Back to the Moon-ARC (24 page)

Chow unzipped and joined Stetson. Just as they arrived, the radio came to life.

“
Mercy I
, this is Houston. We’re seeing a problem with one of your solar arrays. Are you seeing it as well?”

“Uh, checking it,” Stetson relied. “Copy that, Houston—we see it. One appears to have stopped tracking the sun.”

“That’s what telemetry is showing us, over.”

The solar arrays, mounted on the Orion near its base, provided most of the power required to run its systems. They were mounted on gimbals that allowed them to continuously track the sun so as to maintain the ability to generate a consistent amount of power. Since the Orion was moving toward the Moon while it was still orbiting the Earth, albeit on an ever-increasing altitude orbit, and since the whole spacecraft was slowly spinning to equalize the heat input from the sun in its so-called barbeque roll, the solar arrays were constantly moving to keep the sun in view.

“Batteries are kicking in,” noted Chow as he looked at the status board. With the array not pointing at the Sun, the power generated would drop, requiring the onboard batteries to come online in order to maintain the ship’s systems, including life support.

“Houston, one of the arrays appears to have seized and is not moving,” Stetson said. He looked at Chow and then back at the status screen.

Chow could see that Stetson was concerned. Without maximum power from the arrays, the ship would have to rely on batteries to make up the difference. There was enough power from the batteries to allow the craft to swing by the Moon and return to Earth—this was one of the contingencies that the Disaster Team had noted and required them to train for. The Disaster Team were the guys who looked at all the possible failures and then wrote training scenarios for the astronauts to practice and learn from. This was one of them.

The problem with letting this real-life problem be resolved as it was during training was that they would not have enough power to go into lunar orbit and land. Without landing they could not rescue the stranded Chinese taikonauts. If they followed the book, the mission would be over. They would survive, and all the Chinese would die.

Chow momentarily imagined himself as one of the Chinese taikonauts, stranded, cold, and waiting to die. It was too much like his dream, and he quickly shook himself away from the daydream and said, “Bill, we can’t let this happen. We can’t let those people die.”

“Damn right we can’t. But right now I sure don’t know what we can do about it. While I come up with something, let’s run the drill.”

“Makes sense to me,” Tony agreed.

“Houston. We’re going to power down the array-control system and restart. I’m pulling up the reboot procedure now. Do you concur?”

“We concur. Reboot will take approximately twenty minutes. We’ll be running the simulations in parallel. If we come up with something you need to know, we’ll be in touch.”

“Roger that.
Mercy I
out.” With that, Stetson began reviewing the manual restart procedure for the solar-array pointing system.

Chow hadn’t trained for this, so he decided it would be best to step back—float back, as it were—and let Bill do his job. He went to the window and looked out into space. As the Orion spun, he caught sight of the Earth, which was still, by far, the largest object in view, and only fleeting glimpses of the Moon. He took a deep breath and waited.

Twenty minutes later, Chow watched Stetson complete the sequence that would completely power down the solar-array pointing system and then restart it. Anyone familiar with computers would have been in agreement with what he was trying to do—reboot.

Chow heard nothing to indicate that the reboot sequence was complete. He only heard his own breathing, some mumbled curses from Stetson, and a few status requests from the radio. He halfway expected to hear the sound of a large machine grinding to a halt and then restarting. Instead, there was just the silence of the crew compartment and the recirculating fans.

“Damn it!” Stetson said, pounding his fist against the console. The reacting force started him spinning in the opposite direction. He quickly stabilized himself with his other hand and planted a foot against his couch to hold him still. “Houston, the reboot is complete. No change. The array is not moving.”

No sooner had those words left Stetson’s lips than Chow’s heart sank.

“We show the same on our boards down here, Bill. We’re still looking at options.”

Stetson pushed back from the console and floated to where Chow was perched.

“Tony, I have an idea. What if the gimbal just needs a good kick to get it moving again?”

“EVA?”
 

“Yes. I think I’m going to suit up, go out, and give it a kick. We’ve got to get it moving.”
 

Stetson had that look that Tony recognized so well. It was that look that intimidated almost everyone who came into his presence. It was the
get out of my way, I have something important to do
look. And Chow didn’t feel like getting in his way. He replied to his commander and friend, “I’ll get the procedure pulled up, and then we’ll get in our suits.” Both men had to wear their suits, because the Orion didn’t have an airlock. When the door opened to the vacuum of space, all the air in the crew cabin would vent. That meant that everyone in the cabin had to wear their spacesuits for an EVA, even if they weren’t the ones going outside.

Chow learned in his very early training that getting into his spacesuit wasn’t like putting on a business suit. Each suit was specially designed or modified for a particular astronaut. Chow had his suit; Stetson had his own. The suits were kept aft and were at least readily accessible. Having only two people in a crew cabin designed to accommodate four was a plus—they had room to move around while they were getting their suits on.

Mission control had readily agreed with Stetson’s EVA plan, though they didn’t give the plan much chance of success. Some engineer quoted a thirty-five percent probability of success during the discussion, and Chow had to wonder how in the world they had come up with such a number. He thought to himself,
Why isn’t it thirty percent? Or forty percent? Why thirty-five?
And then he concluded that they really didn’t know. The engineer was just quoting some computer model that he probably didn’t really understand anyway.

Forty minutes later, Stetson and Chow were suited up and ready to begin the EVA. Both men had checked and rechecked each other’s suits, all according to procedure, and had “safed” any loose materials within the Orion. Once the atmosphere was removed from the Orion, Stetson would be able to open the door and begin his EVA. The last thing they wanted was for some vital piece of hardware to float out the door with him.

“Tony, we’re down to minimum atmospheric pressure, and I am about to open the door. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready. I’ll be here watching on the monitor. Just call if you need me.”

“That’s good to know.” Stetson smiled. “But I think this’ll be quick and easy. I should be back inside in just a few minutes.”

With that, he reached down and forcefully pulled the door release, opening the cabin to space. Without so much as a swoosh, the door opened and both men were exposed to the vacuum. Glancing briefly back at Chow, Stetson pushed and gently eased himself out the door. Once his arms cleared the hatch, he attached the loose end of the tether from his spacesuit to the requisite attachment fitting on the hull of the ship. The tether would keep him from accidentally pushing off from the ship too forcefully and floating away into space.

Take it easy,
Stetson told himself as he felt the reassuring snap of the tether to the fitting. Though the craft was traveling toward the Moon at over twenty thousand miles per hour, the motion was simply unobservable by Stetson as he began his spacewalk. Without a reference point, such as the ground whizzing by beneath him, and without any of the other side effects of rapid motion such as the wind caused by moving through it, his senses told him that he and the
Mercy I
craft were motionless in space. He could, however, directly sense the ship’s rotation. With the starfield, sun, and Earth rotating around his field of view, he knew that the ship was spinning.

For a brief moment, he experienced a powerful sense of vertigo.

“It’s so vast,” Stetson said to no one in particular. With only his hand-sewn spacesuit between him and infinity, he continued pulling himself out of the Orion until he was totally exposed.

“I’m moving aft toward the arrays. I can see them clearly. One is at a dead stop,” Stetson said.

Using the handholds placed on the Orion for just this type of contingency, Stetson pulled himself toward the malfunctioning array. As he got closer, he marveled at their scale. Unfurled to collect sunlight and extended outward from the ship on booms, they were simply beautiful. Each of the two arrays was also eighteen feet in diameter. Huge. As the sun rotated into a more direct view, the reflected light from the arrays varied in brightness, looking like a lighthouse beacon. Stetson was glad he had a sun visor built into the helmet. The sun was
bright
.

Breathing deeply now, Stetson could clearly see his objective. The gimbal at the base of the array boom was the most likely culprit. Putting hand over hand, Stetson moved closer until he was finally able to reach out and touch the malfunctioning piece of hardware.

“Tony, I don’t see any sign of damage. It looks just like it did in the mockup and on the drawings.” He inspected the gimbal motor so closely that he nearly touched it with his visor.

“Roger that, Bill,” Chow responded from within the confines of the Orion. “Move your head to the right so I can get a better look.” Chow was referring to the helmet camera built into each astronaut’s spacesuit.

Stetson tilted his head, altering his vantage point so that the gimbal would no longer be quite as shadowed, giving his comrade a better view.

“Thanks. I can see it now. I’ve got the image on-screen next to the as-built image, and they look the same. No damage that I can tell, either.”
 

“Roger that. I guess I’ll see if I can kick it loose.” Stetson was speaking figuratively. He had no intention of actually kicking the array. Instead, he looked for a convenient place to grab on to it, and then he began slowly twisting the boom, searching for a way to get it moving again. He encountered resistance. The boom didn’t move.

Twisting harder in the clockwise direction, Stetson’s entire body began to pivot counterclockwise, causing Stetson to momentarily lose his sense of balance just like before when he had pounded his fist against the console. He laughed to himself and said, “Newton got me. Hold on.”

With that, he readjusted himself so as to get better footing on the handrail, wedging his boots to better anchor himself into position. Once he was satisfied that he wouldn’t torque himself instead of the boom, he grasped the boom and tried again. Still nothing. This time he didn’t slip, nor did he laugh.

After about ten minutes of twisting and turning without any success, he paused.

“Bill? May I make a suggestion?” Tony asked.

“Sure, go ahead,” Stetson replied.

“Why don’t I do another reboot while you are trying to work it loose? Maybe while the control system is not actively applying power to the gimbal’s motor, you can get it to move. It might be locked in place electromechanically. If so, you’d be pushing against not only the gimbal, but the motor driving it.”

“Great idea, Tony. Let’s give it a try.”
 

“On it.”

Since Chow had never done the reboot, not even in training, it took him a little longer than it had taken Stetson.
 

While he was waiting, Stetson had time to contemplate the mission and where he was. He decided that no one, other than another astronaut, could even come close to understanding the emotions and feelings that one experienced in a spacesuit traveling through space.
God, I was meant for this.
Stetson said this to himself, not really to God.
My whole life led to this trip, and I love it.

He was shaken from his reverie by Chow’s voice on the speaker. “Bill, I’m ready. Are you?”

“Yes. I’ll start flexing as soon as you cut the power and start the reboot sequence,” Stetson replied.

“Okay. Here we go.”

A few seconds passed, and then Chow’s voice returned. “Now. The power is cycled down and getting ready to restart.”

Stetson didn’t hesitate. With boots still firmly wedged, he used both hands to grasp and twist the stuck array. Trying to move it first clockwise and then counterclockwise, Stetson jimmied the stubborn piece of hardware. He didn’t believe he was getting anywhere, and then, abruptly, he felt a jolt and the whole gimbal began to move. Looking up at the array fan, he could see that it was starting to move under its own power. Moving his hands back from the boom and the gimbal so as to not interfere with its motion, Stetson watched as the array rotated and began again to track the sun.

“Bill, you did it. The board says the array is working, and I think I can see it moving in your helmet camera. Does it look okay to you?” Chow sounded ecstatic.

“Tony, it’s moving. I’m coming back in.” With those words, Stetson began his climb back toward the hatch.

After Stetson reentered the Orion, he repressurized the cabin, and then he and Chow removed their spacesuits. Even though the thermometer showed that the temperature of the cabin was where it should be, Stetson felt cold. He always felt cold after an EVA, and he attributed it to the psychology of having been floating in the endless frigid void of space. He knew he would warm up; it was just a matter of time. Of course, there was also a checklist to be completed after an EVA—it took them close to thirty minutes to complete it.

“Tony, we need to see what we can off-load from Altair. Have you got the latest list from mission control?” Stetson was referring to the fact that the range safety experts would not allow them to remove any items from the Altair or the Orion while the vehicle was on the pad in the days before launch. Having engineers mucking around with the cargo, messing up the mass distribution and balancing, not to mention being around during the final checkout, was just too much for the safety guys. Instead, the engineers in Texas and Alabama had come up with a list of items that could be thrown overboard to reduce the mass of the Altair’s ascent stage so as to allow all six people to get off the surface of the Moon.