I do not remember how it got into my head to make the first

Host: The night sky stretched endlessly above the abandoned airfield, deep and alive, littered with a thousand trembling stars. The moonlight touched the rusted metal of a forgotten hangar, its great doors half-open, creaking faintly in the wind.
Inside, the air smelled of oil, dust, and memory — a cathedral of human invention long since left behind.

A half-assembled model rocket sat on a workbench, its silver paint catching every shard of light. Jack was hunched over it, hands steady, eyes hard — a man of science in a world that had forgotten wonder. Jeeny leaned against a stack of old blueprints, her face soft with light, her expression caught somewhere between nostalgia and awe.

The stars reflected in her dark eyes like small, distant promises.

Jeeny: “You ever think about how it starts, Jack? The spark? Tsiolkovsky said he didn’t remember how the idea of rockets got into his head — just that the seed was planted by Jules Verne. Can you imagine? One dreamer passing a spark to another across centuries.”

Jack: (without looking up) “Seeds and sparks are for poets, Jeeny. For the rest of us, it’s math. Equations. Metal. Thrust. Dreams don’t make rockets fly — fuel does.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “And yet, without the dream, who would bother to light the fuel?”

Host: The silence that followed was filled with the faint hum of the night — a faraway train, the lonely whine of the wind against the hangar roof. Jack’s fingers moved over the small rocket’s surface, precise and careful, like a surgeon tracing a wound.

Jack: “Tsiolkovsky was a genius. But you know what I admire most about him? He was realistic. He believed in physics, not fantasy. He knew that imagination without calculation was just air.”

Jeeny: “You say that as if air isn’t what keeps us alive.”

Host: The lamp above them flickered, its filament glowing like a heartbeat. Jeeny’s tone softened, her words carrying both tenderness and challenge.

Jeeny: “You think it’s logic that lifts us into the sky, Jack? No. It’s longing. The kind of longing that makes a man look at the moon and think, ‘That could be home.’ Jules Verne planted the seed, yes — but Tsiolkovsky watered it with faith.”

Jack: (shaking his head) “Faith has no place in science. Faith is for those who can’t prove.”

Jeeny: “And proof is for those who’ve forgotten how to wonder.”

Host: The wind picked up, rattling the loose sheet metal on the roof. The rocket on the table quivered slightly under the tremor — as if listening.

Jack: “You always make it sound mystical. But look — all of this,” (he gestures around the hangar) “started with a man who decided to replace dreams with numbers. Without that, Verne would have stayed a novelist, not a prophet.”

Jeeny: “But that’s the beauty of it! They needed each other — Verne and Tsiolkovsky, the dream and the discipline. Art gives birth to the question, and science finds the answer. You separate them, and both die.”

Host: The moonlight shifted, cutting across her face, catching the faint gleam of tears that hadn’t yet fallen. Jack’s jaw tightened. His eyes, once fixed on the metal, rose to meet hers.

Jack: “You think I don’t want to dream? I used to, Jeeny. When I was a kid, I looked up at the sky and thought maybe I could leave this place one day. Maybe I could build something that touched the stars. But life has gravity too. Bills, deadlines, broken engines — they pull harder than any planet.”

Jeeny: “And yet you’re still building rockets.”

Host: Her voice cut through the gloom like a quiet revelation. Jack looked away, pretending to adjust the fins, but his hands trembled slightly. The air seemed to hold its breath.

Jack: “Maybe I build them to remind myself that I used to believe.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Then you’re closer to Tsiolkovsky than you think.”

Host: Outside, a shooting star burned briefly across the heavens — fast, silent, beautiful. Both of them looked up instinctively. For a brief moment, all the arguments dissolved into the vastness above them.

Jeeny: “You know what I think?”

Jack: “You’re about to tell me anyway.”

Jeeny: “I think people like Tsiolkovsky weren’t just engineers. They were translators. They took the impossible and gave it a language numbers could understand. That’s what real science is — poetry disguised as precision.”

Jack: “You really believe that?”

Jeeny: “I do. Every formula is a verse, every equation a prayer. When he wrote about escaping gravity, he wasn’t just solving physics — he was freeing the soul from the ground.”

Host: The lamp flickered again, casting long, soft shadows on the concrete floor. The rocket gleamed brighter under the shifting light, almost alive. Jack reached out, resting his hand gently on its small silver body.

Jack: “Funny. When I was a kid, I read From the Earth to the Moon. I remember thinking — if Verne could imagine it, maybe someone could make it real. I didn’t even understand the science. I just wanted to believe it wasn’t impossible.”

Jeeny: “And now you’re the one holding the dream in your hands.”

Host: The air was still again — heavy, warm, and humming faintly with that invisible current that runs between two people who see the same truth from different sides.

Jack: (quietly) “You know, maybe the seed Verne planted wasn’t just in Tsiolkovsky. Maybe it’s in all of us. This… restless urge to rise.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We’re all looking up, Jack. Every invention, every line of code, every song — it’s all the same story: we’re trying to reach something that’s always just beyond touch.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “And maybe that’s what keeps us alive — not the reaching, but the trying.”

Host: A faint breeze swept through the hangar, carrying the smell of grass, fuel, and starlight. The rocket wobbled slightly, and for a heartbeat, both of them imagined it lifting — weightless, defiant, a silver dream against the endless dark.

Jeeny: “Do you ever wonder what Tsiolkovsky would say if he saw us now? Satellites, rovers, men on the moon?”

Jack: “He’d probably tell us we’ve only just begun.”

Jeeny: “And Verne?”

Jack: “He’d probably smile and say, ‘I told you so.’”

Host: They both laughed quietly, the kind of laughter that feels like breathing after years underwater. The stars shimmered above, indifferent and eternal, while below, two small figures stood among the ruins of human industry — dreamers, skeptics, believers, all at once.

Jeeny: “You know, maybe imagination is the first engine. And maybe that’s what Verne gave Tsiolkovsky — ignition.”

Jack: “And Tsiolkovsky gave us the courage to build.”

Host: The camera pulls back, the hangar growing smaller against the vast field of night. The rocket glints once, a thin spear of silver against the dark. The wind rises, carrying the faint whisper of something ancient — a dialogue between dream and discipline, heaven and hands.

Somewhere in the dark sky above them, a satellite crosses silently — a human-made star tracing its perfect orbit.

And as the scene fades to black, the words of Tsiolkovsky echo softly in the air:
“Earth is the cradle of humanity — but one cannot live in the cradle forever.”

Host: And so they stood — two souls beneath the stars — knowing that every calculation, every equation, every dream begins the same way:
With a seed planted by a story.