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But running had lost its appeal for him in college. Nevertheless, when he applied to NASA, he took it up again, dragging himself two or three miles three times a week, and learned to appreciate the endorphin high, and the pounds that melted from his waistline. But he never liked it.
    Then there were the hours and travel, which were tough on his marriage to Megan and his relationship with Rachel. If it wasn’t weeks in Arizona, simulating lunar EVAs, it was more time in Nevada working with the rover and various trips to the Cape. Even ordinary work days at the Johnson Space Center started early and ran late.
    Another burden was dealing with the e-mails, the phone calls, the autograph hounds, the casual encounters Zack faced whenever he did something as mundane as go to a McDonald’s drive-through or rent a car.
    And the press conferences.
    “Are we ready?” Scott Shawler, a chubby young man who happened to be Kennedy Space Center’s public affairs officer for Destiny-5 , had finished rearranging microphones and running tests on the huge video screen behind the rostrum.
    “Will it matter if we say no?” Zack smiled as his crewmates laughed. Shawler was too nervous for humor, however. Zack had to give him a reassuring nod of his head.
    Shawler’s hands shook, but his voice was strong as he said, “Okay, good morning, everyone! Welcome to the NASA Kennedy Space Center and the L-minus-six event—”
    In spite of the preparations, the first words from the PAO disappeared in a squeal of feedback. The reporters in casual polo shirts plastered to their skin by heat and humidity literally flinched. “Christ,” Tea Nowinski snapped, not bothering to hide her annoyance, an unusual outburst for the leggy, beautiful astronaut. “Can’t you guys handle basic comm?”
    “Sorry!” Shawler blushed and reflexively put his hand over the microphone. “Let’s try this again . . .” While Shawler and another member of his team rebalanced the audio, Zack looked at the man seated between him and Shawler, an African American man in his late fifties, who was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie—all too hot and heavy for the circumstances. Gabe Jones overcompensating again. He was the most nakedly emotional official Zack had ever met . . . capable of tearing up at the most basic expression of tragedy, or, his specialty, the wonders of space exploration. So he armored himself with formal clothing.
    Shawler was finally ready. “I’d like to introduce Dr. Gabriel Jones, director of the Johnson Space Center . . . chief astronaut Shane Weldon, and astronauts Zack Stewart, Tea Nowinski, Mark Koskinen and Geoff Lyle. Ladies and gentlemen, the crew of Destiny-5 , the first piloted lunar landing mission of the twenty-first century!”
    There was a surprising amount of applause. It swelled to an actual roar and went on so long that Weldon, sitting to Zack’s left, tilted his smooth round head and said, “Maybe y’all should quit while you’re ahead.” Zack had always been bemused by Weldon, who was three years younger but had the manner of a man a decade his senior.
    “Ah, as all of you can see,” Shawler continued, stammering, “the Saturn VII carrying the Venture lunar surface activity module is scheduled for launch next Monday afternoon at twelve forty-two P.M. Eastern Daylight Time. Once it has completed one orbit, Destiny-5 will follow with the second launch. Weather is expected to be good . . .”
    As Shawler droned through his boilerplate text, Zack glanced at the three astronauts to his right, all of them wearing the same sky-blue polo-style shirts with the Destiny-5 logo. The three of them had so much in common—hell, they were all within four years of each other in age—and had spent thousands of hours working as team since their assignment in December 2015. For a moment, however, they looked to Zack like strangers.
    He turned to the people facing him . . . the usual mix of veteran reporters and ambitious