The Madness of Mission 6


I’m not usually a big fan of Threadless, at least not in the last couple of years, but this one’s too great not to point out: The Madness of Mission 6. The backstory, from the creator’s submission entry:

In 1976, Cosmonaut Nikolai Peckmann was sent alone to an orbiting space station for what would be called Mission Six- to study the radiation levels and strange circumstances that killed all four crewmen of the last research mission.

By the third day, Peckmann’s broken transmissions were coming back to ground control filled with increasing paranoia and delusion. He claimed that the spirits of the dead cosmonauts were coming to claim him, and that he had to keep moving to evade them. He shouted that if he could capture consume these spirits himself while he still had strength, he could move to the next level of consciousness…

Truly the rantings of an insane man. Indeed, video recovered later would show Peckmann running around the confined but maze-like station, downing emergency sedatives like a madman….pausing in a corner momentarily, only to throw back vitamin pills and give chase to his invisible demons.

He had exhausted the entire cargo of vitamins, pills, and fresh fruit well ahead of schedule. There was no way another crew could be assembled to rescue him before he starved. After one rather violently garbled transmission, the static cleared and the last live image on record is that of Peckmann’s empty, wilted spacesuit on the cabin floor.

(via Global Nerdy.)


4 responses to “The Madness of Mission 6”

  1. That is just great. I didn’t actually catch on until the last line of the story with the wilted spaceship, and then it clicked in. I love it!

  2. I read this before bed and went “ugh, that’s creepy as hell”…

    Just got it now, but not until clicking through to the other sites. I’m really on the ball today! :-)