I remember the first time I saw the ​DX­10​ engine. A crowd of engineers and mechanics had gathered in one of the hangars here on the base. They were buzzing about excitedly as the rumors of its existence was now realized to be true. I made my way into the hangar and thronged and clamored with the rest of them for just a glimpse of this long rumored engine. When I finally saw the ​DX­10​ I was taken aback by its audacious design. It was brilliant in chrome and gold and was pieced together in brazen bits of brass overlay and copper casing here and there. The new metal casing design was aesthetically pleasing, to be sure, but clearly the designers had intended an homage, even throwback, to steam engine designs of the 20th century.

I began to wonder why the designers would opt for an unconventional heavy casing parts such as gold, copper and chrome. Previous engine specifications were tightly married to weight restrictions and the aforementioned rationed rare earth materials. They had instead focused on the pleasing aesthetics of its design. It was design choices like these that added a great deal of fantastic imagination and mystery to the ​DX­10​ engine. In fact, it's ability was made legendary even before it was tested on any of our shuttle crafts. The radical design managed to compliment itself to be the perfection of all things daring and brilliant, even uncertain during flight. This new engine was to be the proof that man could finally go beyond the technological boundaries of modern avionics.

In our young minds not only was the​ DX­10​ quickly becoming man's absolute tribute to modern ingenuity but it also managed to capture our imagination through the daring exploitation of the human spirit and its desire to dominate the sky.

I was made dizzy with excitement and felt the rush of finally seeing the​ DX­10​ with my own eyes. I made my way around the back of the engine and was surprised to discover how the red and blue electrical conduits that ran beneath it made it look more like a racing engine than that of experimental air and space travel. The more we clamored for a glimpse the more I thought the engine sat there in some sort of stoic knowing silence. It had such a presence I almost believed it was watching us just as much as we were watching it. Engineers and test pilots alike thronged about with such inspired hopefulness. I angled my way to the side where I could finally inspect the engine with a better view.

I began to imagine how the fuel lines and data connectors would run to various parts of the engine. In my mind I saw how the cooling coils were running fluids here and there and how the liquid nitrogen gases made the steel and chrome parts of the engine snowy, icy and frost laden.

In my minds eye I could see where the fuel lines, data sensors, and backup electrical conduits would run along beneath the beveled chrome parts of the ​DX­10​. Now presently connected, on­line and synced to the primary systems, in my mind, the ​DX­10​ was at the ready for blast off.

A bright jet of hot light shot from the coned shaped rocket booster part of the engine. The event was instantaneous and thunderous. So much so, the igniting moment was split vividly in my

mind into equal halves of the once stillness tranquility of the hangar and the then furious earth shattering thunder thrust that now raged against gravity and the earth.

Fully ignited, a shower of imaginary sparks and smoke bellowed and ploomed past myself and all those still standing around it. But I, and I alone, was lost within that cloud of hot expanding gas in magnificent and sublime detachment.

The entire hangar room was pitch dark, as dark as the night sky. The ​DX­10​ engine was fully ignited and began to fill the room with spreading clouds of vapor and hot gas. I was almost blinded by the bright white flare of exploding gasses. I walked around past the shower of imaginary sparks and the spreading white smoke to inspect the engine from a different angle. The sudden surge of expanding gases rushed past me with such a force that my clothes were ripped right off my body almost. Even the the air I was breathing was being drawn out from my lungs and sucked into the white hot columns of fiery smoke. In its place of oxygen a hot mixture cocktail of expelled jet fuel, vapor and smoke continued to fill the room.

The now active ​DX­10 ​violently jostled in its anchored place. The metallic braces that held the engine down could hold no longer and finally gave way to the full force of the relentless rocket thrust. The braces snapped under the pressure of the expanding gases and we both broke free from our anchored earthly restraints and were jettisoned into the sky.

We plowed outwardly and endlessly away from the hangar and were free from our terrestrial restraints. The ​DX­10​ and I began to traverse space at exhilarating, mind jarring, breakneck velocity. Left behind there on the ground were the curious yet still anchored, watchful unknowing eyes of the earthbound engineers. Soon enough the sound was gone and I was moving fast among the silent vacant cosmic space. Dark, spacious and cold, I watched ourselves make our way among the stars and the spreading cosmos. In the expanding space of my mind we were thrust forward into the void and brilliance of the far reaching, far extensive, expanding universe.

I could still see the long arc of the remnant heat and smoke trail from the thunderous rocket fuel that detailed just how extensively we had already traversed from our earthly origin.

The sound of rocket thunder and hissing vapor clouds were gone. Only I and the ​DX­10​ were left alone. Far away from our home we tumbled out into the vastness of this unexplored outer space. The brilliant silver and aluminum foil padding shone softly in the glaring outer space sun­light. And It was here, free from earth’s gravity hold that we were propelled towards the empty reaches of some unknown outer space magnificence.

Now, our movements were a great deal more clumsily and more drift like than ever before. I

watched how the engine wobbled in the ​X​ and ​Y ​and ​Z ​axis. But for every turn and tumble and twist the ​DX­10​ gave I felt more and more lost to motion sickness amplified by moving and swirling stars about the background cosmic night sky.

Free from gravity, I watched ourselves spin over and over like some wayward spinning top. Though disorienting, I marveled at how far and how quickly we had reached these unknown parts of the unexplored cosmic realm. Then, at an instant, as if the lights had been turned on at the trail end of a running film, I was back in the brightly lit hangar, alone. Gone was the ​DX­10​, and gone were the throngs of engineers and test pilots.

As I stood there alone in that empty hangar I was overwhelmed by all that I had experienced. I very quickly realized that this was indeed the engine that was going to get us ahead of everyone in the race for space supremacy. But there was no way around it. The administrative prudence that ruled over the ​DX­10​ also ruled over us, the test pilots. As the ​DX­10​ remained grounded, so did we along with it.

Though I still had my reservations, for I hadn’t any clue how it could be done, it was at this precise moment that I realized I would indeed participate in the ​DX­10​ heist. This engine had something special in its making. It was as if though it knew it came into existence for one thing and one thing only; to explore beyond its purpose and leave this earthly place.

I was alert, aware, and now fully determined to see that ​we​ were the ones that would make the DX­10​ fly. I wanted to be every bit a part of the lore and legend of this engine’s legacy.

The heist was on.