The Next Continent (6 page)

CHAPTER 2

OPERATIONAL STATUS OF EXISTING FACILITIES

[1]

TAE SQUINTED THROUGH
the quartz window of the
Chang'e
spacecraft, atop China's Xiwangmu 5 space station module. “I can't see the surface too well. It's all blurry,” she said from her perch on Sohya's lap.

“You have to focus both eyepieces,” answered Sohya.

“I did. But it's still blurry.”

“Here, let me try.” Sohya reached for the forty-power Nikon binoculars. He peered over her shoulder toward the lunar surface, adjusting the knobs on each eyepiece and trying to gain a consistent focus at a variety of distances. He got the same results as the girl. The stark black-and-white outlines of craters and valleys slowly scrolling past the window refused to come into focus. Focusing the eyes to compensate just made the strain worse. Tae, her head beneath Sohya's jaw, looked up.

“See?”

“You're right. Maybe it's foggy down there.”

“There's no air.” Tae giggled. She knew when Sohya was joking. For a thirteen-year-old she was surprisingly mature.

After they had struggled for several minutes with the binoculars, Commander Feng, in the center couch, interrupted his discussion with Flight Engineer Ma and turned to Sohya. “There's a trick to it. Give me those for a minute.”

Feng held the binoculars in front of the window and released them. They floated in the free-fall conditions of lunar orbit. With the tip of his index finger, he gently tapped the binoculars two or three times, rotating the focus knob slightly without displacing the instrument.

“Take a look now. Be careful, don't bump them.”

It was not clear what he had done, but when Sohya looked through the floating optics, he cried out in surprise. “I can see!”

“Really?” asked Tae incredulously.

“Clear as a bell.”

“Let me look!” She raised her head to look through the glasses. Her long hair was gathered into a bun on her head, but her bangs brushed an eyepiece. The binoculars began to rotate slowly. She whined in frustration and grasped them. Sohya said to Feng, “How did you do it?”

“With the naked eye you can see the surface moving slowly under us. Right? But our altitude is one hundred kilometers, and our speed is about 1.73 kilometers per second. That's twice as fast as a rifle round. Looking down with forty-power binoculars is like being 2.5 kilometers from the surface. The angular velocity of your field of vision is magnified by small hand tremors. That's why everything ends up blurred.” He moved the tip of his finger around Tae's head. “We're orbiting once every 1.9 hours. Give the binoculars the same orbital period and they'll track the surface for you. Tae, do you think you can do that?”

“Just focus the eyepiece a little, right? I'll try.” She parked the binoculars in front of the window and made several attempts to bring the surface into view, using the tip of her finger to rotate the eyepieces, but was unsuccessful. “This is hard!” she pouted. Feng laughed.

“It takes a while to learn. The Russians taught us, but it took us a while too. Manage it before we land and you'll be a certified taikonaut.” He went back to his predescent checklist.

Though they were based on a Russian design, the Xiwangmu modules were the pride of China's aerospace program. The China National Space Administration—CNSA—had sourced its manned space technology from the Russians, improved on it, and produced its own spacecraft. The prototype for Xiwangmu was the Soviet Salyut space station module, originally developed in the 1960s for missions to the moon. Thirteen meters long, with a mass of eighteen tons, Salyut was impressively large, but its descendant was more famous: the orbital science station Mir, launched in 1986. Mir consisted of five fourteen-meter cylindrical modules, all based on the Salyut design, arranged around a central spherical docking node. Descendants of Salyut were later incorporated into the International Space Station. It was a classic design, reliable and easily configured.

The key to China's successful construction of humanity's first manned moon base in 2020 was her development of Xiwangmu based on the Salyut design. These large modules offered ample living space and could be used to ferry taikonauts and supplies to the moon, where the modules would be lowered to the surface. In effect, that is what China's lunar base was—Mir modules sitting on the lunar surface. In each of the past four years, China had sent a Xiwangmu to the moon and used it to enlarge the base, which they christened Kunlun. This was Sohya and Tae's destination.

Four days earlier, they had lifted off with the two-man Chinese crew from Jiuquan Launch Center in Inner Mongolia aboard a
Chang'e
spacecraft. The
Chang'e
was also based on a Russian design—
Soyuz
—and carried by a Long March III launch vehicle.

At first, Sohya and Tae's participation in the mission was in doubt. With his usual drive and network of connections, Gotoba set about securing places on
Chang'e
, but was only able to obtain one. And that seemed to be that. Each new Chinese crew relieved those already on the moon and remained there till the next Xiwangmu arrived a year later. But Sohya and Tae were scheduled to return at the first opportunity, which meant that at least one base member would be forced to extend their stay for an extra year. This would create numerous operational complications. For the Chinese to grant permission for even one place on
Chang'e
was a huge concession.

One place on the three-seat spacecraft should have meant one passenger, but thanks to Gotoba's negotiations—and a well-timed cash transfer of three billion yen—the Chinese found a solution. Tae would travel into orbit sitting on Sohya's lap.

At first this seemed absurd. Nothing of the sort would have been possible with NASA, given the Americans' famously strict adherence to procedure. Yet the idea was not that outlandish. Sohya was of average build, and Tae was a slender girl. The Chinese crew members were not very large either. The prototype for
Chang'e
was the
Soyuz TM
spacecraft, and although
Soyuz
was designed for comparatively small cosmonauts, the combined weight of Sohya, Tae, and the two Chinese differed little from that of three Russians. The problem was not the number of passengers but their combined weight.

In the end, it proved easier to proceed than to worry about theory. The launch went flawlessly. The
Chang'e
with four passengers aboard withstood the acceleration and shock of launch and reached Earth's orbit safely. When they arrived there, Xiwangmu 5, successfully launched twenty-four hours earlier, was standing by. Xiwangmu's primary mission at this point was to carry a large payload of supplies to Kunlun. The module was equipped with the detachable second-stage booster needed to insert its considerable mass into a lunar transfer orbit.

Conditions were more comfortable once they docked with the waiting Xiwangmu. Though packed with supplies, it was still far more spacious than their three-couch capsule. The four voyagers went through the forward docking hatch and spent the three-day trajectory to the moon aboard Xiwangmu 5.

The
Soyuz TM
stack consisted of three components: an orbital module, a descent module in the middle, and a service module with engines astern. The
Chang'e
replaced the orbital module with a return module for the journey from the moon to Earth.

Once in orbit around the moon, the spacecraft detached from Xiwangmu, rotated 180 degrees, and redocked with the return module pointing forward. It was then detached and parked in orbit. Once on the surface,
Chang'e
was detached, and Xiwangmu was joined to the other base modules.

To return to Earth, the
Chang'e
from the previous mission was used to reach orbit, where the return module was waiting. This ensured that the base crew had a recently maintenanced spacecraft if an emergency forced them to leave the base.

After using the
Chang'e
service module to reach lunar orbit and dock with the waiting return module, the taikonauts headed back to Earth, where the return and service modules separated and burned up in the atmosphere. On the moon leg of the journey, the
Chang'e
weighed twenty-seven tons; the only thing to reenter the atmosphere was the three-ton descent module.

Now Xiwangmu 5 was in a slightly inclined orbit around the moon, preparing to descend. In case an emergency required them to abort and head back to Earth, the crew had moved from Xiwangmu to the descent module. The stack had rotated 180 degrees, and the return module was parked in orbit. Now
Chang'e
could separate from Xiwangmu at any time. Xiwangmu's slow rotation, necessary to passively distribute solar heat, had stopped. With the descent module's engines pointing in the direction of travel, all that was required now was to fire them for a powered descent.

Commander Feng snapped his checklist binder shut. “Beijing Control,
Chang'e
. Return module separation complete. Ready for powered descent. Request permission to proceed.”

Radio waves from
Chang'e
sped toward a trio of data-relay satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit. Feng's voice was handed off to Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, which at this moment was on Earth's far side. These relay satellites allowed communication with Flight Control twenty-four hours a day. For the Apollo missions of the sixties and early seventies, NASA had been forced to construct satellite tracking stations in far-off Spain and Australia to maintain contact with its astronauts when the United States was facing away from the moon.

Ten seconds later—including the three-second lag required for radio waves to make the round-trip—the flight controller replied. “Affirmative,
Chang'e
. You are cleared for powered descent to Kunlun Base.”

“Roger. Beginning powered-descent sequence.” Feng turned to his passengers. “Ready?”

“Wait!” Tae was looking intently through her floating binoculars. Sohya looked out the window and saw what had caught her attention. On the surface directly below, something glinted at the dividing line between glistening dark volcanic ash and brilliant white lunar surface. Sohya could just make out a tiny cross, like rice grains laid end to end. It was Kunlun Base, in a valley southwest of Mons Hadley on the eastern limb of Mare Imbrium. NASA's
Apollo 15
had landed in this area, and this part of the moon's northern hemisphere was familiar to the Japanese as the space between the right-hand of a pair of rabbits pounding rice paste in a mortar, and the mortar.

“I see it! It's in focus!” cried Tae.

“Beginning powered-descent sequence. Commencing attitude maneuver.” Feng engaged the sequencer to increase lateral acceleration. The surface slipped from sight as the stack rotated. Tae puffed out her cheeks in frustration. “Just when I get it to work…”

Feng chuckled. “Too bad, we couldn't confirm it. This one doesn't count. You'll have another chance on the way home.” Feng and Ma calmly continued with the landing sequence. “Attitude maneuver complete. Initiating descent burn.” Sohya felt slightly pressed into his flight couch. The binoculars landed on Tae's chest and her body took on weight, pressing down on him. Xiwangmu was moving backward, its engines slowing its orbital velocity.

“First descent burn complete. Surface velocity, 1.6 kilometers per second. Descent angle, nominal.”

“
Chang'e
, please confirm correction for Imbrium mascon.”

“Beijing Control, I've just sent you the radar altimeter correction factors.”

“Thank you,
Chang'e
, we have the data. When is your next burn?”

“Beijing Control, we are looking at initiating next burn in approximately forty-five hundred seconds. Will apply correction just prior to burn. Third burn after ILS acquisition.”

“Ah…
Chang'e
, we'd like you to rerun your center of mass and thrust vector calculations with your backup computer. If the solutions are inconsistent, we'll bring you in manually.”

“Roger, Beijing Control.”

This is routine for them
, thought Sohya. The assurance that seemed to pervade the Chinese approach to spaceflight, from adding a passenger to using weightlessness to steady the binoculars, made it hard to believe the Chinese had flown into space for the first time early this century. This was only their fifth manned moon mission, but they had sent astronauts into low earth orbit over twenty times. The payoff in depth of experience was evident.

He glanced at Tae. She seemed to be studying every move Feng was making at the controls. Sohya spoke to her in Japanese. “Scared?”

“A little. Why do you ask?”

“You seem worried about the controls.”

“I'm sure the commander knows what he's doing.”

So what is she looking at?
thought Sohya.
She can't be interested in the flight controls or the hardware.
Over the past month, Sohya had discovered that Tae was extraordinarily precocious for her age, but it was hard to believe she could grasp anything about the functioning of a spacecraft. Even Sohya found it hard to understand.

He could feel the beating of her heart through her back. His own heart was also pounding. Both of them were rather—no, very—tense. Feng and Ma were seasoned veterans, but that wasn't the point. Watching them control the spacecraft's descent was stressful in itself. The procedures were bafflingly complicated. One mistake and they would probably be smashed to bits on the surface or torn apart to float in fragments in space. If not, they'd undoubtedly suffocate. Just thinking about the consequences made calm impossible. Tae must have been thinking the same thing.

They watched silently. The only sounds in the capsule now were those of the commander and the flight engineer as they confirmed each adjustment.

Reducing its orbital speed caused the stack to descend. The only way to do this was to fire the engines directly against Xiwangmu's orbital path. Firing the thrusters directly away from or toward the surface would change the shape of the orbit but would not enable them to land. So the stack was moving backward and firing its engines straight ahead.