Brett Lockwood, first astronaut on Earth, finds himself inexplicably out of contact with the rest of the mission astronauts and with Earth.
It was the Mars atmospheric anomaly that resurrected the planetary and deep-space exploration programs from the ashes of oblivian.

Variants

(1)
  1. “Reentry Window” by Eric Tozzi, in Synchronic: 13 Tales of Time Travel (edited by David Gatewood, David Gatewood) May 2014.
  2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Eric Tozzi