Na'ima's grandchildren were already reaching retirement age when the planet-web sent the news of the Earths' first human mission to Pluto.
Humanity had been waiting over a hundred years for the icy world to be close enough and
[relatively] warm enough for the mission. It was so momentous that there was an actual antique ticker-tape parade through Fort Lee (which was the closest available dry land to the old New York city).
Wu Chen had gotten the news only a week before that he'd been selected to take command of the mission. This due to the fact that he'd been the only one to come back alive from Titan. Despite the disastrousness of that trip, he often allowed himself a few minutes of daydreaming for the old days of monkeying around near Saturn. Back then being an astronaut was still a big thing. You had to be brave enough to risk your life separated from cold vacuum by a few inches of metal and foam, but not so brave as to be a psych risk. He remembered wondering at how enormous Saturn looked through the viewport and how much it had humbled him.
With a sigh he yanked himself back to the present evaluation forms. Instead of gazing at the great rings now, he had a slightly larger viewport showing Alpha Centuri. The base under the surface of Montes Agricola at Far Side ran much like the ancient submarines of Earth's oceans. The quarters were cramped, the colors drab, and the food mediocre. The only good thing about it was the mandatory skylight that he got to enjoy as a lunar resident. He took a few minutes away from the screen to rest his brain. Letting his eyes loose focus, he calmly gazed at the wall screen image of the great stupa at Sanchi. This was the only part of his day that brought him a sense of deep relaxation.
Chen had always been a serious and hard-working pilot, but he still wondered for the thousandth time, what the United Worlds Space Agency saw in him. Sure he was a good pilot, but now he'd be the sole person responsible for a whole crew, and with even more risk involved then the Titan mission. Despite the lunar gravity, he felt the weight of this mission bear as heavily as the gravity pads that he kept stored in the rec space.