Daniel.

Dr. Daniel Locke flew further from Earth than anyone of his generation. A scientist-pilot for MERIDIAN, the private spaceflight company, he belonged to the small cohort qualified both to fly the long-range vessels and to lead the science aboard them — and for two decades he did both, on missions that stretched months into years and pushed the maps a little wider each time he came home. He was, by every account of the people who flew with him, unhurried, exact, and quietly kind. He paid attention. He thought paying attention was the most important thing a person could do.

His final mission left Earth in 2089 and did not come back. The vessel was lost beyond Mars orbit to an unexplained propulsion failure, with all hands. There were no bodies to bring home; the funeral was a closed-casket service, attended by the colleagues who had flown with him and the family who had waited for him. He was survived by his wife Elena, a structural engineer in Seattle, and by his daughter Olivia — who was thirteen, and who started a vlog the following year.

A generation of cadets grew up on his mission footage — the long transmissions, the steady voice, the dark out the window getting darker. His daughter was one of them. She is an engineering cadet aboard the SS Pathfinder now, further out than even he ever went. The Pathfinder flies, in part, because men like Daniel Locke made people believe it could.