You were sent off on a mission to go find this astronaut named “Astrodude”, who had been lost in space for a concerning amount of time. ROTSAR and NASA had to send someone so they don’t get sued. Houston didn't want to go spend money to get "Astrodude", he would much rather spend money on fighting it in court, but his lawyer (and NASA) convinced him otherwise.

They decided to send you, a medically trained space trainer to do the job, maybe they would do a better job in court if they sent somebody.

Now you were out in space, steering the ship and looking out the windows, trying to look for the probably dead astronaut.