Back to the Moon-ARC

was easily eight inches taller than she. “No, they aren’t yet flying a Dreamscape. But the Moon is going to be crowded these next few weeks. The Chinese test flight began today. We launch next week, and NASA is supposed to fly the week after that. We haven’t been to the Moon in half a century, and now everyone will be going—within a few weeks of each other. We couldn’t have planned it this way if we’d tried. Gary is gonna be ecstatic!”

Gesling was hearing her words, but for some reason he was distracted by the way she raised her right eyebrow as she looked “down” at him in her best schoolteacher manner. It really accented her green eyes and high cheekbones. Before long, he wasn’t even hearing her words anymore.

“…Lunar surface trips for Space Excursions.” Caroline paused, wondering why there had been no reaction from Paul. “Paul? Are you in there?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. I was just thinking about the simulation,” he lied. “What did you say?”

“Sometimes I wonder about you!” was her first reaction. She then said, “Gary told me this morning that he’s signed a deal with investors to begin our own lunar-landing effort. He’s going to announce it after you return from the Moon. I think he wants to tell you himself, so please don’t let on that I already told you.”

Gesling was not totally surprised; he and Childers had spoken several times about what the next step would be for Space Excursions. He just hadn’t expected it to come so soon. He at first thought he should bolt to Childers’s office and give him every opportunity to break the news. Then he remembered the post-simulation checklist and procedures. But even that took second place to finishing the conversation with Caroline. Yes, he would definitely have to make more time for talking with her.

The U.S. military took notice of what the Chinese were doing as well. Before the media knew of the launch, the U.S. Space Command was already on top of it. Headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, Space Command had been informed in advance of the Chinese plans and had the appropriate air and space assets in place to monitor all aspects of the launch and its early flight. Thanks to excellent human intelligence from within the China National Space Administration, American intelligence and the U.S. Space Command were watching as the Chinese version of the American Ares V lifted off from central China on its way to the Moon.

Pictures taken from the Pentagon’s low Earth-orbit spacecraft could literally read the lettering on the side of the rocket as it passed on its way to Trans-Lunar Injection. Additional spacecraft in geostationary orbit were retargeted to make similar observations as the vehicle accelerated away from the Earth. The launch was flawless.

The Chinese had opted for a lunar orbit rendezvous approach. Like Apollo, they were going to launch the entire vehicle, including the crew and the lunar lander, on one rocket. Unlike the United States, whose lunar missions would use two rockets, one for crew and the other for all the hardware required for reaching the Moon, the Chinese opted for just one. They had no International Space Station to service with the crew-launch vehicle, so the idea, and cost, of building two rockets was simply out of the question.

To those monitoring the flight and listening to all the telemetry and voice chatter from the Chinese ground controllers, this seemed to be a full dress rehearsal for the real thing. As far as anyone could tell, the Chinese were treating this like a crewed launch and dotting all their i’s to make sure it went according to plan. Signals-intelligence stations were even picking up mock-up voice-data channels going back and forth between the ground and the rocket.

As good as American intelligence was, they still could not decode in real time all of the telemetry coming back from the rocket. The encryption was too good, and it would take some time to decipher. The data was passed off to the supercomputer center at the National Security Agency with top priority for decryption. The code-breaker wizards there would figure it out soon enough. Unfortunately, it would not be deciphered for at least a week, because there was already a priority cipher in the queue—and a few surprises would have been avoided had they been able to decode it just a little bit faster.

Before the press knew what was going on, appropriate phone calls were made to the White House and the Pentagon about the Chinese launch. Within an hour, Calvin Ross was aware of the flight and had called the manager of the NASA Public Affairs Office, asking him to be prepared to take the inevitable questions from the media. And once the story broke, the phone calls started coming in.

In China, when the news broke, the public was euphoric. Spontaneous rallies broke out at China’s major engineering universities, with the students carrying homemade banners extolling both their space agency and their political leaders. Schoolchildren began writing letters to the taikonauts who, they were told, would be taking the first piloted journey in just a few months. Companies that had made hardware for the flight convened “all hands” meetings of their employees, allowing them to take time off to watch televised replays of the rocket launch and the animations of what the rocket would be doing in space during its voyage to the surface of the Moon.

For China, it was a day of national pride and anticipation. Anticipation of the next step, expected in a scant few months, that would carry three Chinese taikonauts to the Moon and show the world that China had “arrived.”

Oddly enough, the public in archrival India celebrated as well. The world’s largest democracy, though much poorer than its Western cousins, had made tremendous strides in space exploration over the previous decade. India itself was only a few years away from sending vyomanauts into Earth orbit. Seeing another formerly backward country be on the edge of accomplishing what only one of the last century’s superpowers could attain was a cause for celebration. Engineers were jealous. Politicians were eager to use the moment to promote India’s growing technological prowess. And the average Indian looked forward to their own day on the Moon.

In America, few noticed and even fewer really cared. And fewer still understood the technical implications and political ramifications. In America, it was just another day and another headline about something happening “over there somewhere.”

Chapter 15

“This is it!” Paul Gesling said into the camera that transmitted his image from the cockpit of the Dreamscape to the five passengers strapped into their seats behind him in the crew cabin. “In a few days, you’ll be the first people since the Apollo astronauts to go to the Moon and back. I know the training has sometimes been less than fun, but what we’re about to do will make history and give you something to tell your grandchildren about. You are going to get your money’s worth—and then some!”

Not wanting to be distracted from his preflight checklist any longer, Gesling turned back to the forward view screen and instrument panel. With the press of a virtual button on the touch screen, he turned off his audio but left the video feed on. Gary Childers insisted that the paying customers have a chance to see what the hired help was up to in all stages of the mission.

The Dreamscape was certainly living up to its name. Perched on the Nevada desert runway like a large and beautiful bird, it was about to take flight. The engines were running, producing the telltale heat exhaust, causing the air behind the vehicle to distort light in unusual ways, making objects appear to ripple in the heat of the mid-day sun. Crisscrossing orange and red plasma streams poured into a billowing exhaust cloud of puffy white steam. Emblazoned on the front of the spaceship was its name, the corporate emblem of Space