Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe (16 page)

The
parameters and coordinates that you should follow to land on the moon will take
you close to this area of interest. It will take you approximately 40 minutes
to walk to the spot where you will meet the rescue team from the ISS.

During
that walk, any information you are able to collect will help us to reopen the
project and, eventually, obtain approval to continue exploring the moon.

Once he was done reading, the
astronauts looked at each other.

“How strange,” Allison said.

“You think so?” Russell replied.
We’re going to the moon, and NASA is risking the lives of other astronauts so
they can come rescue us. It’s been over 70 years since a human being has
stepped foot on the moon, so I think it’s obvious that they would want to take
advantage of this opportunity and have us land in an area of interest...
especially if that could help them get approval for future missions.”

“I agree with all that,” she
said, “even though the data and images we’re bringing back from this mission
will be more than enough to keep NASA and the scientific community busy for
years...”

“I think Allison’s point,” Frank
intervened, “and I agree with her on this, is: why did that information have to
be sent as an encrypted message? I mean, we’re returning with a revolutionary
treasure chest of data, and they want us to secretly help them reopen a project
related to the moon?”

“Exactly. Why would NASA want to
keep it a secret? That’s my point,” she concluded.

“I don’t think we’ll know the
answer to that question until we get back to Earth,” Russell responded.

“Or until we land on the moon,”
Frank said.

Meanwhile, at the Space Station,
the two spaceships, the American Orion and the Russian Soyuz, had already
undocked. The Soyuz was headed away from the ISS, on a route parallel to the
Station.

Then, the Orion set off. It
passed under the Soyuz and performed a series of maneuvers to reverse its
position. The two spaceships were now facing each other.

The Russian spacecraft stayed
still. The American ship carefully moved forward, toward the other. Gradually,
the two began to line up perfectly.

The one astronaut who had been
left at the ISS witnessed the entire process. He saw the two ships dock for the
first time. Everything went off without a hitch. The universe was conspiring in
the rescue mission’s favor.

And so the Soyuz started
accelerating toward the moon, taking the Orion away from the ISS.

Image 17
– Orion spacecraft docked on a Soyuz for the first time. Both were
at the Space Station (ISS); from there, they continued to the moon on a mission
to rescue the astronauts of the Orion-II.

(credits and details on the final page)

“But why are you going to have
them land on the dark side of the moon? Haven’t they been through enough?”
Elizabeth fired back.

“Liz, that was the best solution
we were able to come up with,” Jones responded. “They’ll have some fuel left
over if necessary. And they won’t be in total darkness. There will be a slight
reflection of light. And, finally, the Orion that will rescue them will be well
lit. The best way for them to be able to see the rescue ship and meet up with
it is to land on the dark side of the moon.”

“Jones, I’m surprised that you
think I’m so naive, especially coming from you,” she replied. “I’m glad that
you can justify your decision with solid foundations. Just imagine if I had
called you up to provide details on the rescue at the press conference
yesterday?” she ironized.

“I’m going to prepare a report
and a few points to support the rationale that I just gave you,” said Jones.

“If I find out that you sent them
to land on the dark side of the moon just to satisfy your obsessive curiosity,
you’re going to have to go into early retirement, Jones,” Elizabeth exclaimed.

“Liz, do you know how frustrating
it was for me when they decided to cancel my project? You weren’t the NASA
Administrator back then; you had yet to become such a bureaucrat. Don’t you
remember the images captured by that probe?” Jones asked.

“Jones, I always have been and
continue to be interested by all that. And I’m not a ‘bureaucrat,’ as you say
so derogatorily. I am in charge of upholding this agency’s credibility and
optimizing the public investment we receive. Even more, that project was
cancelled by a unanimous decision; it wasn’t a political decision, but a
technical one. Everyone agreed that the data collected on the moon was nothing
more than interference from the material that the Chinese had left during their
exploration program.”

“You know that the Chinese were
exploring the other end of the moon! You can’t possibly say you’re not just a
little bit curious to know what’s up there. Let’s be honest, we both know that
my project was only put on hold because the Stellarium-12 mission ‘failed’.
Well, now, it’s clear that it wasn’t a failure...”

“That’s enough, Jones! I’m done
talking about it. This conversation is over. I’m going to accept your
explanation that you only decided to have the astronauts land there so that
they could more easily see the light from the Orion, and so that they could save
fuel. Send the report to the Board today with your argument,” Elizabeth
concluded.

Jones had directed the Stellarium
Space Program for more than ten years. When the program was cancelled, he
worked with a team responsible for testing out a new satellite capable of
detecting extremely precise magnetic readings. Later, he led the mission that
sent the satellite to orbit the moon in 2046. The findings were impressive. As
it flew over the dark side of the moon, the probe detected an enormous magnetic
field in a very specific location on the moon’s surface.

That finding was included in his
pre-program to justify a manned mission. Nonetheless, his proposal was
rejected. Everyone believed that the magnetic fields detected were really just
lunar vehicles sent by the Chinese a decade prior, during which time they had
spent five years exploring the moon’s dark side. That wouldn’t justify the
cost, nor the risk.

But Jones never believed it.
First of all, because that wasn’t where the Chinese missions had taken place.
They were carried out very far away from that location. Secondly, because the
magnetic readings were too high to be attributed to nothing more than space
garbage that had been abandoned on the moon’s surface.

He had never been able to accept
the fact that NASA’s directors hadn’t been interested in doing further research
on that finding.

So, when Bryan presented him with
the plan to send the astronauts of the Stellarium-12 mission to land on the
moon, he immediately came up with an idea: he could have them land at the spot
where the magnetic disturbance had been detected. To the unknowing eye, that
spot had been chosen because it had the greatest chance of being successful.
However, for Jones, if the crew were able to identify anything, any element
that could help to justify an exploratory mission, it would be the boost he
needed to continue with the project.

Meanwhile, inside the Orion-II,
everyone was feeling optimistic. Their trip was going according to plan. Frank
seemed to have put his personal drama aside. He was excited about stepping foot
on the moon, a bonus that he hadn’t expected.

“It’s so nice to travel with
Newtonian mechanics! No wormholes, no black holes, no light speed. Just the
basic formulas of acceleration and gravitation. Speed, Space and Time, all
separate, no one element messing with the others,” Frank exclaimed, evoking
laughter even from Russell, who was in a particularly good mood.

“That’s true, my friend.
Tomorrow, we’ll be orbiting the moon. And the next day, we’ll land. We’ll be
the first people to step foot on the moon since the Apollo mission of the
1970s, since the Chinese missions never landed humans,” the commander said.

“And we’re going to land on the
dark side, which is going to be great for my resume,” Allison said, also taking
part in the joke. “It’s too bad that we won’t be able to take a picture of
Earth from the moon, since it will be on the other side,” she added.

In that moment, Russell asked the
control center in Houston if they could play “Man on the Moon” by R.E.M. A few
seconds later, the song could be heard throughout the cabin.

And in that state of joy and
background music, the Orion-II continued on toward the moon. After all the
astronauts had been through, this part seemed like a walk in the park.

However, Captain Carter and Dr.
Brook were in a totally different state of mind, aboard the Orion that had
departed from the Space Station to go rescue them.

The operation with the Soyuz had
been a success. After undocking, NASA had sent them instructions on how to
correct their route, since the Soyuz had been unable to stay on the established
trajectory.

Unlike Russell, Carter had never
traveled beyond the Low-Earth Orbit. He was on his second mission to the Space
Station.

Brook was even more of a novice.
Like Frank, she had a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, and she was at the ISS as
part of a project to modernize its orbit control systems. If it weren’t for
these exceptional circumstances, she wouldn’t even be going to the moon: there were
only three Americans at the Station. One of them was Carter, an experienced
pilot. The other was a biochemical scientist. He couldn’t leave the ISS,
because his experiments required him to carry out daily analyses on living
organisms that they had been tracking for the last four years. Brook was an
engineer with experience in orbital systems, so she was the natural choice.

This mission was the riskiest and
most exciting that either one of them had participated in so far. They hadn’t
done any simulations related to landing on the moon during their training.
Nonetheless, the Orion was practically autonomous, and the pilot wouldn’t need
to do much during the landing process. NASA had already sent all of the
parameters.

The next day, the two ships came
into contact for the first time.

“This is Commander Scott Russell
transmitting from the Orion-II, do you copy?”

“Copy. This is Captain Michael
Carter of the Orion, on a rescue mission from the ISS. Go ahead, Orion-II.”

“Carter, we’re initiating the
landing procedure. We should be on the ground in the next two hours. What is
your position?” Russell asked.

“We will enter the lunar orbit in
a few hours. We're not there yet. We should have a visual of the Orion-II on
the ground when pass by the dark side the first time,” Carter responded.

“Thanks, my friend. It will be
nice to meet you. See you soon,” Russell said.

“My pleasure, Commander,” Carter
responded.

A few hours later, the Orion-II
was touching the moon’s surface. They sent confirmation of the successful landing
to Houston, which was ecstatic over the news. Not just began the rescue mission
seemed to be going well, but because, once again, they had placed astronauts on
the moon. The ship’s confirmation was the last message sent to Earth before the
moon would block any further communication.

The landing had, however,
encountered a few complications. They had managed to arrive at the planned
spot, but they ran out of fuel just a few yards from the ground. The Orion-II
experienced a 25-foot fall.

Despite the moon’s gravity being
much less than that on Earth, the fall still produced a sharp blow. The
astronauts weren’t injured, but they were in shock for a few minutes after the
landing.

The Stellarium-12 mission had
taken mankind to another galaxy, had put them face-to-face with a red giant
star, had allowed a ship to partially orbit a black hole... and now, it had
gotten to the moon.

The three astronauts exited the
ship. Russell was the last one to get out. He made a point of saying goodbye to
the Orion-II, the ship that he had had the pleasure of commanding, and that had
taken them to places that no human being had ever been before. He placed a hand
on the ship’s structure one last time before walking away without looking back.

A few hours later, the Orion
spacecraft, which had come from the ISS, initiated its landing procedure. Once
on the ground, they could see the Orion-II, quite far away, lit up and
abandoned. While descending, they had been able to see three bright dots
walking across the moon’s surface, moving away from the ship. It was Russell,
Frank and Allison, walking to the meeting point as planned.

“Houston, this is Michael Carter
speaking from the Orion, do you copy?”

“We hear you loud and clear. Go
ahead, Carter.”

“We’re approaching the moon’s
surface. Our transmission will cut out shortly, as expected. I have a visual of
the Orion-II and its crew. They’re on their way to the meeting point.”

“Roger, Carter. Remember that you
all have five hours to get them on board and start back. The Control Center
will reestablish contact as soon as you come out from behind the moon,” Houston
informed him.

“Okay. I’m going to change the
frequency to the one used by the Orion-II and establish contact with the crew,”
Carter said.

“Good luck” said the control
center in closing.

Back in Houston, a long five-hour
wait began. This was the longest they would be able to stay there; any longer
and they would risk not being able to compensate for the route and re-enter
Earth at the correct angle.

Since both ships had landed on
the dark side, the side not visible from Earth, there was no way for their
radio transmission to be sent back to Earth. They had already anticipated this
limitation. During this period, only the two crews would be able to communicate
with each other.

“Russell, Allison, Frank, this is
Captain Michael Carter of the Orion. We landed and we have a visual of you all
approximately 2,000 feet away. Please confirm if you have a visual of my ship.”

“Carter, this is Russell. We’ve
got a visual. It would be impossible not to see your ship all lit up in this
darkness.”

“Okay, according to my
calculations, you all should be here in less than 50 minutes,” Brook said.

“Carter, Brook... Houston said we
have five hours, right? We will try to get there in three,” the commander said.

“What are you talking about,
Russell? Is something wrong? Are you guys experiencing any problems? Unless
there’s something wrong with your suits, or someone is hurt, it shouldn’t take
you more than an hour to get here,” the captain informed him.

“Carter, we found something here.
We appear to be walking on a metallic structure. There’s a sort of cave, an
entrance. But it’s not made of rock. It’s more like metal. I think it could be
something left here by the Chinese exploration. Allison wants to investigate,
and I’m going to go with her. Frank will stay in place, so that you can
continue to have a visual of our position. Okay?” Russell asked.

“Understood, commander. But the
Chinese exploration took place on the east side, and we’re on the west side.
They never came to this spot,” Carter responded.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” Brook confirmed, as
well.