Back to the Moon-ARC

Chapter 9

One week later, the Altair lunar lander was being prepared to take off from the surface of the Moon. Poised on the barren and scorched lunar surface was a robotic emissary from Earth, lifeless, peopleless, but controlled by people back on Earth.

Chow was once again sitting in the same conference room at the Johnson Space Center facing down his own demons from the dream, which had recurred four out of the last seven nights. The team’s sense of optimism was palpable. So far, all lunar-surface operations had gone flawlessly, and their confidence in the lander was growing daily. All that remained for it to do was lift from the surface of the Moon into low lunar orbit. There it would rendezvous with the Orion for the trip back to Earth.

Taller than a three-story house, the massive Altair would eventually be the home away from home for four astronauts who would be two hundred forty thousand miles and at least three days’ travel from the nearest park, coffee shop, or hospital. Built for functionality and not comfort, many would question it being considered a home away from anywhere. But to the astronauts who were going to live in her, she was a beauty, a masterpiece.

Perched atop the Altair was the ascent stage. The entire lander would not make the return journey into space, as that would require too much fuel. Newton’s First Law, force equals mass times acceleration, governed everything regarding rocket propulsion. To get something, the mass of the rocket and its passengers, moving, meant accelerating it. And that acceleration required a hefty force. The greater the mass, the greater the force required to get the acceleration. The lander, which at the time consisted mainly of empty propellant tanks that were depleted during the landing, was simply too massive to lift back into space. Too much fuel would have been required to get the acceleration needed to escape the gravitational pull of the Moon. Instead, a small portion of the lander, the ascent stage, would be lofted by a single modified Pratt & Whitney RL-10B engine. That engine produced just under twenty-five thousand pounds of thrust.

Had Chow and his colleagues been in the lander at that moment, they would have been standing shoulder to shoulder, anxiously awaiting engine ignition. Not only was there not enough room for chairs in the stage, but also the chairs would have mass. And, again, from Newton’s First Law, any increase in the mass of an object to be moved would require a commensurately greater force. Standing was a small price to pay for being among the first people to walk on the Moon in half a century.

Chow arrived well before the scheduled liftoff, wanting to have plenty of time to look over the mission briefings and to be part of the camaraderie that inevitably came with being where the action was. And the action was, most certainly, right there.

Above the conference room’s wall monitors were two clocks. The first showed mission elapsed time, begun at the moment of liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The second was a countdown clock, now set to count down to the moment when the Altair’s ascent stage engine lit—it was stopped at twenty minutes and had been stopped there for more than an hour. It was a scheduled hold in the countdown and did not indicate any serious problems.

Chow saw Menendez was there, busily scanning engineering data and mostly ignoring his presence just like she had during the landing. He noticed she occasionally looked up from the screen and scanned the room before returning to her busyness.

Bill Stetson appeared in the doorway. He looked around the room and seemed relieved when he caught Chow’s eye. Dodging various people milling about, Stetson made his way over across the conference room.

“Tony, I came to get you and Helen. I’d like for you to be with me in the control room for ascent.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“No, I just think it would be a good thing for my team to be with me. We’ve also got a better view. Charles is already there.” Stetson grinned. He was totally correct. Mission control was outfitted with an entire wall of huge flat screens showing in high definition what was happening on the Moon—both the inside Altair and outside looking back at the lunar lander.

“Get your stuff together while I go get Helen. We’re coming off hold in about fifteen minutes, and I need to get back. This is my pee break.” Stetson slapped Chow on the shoulder.

While Chow picked up his laptop and other belongings, he noticed Stetson talking with Menendez and her enthusiastic response—packing her things fast enough to meet Chow at the door as they left for mission control.

Nine hundred miles to the northeast in Lexington, Kentucky, Gary Childers was also watching events unfold on the Moon. In his typical fashion, he was also multitasking, reviewing various financial reports, answering e-mails and wondering when he might be able to sell tickets for a moonwalk. After all, flying around the Moon was pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as walking on the Moon. And he knew there would be a very large customer base interested in walking on the Moon if they could get there and back safely. The company’s current projections showed that happening in less than ten years. How much less was the big question.

An exhausted-looking Mark Watson entered his office with a small stack of papers in hand.

“Gary, we’ve looked at the entire database and nothing was changed,” he said, looking over the papers. “They only copied data. We don’t see any sign of tampering.”

“Good.”

“The FBI’s been mostly quiet about what they know, but Helen’s hacker is certain the data went to China. I’m glad he’s on our side.”

Gary Childers was not easily fazed, but the breach in his security certainly came very close to doing so.

“This really pisses me off. I convinced NASA and the DoD to let us have the scramjet designs. We improved them and found a way for the whole thing to work from takeoff through getting Dreamscape into orbit. And now the Chinese steal the plans—making us look like rank amateurs and giving the people who wear stars on their sleeves in the Pentagon an excuse to not share technology with us or anyone else in the future.

“I just hope the press doesn’t get the story. The last thing I want to do is damage control. We’re about to make history and, by the way, money.” He was definitely not in one of his better moods.

“Understood. So far, the only people who know about the breach are us, the FBI, and, of course, the Chinese.”

With that, Childers looked up from his desk and, with his head slightly tilted, gave Watson what he thought of as an “evil eye.” Without saying another word, he let the engineer know that now wasn’t the time and he didn’t want to discuss it any further. Watson slunk from his office, leaving Childers alone with his paperwork.

Five thousand miles away, in Beijing, China, a room of highly decorated military leaders sat in a room watching news coverage of the pending launch of the Altair from the surface of the Moon using flat-screen monitors nearly identical to those being used in Texas—made by a Chinese manufacturer, of course. In fact, it was the same Chinese manufacturer as the one that made the monitors at the Johnson Space Center.

The senior official in the room, to whom all others present expressed extreme deference, watched the screen without reaction. He turned to the man on his left and spoke so that all could hear.

“The president is anxious to see us launch on schedule. Are your people going to be ready? He is not happy that the Americans may beat us to the Moon, and I am not optimistic after reviewing the latest test reports.”

“Yes, sir.” General Xiang Li, the chief designer of China’s lunar program, nodded. Xiang, an MIT-educated engineer with multiple technical degrees, was responsible for China’s impressive buildup toward their own lunar mission. It seemed to him that his entire life was a movie script, with him playing the role of the great hero, destined to lead his country to the Moon. And by placing a Chinese flag there he could show the world that China had a place on the world stage as a great power. And—that the Moon was theirs.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, sir. We will be ready for launch as scheduled. I’ve personally reviewed the test reports, and the engineering team has a plan to fix the problem with the landing system. When our taikonauts are ready to land on the Moon, they will have a one hundred percent functional system to do so.” Though his words were bold, his heart was not in what he was saying. The test reports were actually not good, and there was not a consensus that the planned technological fix would even work. But the schedule had to be kept, lest Xiang lose his reputation and his job and, likely, his life.

“Very well,” was the simple reply from his boss, who then turned his head and focused intently on the television screen as the countdown clock resumed counting down from twenty minutes. As that clock ticked, the American test flight would be in its final phase, leaving them nothing to do except the real mission with a crew. And all in the room knew that China had to get there first.

The resumption of the countdown clock was met in mission control with muted approval. The time for celebration would be after a successful liftoff, not before. Not one second before.

Unlike the conference room, mission control was filled with engineers who monitored their data not simply because they could, but because they had to. The success of the robotic dress rehearsal depended upon them and their ability to think on their feet. The system was designed to be mostly autonomous, but everyone knew that if something were to go wrong, it would be quick-thinking people who would make the difference. And they could not forget that there was about a second-and-a-half delay between the Earth and the Moon due to the speed of light and data-relay loops, so they had to be extra careful, cautious, and expedient.

Menendez, Chow, and Leonard stood near the back wall, not wanting to get in anyone’s way. After all, they were last-minute observers and not part of the team currently on shift.

Stetson was sitting on console just behind and to the left of the Green Team flight director. Stetson was flight director when Blue Team was on shift. This time the Green Team was on console and Stetson was in the room as an observer. Not being in the flight director’s chair was tough on Stetson, but he knew he couldn’t be in it twenty-four hours a day nor for every critical mission event. This was a team effort. But it was still tough for him to not be in charge.

The Green Team flight director spoke up at T-minus fifteen minutes.

“Okay, folks. We’re fifteen minutes away from getting this bird off the surface and back into space. The last time we did this was 1972—before some of you were born. Let’s show Commander Stetson and his team that we know how to give them a good ride, because the next time it’ll be them on the screen, sweating real sweat and looking to us to get them home.” With that, the entirety of the room looked at Stetson, Chow, Leonard, and Menendez along the back wall. He concluded, “Now, damn. Let’s fly this thing!”

Stetson couldn’t help but grin at his team. Chow and Leonard accepted the attention by smiling, but Menendez only nodded curtly.

The countdown was flawless. As the clock reached zero, the camera inside the Altair began to shake—slowly at first, and then with greater intensity. The external cameras also started to move, but with much less apparent jitter than their interior counterparts due to the stiffness of their mounting hardware.

Slowly, the lunar surface began to move away from the rising ascent stage. The base of the lander was now clearly visible on the view screen, battered but basically as good as the day it was manufactured. A few pieces of insulation were torn open and blasted by the rocket exhaust, but otherwise there was no obvious damage being caused by the ascent stage as it rose into the perpetually dark lunar sky. The lifeless and gray lunar surface began to dominate the camera’s view as the Altair gained altitude and its shadow began to move laterally across the surface, diminishing in size.

Instead of the cheering that many might expect to hear with a successful liftoff, the team in mission control was dead silent, holding their collective breath. As it became apparent that the vehicle was not going to be stranded on the surface, nor was it about to crash, people began to breathe again—and a few did begin to clap their hands.

When the stage reached an altitude of ten miles, all of the screens abruptly went blank and numerous red lights simultaneously appeared at the workstations throughout the room.

“Holy…!” the Green Team’s flight director heard. “We’ve lost all telemetry.”

“Ditto that, no signal at all—not even the carrier.” Another confirmation that something had gone dreadfully wrong came from a worried engineer monitoring the health of the communications system.

Seemingly instinctively, but actually resulting from years of training and simulation, the Green Team went to work trying to figure out what was going on. With no data coming from the Altair during ascent, there was no way of knowing if the vehicle had exploded, gone off course, or was performing as it was supposed to.

Stetson’s mind raced, running through what he would do if he were in the flight director’s chair at this moment. But he wasn’t, and there was no way he was going to do anything other than speak if spoken to. Green Team was good, and they were doing everything they could to regain contact with the Altair. His mind was racing nonetheless.

From Houston to Lexington to Beijing, all ears were listening to the voice of NASA’s mission control as the obviously flustered commentator tried to fill the otherwise dead air with calming words and speculation about what was actually happening to the Altair—two hundred and fifty thousand miles away. No one in mission control had the time or inclination to provide the commentator with up-to-the-minute information, so he had to wing it. All things considered, he was doing an adequate job. After all, the Green Team in mission control didn’t know what was going on, either.

“Bill.” Looking at the harried Green Team doing its job with extreme professionalism, Helen Menendez leaned forward and spoke to Stetson quietly at first. Then a little louder. “Bill, the Altair is on autopilot, and if it is working correctly, we should see it on the Orion’s exterior cameras any minute now.” She spoke loud enough to be heard by Bill Stetson, Charles Leonard, and Anthony Chow, but not loud enough to be heard by anyone else. She was as sensitive as Stetson regarding their role as observers and observers only.

“Roger that.” Stetson nodded in affirmation. “That’s what I’m counting on.” As he spoke, his gaze shifted to the second screen from the right on the front wall. On the screen, which held his gaze, was the view through the Orion’s window of the lunar surface passing peacefully beneath the vehicle. If one could focus on the nose of the capsule and not be distracted by the sight of the lunar surface scrolling by below or the majesty of the myriad stars visible directly through the upper part of the frame, the docking ring that would attach the Orion to the Altair would be clearly visible. It was to there that the Altair was programmed to return—if it was still in one piece.

“There!” Seemingly on cue, a voice called out from somewhere in the room. “I see her! We’ve got a visual of the Altair from Orion!” Now all eyes in the room focused on the image from the orbiting Orion. There, in the distance, was a tiny glint. A spot of light only a few pixels in size on the monitor. But it was there, and it was growing larger. A few seconds more and the spot grew into more of a small disc as the Green Team watched breathlessly. After a few minutes it became apparent to all that the spot of light was, in fact, the incommunicado Altair, performing its automated rendezvous maneuver as it was designed and programmed to do.

“Hot damn!” Bill couldn’t contain himself any longer.

“I’ll second that” was all the Green Team’s flight controller could manage as he and the rest of the team began to prepare for the lunar-orbit rendezvous of the Altair and the Orion. Pictures and telemetry were coming from the Orion just as they should. The Altair remained totally silent.

Weeks later, after hundreds of engineers had a chance to review data from the voyage, it would be discovered that telemetry was likely lost due to a poorly potted connector in the primary communication system, stopping communication with the Earth but not stopping the flow of engineering, position, and velocity data between it and the Orion. The important data, that which was required to complete the rendezvous, was never disrupted. The backup communications system didn’t activate, because the primary system’s fault-detection software never detected the problem—after all, the Altair and the Orion never lost communication. Only the dirt-bound humans in mission control were cut off. The software routines never deviated; they assumed all was well with the data transmission and that nothing more needed to be done. Shortly thereafter, a bright console engineer would realize that he could have simply relayed the data from the Altair through the Orion feeds and then to mission control. Instead of getting egg on his face and making a big thing of it, he wrote an e-mail about it to the fault-response team that was duly noted and stored away.

Despite the success of the mission, that type of fault was one of the worst kind—two separate and distinct failures in the same system had caused a failure of the primary and backup communications systems. Fortunately, the double failure happened in a rather benign system and didn’t imperil the mission. Had the failure resulted in a loss of communications between the Altair and the Orion, then a successful rendezvous would have most likely been impossible. That is, since there were no humans aboard either spacecraft. Bill’s craw got all tied up in knots every single time he thought about it. Every system, step, procedure, and control had been automated to the point that pilots could do very little during the test program to show that the mission could still succeed even if one or more of the automated systems failed. He kept to himself the thought that decades of flying in low Earth orbit and only sending out robotic probes had sucked the adventure out of his colleagues.

“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered to himself. “This could have halted us by a couple of years.”