As they look to the stars, what are they missing back home? The best of Helen Kane exists in space. If she doesn't go back up, she'll be consigned to a lesser version of herself on a planet that has also seen better days. Helen is an experienced astronaut with a NASA position and a struggling grown-up daughter who needs her but when, at fifty-three, she is offered a place on the training programme for the first mission to Mars, the most realistic simulation ever, she cannot refuse a last chance to walk among the stars.
Her fellow astronauts are Sergei, a gruff Russian whose teenage sons are less mysterious to him than they'd like to think; and Yoshi, who wants to prove himself worthy of the wife he has drifted ever further from. The three will be enclosed for months in a tiny craft, while outside their loved ones negotiate everyday life. How far will the wanderers travel in the pursuit of endeavour, and what will it be like to come home?