high expectations for John and me.) That was the end our physical training.

    Next up was, our emotional training. Many people didn't train their emotions, but Asher always reminded us that it was very important. Many people, included him had been sent home for not being able to control their emotions. It was more just being able to stay positive and keep a growth mindset. It was about being able to deny all of our wants and needs to solely focus on our goals. Of course, our goal was to to get into the space program. After we got into the space program, we would have to be selected to go to Mars. Finally, we would actually have to make it into space and onto Mars. On Mars, we would likely establish a colony and do a lot of research. We would have to give up a lot of different things to make it to Mars. We would not be able to have a family, do many of the things that young people do for fun, eat the foods that we wanted to, or choose much of anything in our lives. We also would lose regular contact with out family, which disappointed Asher, but he was still willing to help us. We did a lot of emotional exercises and decision making to train ourselves. That was our mental health training.

    The last step of our training was math and science, since we would have to take tests on these topics before we would have to take tests on these topics before we could even go to try being at the space training program. I was better at math and John was better at science, so we both helped each other. The way that the tests worked that only people who scored in the top 20% for both of the tests would pass. We took tests every week to measure our progress, but as always Asher wasn't satisfied. that was the end of our math and science training. 

About Mission Moon:

Mission Mars is a four part book series written by the Makes Tech Team. (Not all of the books have been written yet.) They will slowly be released over time on the Yo Makes Blog. The four books are called: "How to Get into the Space Training Program", "How to be Selected to go to Mars", "How to Get to Mars", and "What to do on Mars?". It is the story of two best friends Mike and John and how they want to go to Mars. You follow them through their journey. The ups and downs of being an astronaut that ultimately makes it onto Mars.

About "How to Get into the Space Program": 

"How to Get into the Space Program" is the first book of the series Mission Mars. It follows Mike and John as they begin their quest to make it to Mars. They will need to be accepted into the Space Training Program. It is a lot work to be accepted, since that is the dream of most high schoolers. The book is narrated by Mike and is divided into two parts. The two parts are "Make it to the On-site Testing" and "Pass the Tests to get Accepted".

About "Make it to the On-site Testing":

"Make it to the On-site Testing" is the first part of the book "How to Get into the Space Program". It talks about Mike and John's journey as they need to fill out the online application to make it to the on-site testing. They log on every day to see if they passed the day before and complete the day's challenge. Along the way, there are many ups, downs, scares, surprises, and unknowns. Finally, to top it off, know-it-all, Asher (John's older brother) helps them along the way. The problem is that Asher pushes them very hard to be the best that they can be.