I shook my bus, "No. It's not one of my propellants."

"Well, what are yours?"

"Mono-uh, monomethylhydrazine, and...uhhh...dinitrogen tetroxide."

"Stars, that's a lot to remember. How's it taste?"

"I haven't tried it yet."

"Ah, well, do ya think they have it here?"

I shrugged, "Maybe? I hope."

He moved his canister to the side, "Well, it probably isn't common where I came from in Gilbert."

"How, uh, how was your old cleanroom?"

"Well, it was big, but even then like a lot of spacecraft, had to share it."

"Oh, with who?"

"JPSS-2. We didn't do much, though. Just kind of co-existed peacefully."

"Er, what was it like outside, though?"

"Gilbert's kind of like here, except way more flat, way hotter, way sunnier, and either buildings or desert. I didn't really get to see much beyond the garden they gave me, or a "backyard" as we used to call it."

"Oh, sorry to hear."

"Ah, it wasn't much, heh. Like I said, sunny climate makes for a nice place for botany. The heat wasn't stardust, and with the sun out there I had all of the energy in the universe to work on the garden and do some landscaping on the side."

"How'd it feel to get the energy onto your solar panels?"

He sipped from the canister, "Made me feel like I was in orbit with all of that sunlight. It was a good way to tell if my photovoltaics were working."

"And you get that all from one solar array?"

"Sure. It's not like I'm going to Mars. What about you? I hear there ain't much sunlight over there at Jupiter."

"Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to have pretty big solar arrays on both of my sides, so, you could imagine."

"So, how do you get your power right now?"

"Oh, the engineers gave me these little solar-powered batteries attached on the sides. They're just there giving me power until my solar arrays arrive, when they do." I tilted my body so he could see one of the batteries.

"Oooh, smart."

"So, uh, when are you going up in orbit?" I rested my hands on the table.

He opened his chips, "December. Going to Low Earth Orbit. Maybe Eight will come and greet me up there."
"Not a lot of spacecraft up at Jupiter. Atleast I don't think."

"All I remember is Galileo, and then Juno. You shouldn't have anything to worry about, ya hear? They're JPL spacecraft, so if anything, ya got a little history to rely on. And plus, I did hear about another mission from another continent going to Jupiter, so who knows?"

I smiled, "Yeah..."

I looked at his chips, "Hey, uhm...could I have some, please?"

"Sure thing!" He handed me the bag. I took one chip out from it and ate it.

"Oh, it tastes pretty good!"

"Glad ya like it. It's, heh, it's not really my thing, so, you can have it."

"Are you positive?"

"Absolutely. I can just get another bag, it's nothing." He stood up and walked on over to the counter, thought it out for a few seconds, and walked around a table to get back over here.

He opened the bag and took a chip out, "There we go. Used to have this all the time back in Arizona." He ate the chip.

"Were the other Landsats built in Arizona?"

"Y'know, I don't actually know. We go a long way back...1972, if I remember correctly. I guess a lot of history more or less faded over time, or they just weren't all that public about it."

"Did you all look the same?"

"Nah, nah, One doesn't look like me at all. Actually none of them look like me except Eight, and actually it's me who looks like her, hah!" He tipped his payload hat back up.

"So...what's on your hat?"

"Pardon?"

"Your hat..? Or, er, uhm, payload..."

"Ohh!" He swivelled it up and down with his hand, "OLI-2 and TIRS-2."

"What are they?"

"Imaging sensors, optical and infrared. What about ya, what kind of instruments do ya got?"

I thought about it for a moment, "Er, well, I'm supposed to have a magnetometer, and one or two spectrometers, and uh, obviously an imaging instrument, of course."

"Oohh, a magnetometer. Don't y'all have to put those on booms?"

"Yeah. Mine's supposed to be super long."

"They've really set you up to be a space explorer, haven't they?"

"I guess so, is-is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Is a clear sky a good launch condition? Listen, I ain't anything close to an interplanetary spacecraft, but I'll tell ya what, Jupiter's got nothing against ya. It ain't just your payload, your solar arrays, or your size. Whatever they did for Galileo and Juno here, they're gonna do for ya. Whatever they did to make them the few, pioneering Jovian orbiters that plenty of spacecraft know, they're gonna do for ya. Heck, there were even the Pioneer probes that flew by Jupiter, and they're also JPL! Tell me that doesn't get your fuel lines flowing with motivation. You're almost literally following their trajectory!"

That was the first deep smile I had on my face, "Thank you, Nine."

He nodded back, "My pleasure."