Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | 2025 Truth Endures©
Title: “The Accidental Astronaut”
Ever since he was a boy, Walter Finch had dreamed of the stars. His bedroom ceiling was a galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stickers. His shelves sagged under the weight of space encyclopedias and toy rockets. He knew the names of every astronaut in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. He rattled off orbital mechanics faster than most people recite the alphabet.
There was just one problem.
Walter was terrified of heights.
Not just a little scared. Walter once got stuck on the third rung of a ladder while changing a light bulb. He had to call his neighbor for help. Airplanes? Never. Ferris wheels? A hard no. Balconies on tall buildings? He’d get dizzy just thinking about them.
So he buried his dreams of space travel beneath layers of rationalization. He became an aerospace technician—close enough to the action to feel involved, far enough from the edge to stay sane. Walter worked at the Johnson Space Center. There, he meticulously maintained spacecraft control panels. He also tested simulators and occasionally got to polish a real rocket capsule.
One evening, Walter had a particularly long day prepping a decommissioned capsule for a museum display. He climbed inside to double-check the switches. The interior was warm, quiet, and oddly comforting. He sat back in the pilot’s chair, which had once held real astronauts, and closed his eyes momentarily.
He fell asleep.
And the world moved on.
Somehow, through a wild and improbable series of events, Walter’s capsule encountered several issues. These included miscommunication, a sudden schedule change, and a very distracted launch coordinator. The capsule had been quietly reassigned to a last-minute uncrewed test mission. It was rolled onto the launchpad, sealed, and prepped for liftoff.
Walter awoke to the unmistakable rumble beneath him.
At first, he thought it was a dream. Then, the countdown began.
“Ten… nine…”
Panic hit like a tidal wave. He tried shouting, but the thick insulation swallowed his voice.
“Eight… seven…”
He fumbled with the comm system, but it was already rerouted for the launch.
“Six… five…”
By four, he was crying. At two, he was frozen. And at zero…
The world disappeared.
The force of the launch pinned him to his seat. His breath was ripped from his lungs. His heart pounded like a jackhammer. He blacked out for a second—maybe more.
When he came to, everything was quiet. No more rumble. No more fear.
Just space.
Black velvet studded with stars stretched infinitely beyond the small porthole. The Earth, a swirling marble of blue and green, floated beneath him. The capsule drifted peacefully, like a leaf on the wind.
Walter laughed.
It wasn’t fear anymore. It was a wonder. It was a joy.
For the first time in his life, Walter Finch wasn’t afraid of heights—because there was no height. There was only the infinite.
Mission Control eventually figured out what had happened. There was some yelling, some panicking, and a lot of paperwork.
But by then, Walter had already made history. He was the first untrained man to make it to orbit and back. This was achieved entirely by accident.
They brought him down safely and even gave him a medal. Someone suggested a movie deal. He just smiled and looked up.
From that day on, Walter Finch wasn’t the man afraid of ladders anymore. He was the man who slept his way into space—and found courage among the stars.
And now and then, late at night, he’d climb up to the roof of his house. He would lay on his back and stare at the sky.
He didn’t feel small anymore.
He felt infinite.
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