17 November 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2924: pure but…

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews

“OK, but that's not how space travel works, y'all – you can't get there from here even in terms of cars and rocket fuel. When Gracie said we don't have enough horses in the world for that much horsepower, she was right.”

“Yeah, but, Dad, she's a girl and they don't know about this.”

“I would deal with that, Dad, but, you got this.”

Sgt. Vincent Trent was taking his turn talking about physics, rockets, and warp drive with the 12 children under 12 years old that included his three youngest Gracie (8), Milton (9), and Velma (11). Their cousin Vertran Stepforth (9) was filming it, and the eight Ludlows Lil Robert (5), Grayson (6), Amanda (7), Edwina (8), Milton's best friend George (9), Glendella (10), Andrew (10), and Eleanor (11) were mostly listening.

Milton had messed up and made that comment about his baby sister Gracie just being a girl, and Gracie had looked at him in a way that let her Ludlow friends know Milton was going to be sorry about that – but for the time being, Sgt. Trent continued.

“So, fuels are made of different kinds of things, and you can only get so much out of them in terms of combustion – how much energy they can put through an engine. Gasoline is great for cars and minivans, but that's not going to get a jet off the ground, and the fuel that gets a jet off the ground won't get a rocket into orbit.”

“So, we were never going to get the minivan airborne,” Milton said.

“Oh, you could have, and that's the other problem,” Sgt. Trent said. “How much stress is your vehicle designed to endure? The minivan can go airborne because it can hit the lower speeds it takes for a small plane to take off … but what is that landing going to look like?”

“Oh, yeah, it's like in car races – some of those cars get airborne in accidents, but the landings are not pretty,” Andrew said.

“Anywhere from 80-200 miles an hour is enough,” Sgt. Trent said. “Cars and vans are aerodynamic enough to hit a bump and take off, but unless they land just right, you are going to die.”

“Oh,” Vertran's 16-year-old brother Tom Stepforth said. “That's why you needed me out of the van.”

“Exactly, Tom,” Sgt. Trent said. “First, what you don't know will kill you. Second, your father and I are going to take you to get your own car soon so that if you feel the need to wreck something, you don't do it in our vehicles. Third, my attitude with my sons your cousins Melvin and Milton is the same attitude I take with you my nephew. If anything of mine is going to kill you, that's going to be me, because I'll leave your body in good condition for the funeral. Gravity and physics don't care. I do.”

“Whoa,” the four Ludlow boys all said.

“I've been telling y'all that my dad is as hard core as your grandfather,” Velma said, “but see, y'all and Milton both don't get it.”

“I'm kinda getting it,” Milton said. “It's getting clearer all the time.”

“Back to the fuel question: rocket fuel is made of different things than gasoline, although they have a common aspect: methane,” Sgt. Trent said. “But for rockets, methane is mixed with liquid oxygen.”

“Wait, what? Liquid oxygen?” Eleanor said.

“The stuff we breathe is rocket fuel?” Grayson said.

“No, we breathe about 70 percent nitrogen, 20 percent oxygen, and a bunch of other gases,” Sgt. Trent said. “Air is a safe way to handle having oxygen all around us. There's no other safe way. Fires feed off oxygen as it is – pure oxygen is a whole different situation.”

“So .. it's pure, but … it has a worse temper than Upgrade Papa when my Grumps called him and threatened to shut y'all's company down?” Glendella said.

Sgt. Trent considered this.

“Capt. Ludlow has principles,” he said. “Oxygen doesn't care.”

“Well, that's really dangerous,” Glendella said. “Upgrade Papa basically destroyed Grumps with a laugh and a few pieces of paper. If he was oxygen … yeah, that's really dangerous.”

“But that's what makes it so great when mixed with methane for rocket fuel,” Sgt. Trent said. “But then you have to consider that you still have to build a vehicle to deal with the stress of taking off and landing for a space ship. And that's just for getting to and from Earth, which takes at least going at 17,000 miles an hour. But, let's say you get up to a bit over 25,000 miles per hour to escape Earth's gravity. Great? What's next? The Moon? Yes, humanity has done that a bunch of times, but the Moon is still orbiting the Earth. Venus? Twenty-five million miles away at the closest!”

“Uh oh,” Andrew said. “That's a thousand hours of travel.”

“Never mind that Venus is too hot to land on,” Sgt. Trent said. “Who wants to be grounded for 42 days and then not even be able to go out and play after?”

“Wait a minute – I thought you said it was just a thousand hours!” George said.

“He's right though,” Grayson said.”There's 24 hours in a day, and 42 days is 40 times 24 hours plus 2 times 24 hours so it's 960 plus 48 and that's 1,008 hours.”

Everybody stared at six-year-old Grayson until five-year-old Lil' Robert spoke up.

“And no drive-throughs to stop for snacks? – nope, I'm out,” he said.

“Yeah, the real problems on road trips – when there's nowhere good to stop for snacks,” Edwina said.

“Which kinda gets to why we can't build a warp drive on Miguel Alcubierre's model,” Sgt. Trent said. “We don't have anywhere to put enough warp field generators out there even in the Solar System, and we don't have any way to build an internal combustion engine that could stand the stresses even if we had the fuel, which we don't. You were right, too, Tom – we can't do the engineering.”

“Well, there's no point anyway – ain't nobody going on a 42-day space trip and there's no place to stop for snacks!” Milton said.

“Yep, that really is the end of all our space travel ideas – I see why we haven't been visited by aliens yet, because why would you even do that with no snack stops?” George said.

“Thanks for clearing all that up for us, Rob,” Sgt. Trent said with a smile.

“It's no problem, see, because, it's like Papa always says,” said Lil' Robert. “You gotta keep the main thing the main thing!”

“Yep,” Sgt. Trent said, his smile widening. “Definitely.”