| "One Small Step" | |||
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| Star Trek: Voyager episode | |||
In Astrometrics |
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| Episode no. | Season 6 Episode 8 |
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| Directed by | Robert Picardo | ||
| Written by | Mike Wollaeger Jessica Scott |
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| Production code | 228 | ||
| Original air date | November 17, 1999 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
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Phil Morris as Lt. John Kelly |
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Star Trek: Voyager episodes | |||
"One Small Step" is an episode of the television series Star Trek: Voyager, the eighth episode of the sixth season.
Voyager encounters a Graviton Ellipse, a massive body of subspace energy rolling through the galaxy. The crew suspects it may be the same phenomenon that caught and carried away an early Earth spacecraft in 2032, along with its lone human pilot, John Kelly.
They take the Delta Flyer into the energy body to investigate and hopefully find the long-lost spacecraft. Another spatial danger – determined to be dark matter – threatens the Flyer. Chakotay is ordered out but wants to bring the spacecraft with him. His disobeying of orders ends with the ship damaged, with no seeming way out before the Flyer is lost to Voyager.
Seven of Nine ends up beaming to the ancient spacecraft itself for spare parts. There she finds the body of John Kelly and footage of what he saw before he died. He had continued living for several days after the accident, until he shut down his life support because his engines had run out of fuel.
In the end, the crew is rescued and so is Kelly's body. A memorial service is held and Kelly's body is respectfully launched back out into space.
The early spacecraft that is featured in the episode is the Ares IV , not to be confused with the actual Ares IV Rocket proposed by NASA in 2007.
Ares IV is an Earth spaceship used during one of humanity's early manned missions to Mars, which takes place in 2032 under the command of Lieutenant John Kelly. The other members of the crew are Rose Kumagawa and Andrei Novakovich. The mission is run under the auspices of the International Space Agency.
Mysteriously, the command module of the Ares IV, in which Kelly orbits Mars, vanishes whilst Kumagawa and Novakovich are on a surface mission. The surface team is later rescued, but no trace of Kelly or the Ares IV are found. This disaster almost leads to the abandonment of the Mars exploration program. In the following centuries the Ares IV mission is considered as a precursor for humankind's further exploration of space.
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