Back to the Moon-ARC

“We took China to the Moon!” Hui said, more than a bit frustrated with the younger man. “Besides, we survived! We crash-landed on the Moon—two hundred and forty thousand miles from home—and have survived longer than we would have thought possible. And we owe that survival to you, Zhi. Without your engineering skills at keeping us warm, we would never have made it. You will be a hero!”

“Some hero. I kept us alive long enough for the Americans to get the glory. We would have been better off dead. At least then our countrymen could have come to get our bodies in a Chinese spaceship.”

“You will be quiet now, engineer!” Hui, now clearly angry, asserted her command position. She calmed herself but left the edge to her tone. “Zhi. That is enough. We will not let misplaced pride stand in the way of doing what we must do to survive. We will not serve our country by being buried here. Enough! Need I remind you that I am in command of this mission? We will carry ourselves appropriately with the Americans and represent China with pride. That is an order.”

Zhi did not appear to be impressed or affected by her order. But he did quiet and for that, Hui was grateful.

“It is not long now,” she said. “They will be on the ground within the next three hours or less.” Hui was reviewing the information provided from their last radio contact with Earth. Her colleague had stayed with her on the radio until she had to switch it off due their rapidly fading power. Had their counterpart on Earth not told them precisely when the American ship would arrive, they would not have had the power to communicate with them. She looked out the window and into the darkness.

“There are quite a few boulders out there. I hope they can avoid them on their way in.” The thought of trying to pilot a lander in the lunar darkness terrified her. They had not been equipped for a night landing, and they had certainly not planned on staying until nightfall. She then thought about the American Apollo program and recalled that none of them had landed at night, either. The Apollo missions were carefully choreographed to occur during the day and at locations that would provide direct line-of-sight communication with the Earth. Did their current lander even have landing lights?

Chow and Stetson were in their suits and in position for the Altair’s separation from the Orion and their descent to the surface. All systems checked out, and they were ready to go.

Stetson was worried, but not about going down to the Moon. He was worried about the timing and the fact that the taikonauts had less than five hours of power left in their suits. He’d have to get the Altair on the ground close to the Harmony, walk to the Chinese lander, and help the four taikonauts get back to the Altair. While he was taking care of getting the stranded Chinese, Chow would begin off-loading the equipment from the Altair that would enable them to get off the Moon and back to Earth. Once he returned, they would have to break out some tools to remove a few panels on the exterior of the spacecraft. That was a two-man job at a minimum, and none of them had ever tried it. Stetson was worried about the timing and the actions. If everything went according to plan, they would have about an hour or two to spare to get to the downed Chinese. That wasn’t much margin.

“Tony, separation in five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Separate!” called Stetson. The Altair jolted as it separated from the Orion. There was a slight roll as the two vehicles moved apart and then a low rumble—the Altair’s engines were lit, and they were beginning their descent.

“How many times did you simulate landing in the dark?” asked Chow.

“This is my first,” said Stetson. Unlike during any of their simulations, Stetson and Chow were descending to the surface in total darkness. “This was a mission scenario that was never supposed to happen,” he said.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. All the sims had us landing and taking off during the day. We don’t have enough power to last through the night, and it’s just too dangerous to land in the dark. Why on Earth would we simulate such a thing? It was never on anyone’s mission plan!”

“So this will be your first time,” said Chow.

“Yep! But, like I said, don’t worry. We got pretty good pictures of the landing site from the Lunar Mapper before it crapped out, and now we can compare them with those we just took to make sure we don’t put this monster down on any rocks or a crashed Chinese lander. We’ve also got the terrain-mapping radar and some pretty good lights that I am supposed to switch on now.” Stetson paused long enough to activate four halogen lights pointing downward in their direction of travel.

Stetson continued, “The lights were put on here to help us avoid tripping on something in the shadow of the lander as we walk around. Depending upon the time of year and where you are on the Moon, the shadows can be rather long. We’re going to use them to help us land instead. Can’t talk anymore; I’d better pay attention to what I, er, the computer is doing as we land.”

Stetson returned his attention to the view screen and the altimeter data. Though the lights were bright, the ship was still too far away for them to reflect from anything on the ground. The radar told him that they were five miles from the surface and descending rapidly. The automated system was taking them to a site about three hundred meters from the Harmony, in an area that was relatively free of boulders.

As the descent continued, Stetson closely watched the cameras for any sign of the ground beneath them. He was painfully aware of what had happened the first time an American astronaut descended to the surface of the Moon. That commander had been Neil Armstrong, and he had had to manually bring the lander down to avoid some boulders that weren’t supposed to be in the way. They’d made it, but with far less fuel remaining than planned for. That’s why we have margin, thought Stetson.

“I see the ground,” said Stetson. And he saw it appear rather suddenly. One minute they were coming down through near-total darkness, and the next they could see the ground, and some boulders, just beneath and ahead of them.

“I don’t see Harmony. Tony, look aft and see if you can find them.” Stetson was hoping the computer had put them down in the right place.

The ship lunged upward as the engines further slowed their rate of descent. They were now dropping slowly toward the surface and, fortunately, the patch of ground they were headed toward looked wide open, with no boulders large enough to matter to the twenty-five-foot diameter Altair. Hopefully.

“Holy cow!” Chow exclaimed. “Look at the dirt we’re kicking up. I don’t see Harmony.” The engines were now kicking up an ever-increasing amount of dust as the ship drew nearer and nearer to the surface. Some of the debris was undoubtedly being blown far enough to impact the walls of the Harmony only three hundred meters away.

With a thump, the Altair reached the surface and the engines shut off. The lights illuminated the area around the lander, and, over the next couple of minutes, most of the airborne dust and debris kicked up during descent