Meanwhile, the HariAnne rocket was on the launch pad down on Earth in French Guiana.
"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one," said the male voice in French from the loudspeakers.
The HariAnne's engines fired, and it lifted off the pad.
The HariAnne rocket ascended upward into the sky.
Back at the Oval Office of the White House, President Barnaby stood and stared at the wall of TVs. They showed the HariAnne rocket while it ascended into the sky. He got depressed!
He stomped his feet like a little kid, not getting his way, then moped back to his desk.
Forty minutes later, up in space on top of the asteroid, Todd, Ricky, and Scoota were all sound asleep.
The Space Buggy hovered nearby with a lanyard hooked to space junk. It was tranquil up in space.
The asteroid shook with a loud bam, and the buggy swayed around.
Todd, Ricky, and Scoota woke up in a panic, and then it was quiet.
The asteroid shook with another loud bam, and the buggy swayed around again.
They all stood up and looked around, and then it was quiet again.
The asteroid shook again with another loud bam, and the Space Buggy swayed. They fell on their butts.
It was quiet, so they stood up and looked around.
Something caught Todd's attention over at the edge.
Todd got out of the bed of the Space Buggy. He climbed and walked over space junk to the asteroid's edge.
Ricky and Scoota noticed Todd while he headed to the asteroid's edge.
"Where are you going?" Ricky asked.
"There's something over the edge," Todd replied.
Scoota and Ricky walked and climbed space junk after Todd.
Todd walked and climbed to the edge, where he got on his knees. He held onto a piece of space junk and leaned over the edge.
"Oh, no!" Todd cried out. He saw one of the space station's solar arrays was stuck to a piece of space junk at the bottom of the asteroid.
Ricky and Scoota walked up behind Todd.
"What's wrong?" Ricky asked.
"The space station is stuck to the bottom of the asteroid," Todd replied.
Ricky looked worried after hearing that news.
Scoota also looked worried. He knew what the space station was and thought it was crude technology.
Audible alarms blared with flashing lights on the main console of the Multinational Space Station.
"Oh, Crap! Oh, Crap! Oh, Crap!" went an audible alarm with a female-generated voice.
The audible alarms and flashing lights repeated.
Buck and Natasha floated into the control room. They worried about what danger the alarms were informing them of.
Natasha floated over to the main console and flipped two switches. The audible alarm and flashing lights stopped.
Natasha and Buck scanned over the gauges on the console. They looked baffled at each other when everything looked normal.
"What could be wrong?" Natasha asked Buck.
"I don't know, but alarms don't lie," Buck said while he floated to a monitor on another console.
He flipped a couple of switches.
He moved a joystick around.
Natasha floated over to Buck. They stared at the monitor. Buck moved the joystick and performed a visual scan outside the space station.
"Everything looks nominal," Buck said while he scanned outside the station. He looked at another gage and got concerned.
"We're dropping to a lower orbit," he said.
"What? How's that possible?" Natasha replied while she floated over to Buck.
Buck used the camera joystick to view outside the space station on the monitor.
Their eyes widened in fear seeing one of their solar arrays' stuck to space junk underneath the asteroid.
Down on Earth at the Space Spy agency Peek A Boo We See You room, Johnson panicked at his radar screen, seeing the asteroid blob over top of the space station.
The "Space Station Dropping To Lower Orbit" message flashed on the screen. "Space Station And Asteroid To Impact Earth In Four Days" message also flashed.
"Wilbur!" Johnson screamed.
Two minutes later, Wilbur ran over with his Maalox bottle in hand, and he looked at the radar screen. His eyes widened in fear while he opened up his Maalox and swallowed a gulp.
He picked up the phone on Johnson's console and made a call.
"Richard. Wilbur here. We have another situation," he said.
At Mission Control, Kara worked at her console.
"This is Mission Control Magellan five. Do you read me Magellan five," Kara said into the microphone. She prayed she would hear a radio transmission from them. She didn't hear a peep.
"Oh, no!" Jack, another controller, cried out from his console in the row in front of Kara.
She removed her headset and ran over to Jack's console. His index finger trembled while pointing to his monitor. It showed the space station stuck to the bottom of the asteroid.
"Howard!" Kara screamed out.
Howard ran over and looked at Jack's monitor, and fear set in his eyes. He grabbed a phone on Jack's console and made a phone call, but he got a busy signal.
At Richard's office in NASA headquarters, Richard sat at his desk with his mouth dropped open in shock. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. We revalidated the information. The space station and the asteroid will impact Earth in four days," Wilbur said over his phone.
Richard hung up the phone. He looked at his red phone and didn't want to make that call, but he knew it was his job. He picked up the red phone.
"Mister President, we have another situation," he said into the phone.
Later that day, in the Oval Office of the White House, President Barnaby stared at the wall of TVs from his desk. He couldn't believe his eyes seeing the live footage of the space station's solar array stuck to space junk underneath the asteroid.
All the leaders are on TV. They looked scared to death while watching the live footage from their country.
"You now have the space station and asteroid slamming into Earth simultaneously? We have no choice but to nuke it!" the Chinese Presided said.
On the TVs, Russia agreed, while other leaders pondered that proposal, as it might be the only hope.
President Barnaby stood up, furious, from his desk.
"Don't! You'll kill four people plus an alien. And we can't risk his planet racing to earth and destroying us!" President Barnaby yelled out.
"We will be destroyed!" the Chinese President yelled back from his TV and sprayed spit on his monitor. A Chinese girl rushed up into view and wiped the monitor clean. She rushed back out of sight.
"My cosmonaut will sacrifice herself for the world. So, I agree to nuke!" the Russian President added from his TV.
"Our superior engine can handle the extra weight of the space station, no worries," the French President said from his TV.
On the TVs, the rest of the leaders thought about the discussions, and then all the TVs went blank.
President Barnaby got up from behind his desk and paced around the room, frustrated.
In Mission Control, the room was utter chaos. The controllers looked at the live footage of the space station stuck to the bottom of the asteroid.
They looked at their consoles. They flipped switches, turned knobs, and reviewed their emergency procedures. They couldn't find any procedure covering this scenario. They tossed their procedures in the air in frustration.
They didn't have a clue on how to free the space station.
Hours have passed since it became known about the dangerous dilemma of the space station.
Over at the Space Spy Agency Peek A Boo We See You room, Johnson looked scared at his console when it flashed an updated message. "Wilbur," he screamed.
Wilbur ran over scared with a fresh Maalox bottle in hand.
He looked at the radar screen. He noticed the Earth symbol with the asteroid blob with a line connected to a space station symbol. A dotted line went from the space station down to Earth. "Asteroid 19,128 MILES Per Hour - 225 Miles From Earth – Fewer Days Left Until Death And Destruction" message flashed.
"Wilbur, the asteroid is two hundred and twenty-five miles away," Johnson screamed.
Wilbur opened up his Maalox bottle and gulped down the entire contents. His hand shook while he picked up the red phone. Maalox dropped off his chin and splattered on the floor.
"Richard, Wilbur here. We got updated news," Wilbur said into the phone.
Later that day, at the conference room in NASA Headquarters, Richard sat at the table with Jennifer, Quinton, and many other NASA folks.
Everybody was in deep thought as they stared at the TV on the wall.
On the wall TV, Buck and Natasha floated in the space station while they had their video conference.
“Sorry, Richard, but our lanyards are too short for us to reach the top of the solar array," Natasha said from the TV. Buck nodded in agreement with her analysis.
Richards looked frustrated. "Does anybody have any suggestions? Anything?" he asked and looked at everybody at the table.
All the NASA folks shook their heads as they didn't have a single clue.
"Quinton, can the engines designed to fly the asteroid fly it away with the space station attached?" Richard asked.
"Are you suggesting that we fly away with the asteroid?" Buck cried out, nervous about the TV.
Richard thought about what he said for a few seconds. "I guess we don't have a choice," he said.
Quinton did some figuring in his head. "The engines will not handle the additional weight of the space station. It might keep it from falling to Earth until it runs out of fuel after three hours," Quinton said.
Richard banged his forehead on the table in frustration.
Up in space on top of the asteroid around the middle section, Todd, Ricky, and Scoota sat in deep thought inside the Space Buggy. They pondered their dilemma.
"With the extra weight of the space station, the asteroid must be dropping to Earth a little faster," Todd said.
"Don't you have earthlings living inside that place? Can't they do something?" Scoota asked.
"They could spacewalk and cut the junk away. But ladders on the solar array are too short, and they can't reach the bottom of the asteroid," Todd added. All those years of studying space stuff gave him a good understanding of the space station's design.
Scoota thought for a minute; then, his eyes lit up. "Why don't we cut the junk away?"
Todd and Ricky looked at Scoota in disbelief at what he suggested.
"What?" Todd asked. "How?" Ricky added.
Scoota removed his Ginsu-looking knife from his spacesuit pocket. "We go underneath and cut it away," Scoota said.
Ricky looked nervous, as he was still terrified of heights.
"But you only have one Ginsu-looking,” Todd said.
Scoota smiled while removing two other Ginsu– looking knives from another pocket from his suit.
"We believe in triple redundancy," Scoota said while holding up three knives.
Scoota handed them each a Ginsu-looking knife.
They all shoved them in a pocket on their suits.
"But how do we get underneath without falling?" Ricky said. He started trembling, scared about the thought of hanging underneath the asteroid with only the Earth and the space station below his boots.
Scoota thought for a few minutes while he figured out a safe way to perform this rescue task. Then his eyes lit up with an idea. He smiled as he held up a roll of Duct tape. "We can make a lanyard," he suggested.
Todd nodded in agreement. Ricky looked nervous.