Back to the Moon-ARC

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.