Pilgrimage (The New World) (11 page)

When he rose to leave the room the two astronauts snapped to attention once again, and received the greatest gift of all as the President of the United States said “I should be the one saluting the two of you for what you are about to do for this country and mankind!” With that, the President shook their hands and left the room with the secret service in tow.

As had become his customary habit, on the morning of this long anticipated launch Ross rubbed the emblem on his necklace with his bare fingers one more time before being helped into his spacesuit. The crowds at the launch viewing points were larger than during some of the more recent missions, because some of those were perceived as routine by the public. Ross, and everyone at NASA for that matter, knew that all of those previous missions served as an important cog in the grand plan of space exploration, but this mission had the added significance of returning to the Moon.

The giant digital clock on the grounds near mission control that signified the countdown sequence moved within minutes of the launch, and the excitement level of the crowd began to rise. As if cheering on their favorite team in the closing seconds of a closely fought game, the crowd joined in unison with the voice over the loudspeaker and counted backwards from ten to one.

The mighty rockets came to life with a blast of smoke and fire, and the shuttle Discovery began to slowly pull away from the launch platform. Patty and Jessica, now witnessing their third launch, comforted Aurora and Rachel who were a bit scared by all the loud noise and commotion. Thousands of other spectators who had lined various viewing points on or near the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center tipped their heads backwards as the shuttle began to pick up speed and move skyward.

Ross and Dennis had a slightly bumpier ride than either had experienced on previous flights, but they thought that was probably due to the different configuration of the payload. The external main fuel tank and twin reusable rocket boosters that would soon be jettisoned had the same specifications as previous flights, but the shuttle itself had been reconfigured for this mission. Within the large cargo bay at the back end of the shuttle was the added weight of fuel tanks for the extended flight to the Moon, along with some minor building materials and machinery such as the rover vehicle for use on the surface. The plan was for much of this cargo, including the rover, to be left near the landing site on the Moon for use during future missions. If all went well with this three week mission, the next wave would bring additional components to begin assembling a livable habitat for longer durations on the surface.

Soon the ride smoothed out considerably as they escaped the confines of Earth’s atmosphere, so Ross and Dennis went to work preparing for the next phase of the flight. It would only take them a few hours to orbit the Earth once, and then they would break away from orbit and set a course for the Moon.

With all systems ready to go, Ross awaited the instructions from mission control to begin the maneuver. At the appropriate time he pushed the correct buttons that would create the added boost to break orbit, and they were on their way. The burn of the engines would need to be about two minutes in length to attain the proper speed and course for the upcoming three day glide, so Ross decided he and Dennis should make good use of the time. With the aid of a harmonica that Dennis had smuggled aboard, the two astronauts began singing their own horrible rendition of Bart Howards “Fly Me to the Moon.” Neither one of the two astronauts could sing very well, but they gave it their best effort as the song was now part of NASA’s official transcript of the mission.

THE THRUSTERS HAD
fired perfectly to slow down the approaching shuttle Discovery, and she fell into a gentle orbit around the Moon. Ross and Dennis then began preparing for the upcoming landing. They had little time to work with, as the shuttle would make three orbits of the Moon while the thrusters occasionally fired to continue slowing the vessel, and then they would take it into a landing pattern.

Like all of her sister shuttles in the fleet, the Discovery was designed to land like an aircraft back on Earth. The same concept would be used by Ross for this landing on the Moon, but there were a few hugely significant differences in how he would approach each of the two landings during the mission. For a landing on Earth, the shuttle would come in fast and hard towards a lengthy runway, and there would be no opportunity for a second chance via a flyby. On the Moon, Ross had one-sixth of the gravity to contend with, less speed, and no runway. If absolutely necessary the thrusters could be used to create enough lift for a flyby, and then Ross could realign the shuttle for another landing attempt. He would land the Discovery on specially fitted skis that would later be jettisoned, but there would be very little roll out according to NASA’s expectations.

The three day flight up to the Moon had been a smooth one, without even the smallest “glitch” that had been the well documented norm for the earlier missions of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The shuttle program had taken over the modern day of space flight, and this was the first of those vehicles to be used for a trip beyond a standard low Earth orbit. Several more missions were being scheduled to follow in the upcoming months and years, so the overall success of this particular mission added some weight to the two men chosen for the task at hand.

Ross brought the shuttle in on final approach over the chosen landing site, and touched it down on the relatively smooth surface well away from any deep craters. After checking all the systems for any problems, he and Dennis prepared to exit the craft onto the surface of the Moon.

Unlike the previous Apollo missions to have landed, the shuttle didn’t have a fixed ladder on the side of the spacecraft for a relatively easy descent. The space shuttle had always been used for orbital missions that on occasion had docked with another vehicle in space, but when they returned to earth the astronauts used a slide from a blown hatch to exit the craft. It was another aspect of the retrofit that needed to be considered because the aforementioned section of each Apollo spacecraft had always been left on the lunar surface, while this entire vehicle would be returning to Earth. The engineers at NASA had finally decided that the best approach would be to store a ladder in the cargo bay with all the other equipment, and then mount it on the side of the shuttle for descent after the cargo bay doors had been opened. It was basically a glorified version of a ladder that would be placed on the side of a boat for water-skiers or swimmers to use, and was light enough that the large robotic arm used for other aspects of their cargo would not be needed.

The airlock connecting the crew cabin and flight deck to the cargo bay hissed open, and Ross stepped outside. With Dennis close behind, the two of them moved the ladder into the proper position for Ross to make his historic descent. Dennis leaned out over the edge of the cargo bay with a hand held camera recording every move that Ross made. He did his best to keep steady, as this clip of film was being broadcast to every part of the Earth that had the technology to receive it. When Ross reached the bottom step, he looked back up at Dennis and waved to the camera. His words would not be the same as famously spoken by Neil Armstrong, but he knew they would go into the history books.

Ross spoke to the world when he said “Mankind has returned to the Moon as another step in our quest for knowledge through peaceful space exploration.” With that Ross turned his gaze towards the ground below him, and pushed away from the ladder. A small amount of lunar dust was displaced by his boots after the fall of little more than a foot, and he was now standing on the surface of the Moon waiting for Dennis to join him.

CONTINUING THE EXPLORATION
patterns set forth by their superiors at NASA, astronauts Martin and Strickland began the tenth day of gathering and reporting data from the lunar surface. When they landed on Monday the 11
^th
of November 1985 they had become the first humans to set foot on the Moon since the crew of Apollo 17 nearly thirteen years prior, but they had now exceeded the duration of that, or any other previous crews, time on the lunar surface by several days. As only the thirteenth and fourteenth persons to actually land, Ross and Dennis had become heroes back on Earth before they even returned from the mission.

After spending the entire first day taking promotional photographs for NASA and unloading the gear from the cargo bay, Ross and Dennis were then able to get busy with the more important task of exploration. Throughout the course of the first week of rover vehicle and walking patrols, there was nothing unusual or significant to report. The plan set forth by NASA was to begin a cautious exploration of the far side of the Moon from positions along the edge of the surface that always faces Earth. Because the plan was to continue this exploration for fourteen days, some of the terrain they needed to cover would be in darkness.

A typical cycle between full moons is a fraction over twenty-seven days, so it takes almost fourteen days for the Moon to visually change from full to a tiny crescent back on Earth. The same side of the Moon always faces the Earth, so areas of light and dark upon the Moon change just as they do on Earth. When a crescent is viewed, the far side is almost entirely illuminated by the sun, but when a full moon is viewed that same surface area is in total darkness.

Their first eight days on the surface had been in sunlight, but now the Moon had rotated far enough around the Earth that the remainder of their time would be in the darkness. According to the expectations of NASA, the sun would rise again just before their planned departure and voyage back to Earth. Exploration in sunlight was easier because the solar powered rover could move about with relative ease and cover more ground each day, but their exploration technique had changed due to the total darkness that had engulfed them. The batteries of the rover could last with minimal driving for a day, but would need to be recharged by a power source back at the shuttle at the conclusion of each day’s work.