An International Mission to the Moon

by Jean Petithuguenin

  “Specious reasoning,” said Galston. “It’s simpler to invoke the action of natural forces. Volcanic phenomena have certainly played an enormous role on our satellite.”

  The time of the journey went by in that fashion, occupied with peaceful discussions. They only renounced the controversy in order to eat or sleep.

  The crescent Moon that the passengers of the Selenit saw floating overhead increased in size rapidly. The part of the disk that was not directly illuminated by the Sun presented a milky aspect; that was the well-known phenomenon of the ashen Moon, which is due to the reflection of daylight by the Earth upon our satellite. And, indeed, opposite the Moon, almost directly underfoot, the voyagers distinguished the terrestrial globe, enormous and brilliant, but already eaten into by darkness on the oriental edge.

  Scherrebek, assisted by Galston and Kito, endeavored to measure with exactitude the apparent diameter of the Moon and that of the Earth.

  “We’ll reach the lunar zone of attraction,” he said, “when the apparent diameter of the star reaches five degrees twelve minutes—which is to say, when it appears to us to be ten times greater than from the surface of the Earth. On the other hand, we’ll only see the latter under and angle of two degrees six minutes—which is to say that it will seem to us about four times larger than the Moon appears from the Earth. The neutral point will be found nine-tenths of the distance between the Earth and the Moon, about 346,000 kilometers from our globe.

  He took his measurements and declared: “We’ll arrive at the neutral point in a few minutes. Everyone to his post! It’s necessary first of all to prevent any deviation, in order not to go past the Moon, as happened to the characters invented by Jules Verne.”

  Garrick and Kito, as light as the air they were breathing, let themselves down into the engine-room. Scherrebek, in the company of Galston, went back up into the pilot’s cabin.

  VII. The Arrival

  “Well, what do you think of our voyage?” asked Brifaut, whispering in Madeleine’s ear. “Do you regret taking part in it?”

  “Sincerely, no. I find it exciting. And I assure you that I’m not afraid at all. People talk about honeymoons—ours won’t be banal, and we really will spend it on the Moon.”

  “Which proves that it isn’t wrong to ask for the Moon—which is to say, the impossible.”

  The axis of the Selenit was directed almost exactly at the eastern edge of the Moon; but as that latter continued to move in its course around the Earth, there was a risk of missing the target if they maintained exactly the same direction. Scherrebek, deflected it by means of a few discharges of the transversal tubes in order to steer slightly outside the disk, at the point that the Moon would have reached when the Selenit, entering its zone of attraction, would be, so to speak, captured by it.

  “In what region of the Moon are we going to land?” asked Goffoël.

  “I think the captain has decided to select the Sea of Rains, in the vicinity of Archimedes,” said Uberaba.

  “Where’s that?” asked Madeleine.

  “Look at the map,” said Lang.

  He pointed on a world map of the Moon at a large almost-rectangular plain, which covered almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere, extending over a length of a thousand kilometers and a similar breadth: a surface area as large as France.

  “That’s the Sea of Rains. It’s limited to the north by the massif of the Alps, which prolongs the Caucasus.”

  “But it’s at the bottom of the map,” said Madeleine. “You said it was in the north.”

  “Yes, on maps of the Moon the North Pole is usually placed at the bottom and the South Pole at the top, because that’s the way the star is seen in astronomical telescopes, which invert images. To the south-west, the Sea of Rains is limited by the Apennines, an enormous chain whose culminating point reaches an altitude of 5,600 meters, while the Alps only rise up 3,660 meters.

  “At the extremity of the Apennines, toward the east—and remember that on the Moon, east and west are the opposite way around to the earthly cardinal points—you see a deep crater some sixty kilometers in diameter, Eratosthenes, whose wall is 4,500 meters high. It’s remarkable for its regularity and bright ring.

  “Beyond Eratosthenes in the prolongation of the Apennines, still toward the east, on the tenth degree of north latitude, you can see a splendid crater, Copernicus, which measures ninety kilometers in diameter and whose encircling wall rises to 3,400 meters. In the period of the full moon, it seems to be surrounded by bright spokes that form an aureole of extraordinary brilliance. In that respect it’s almost as remarkable as the famous crater Tycho, at the austral Pole, which radiates bright bands over the entire southern hemisphere.

  “In the right angle formed by the direction of the Alps and that of the Apennines, facing the broad strait that connects the Sea of Rains with the Sea of Serenity, three craters stand out on the plain. Proceeding from the north, they’re Aristillus, Autolycus and, to the east of the latter, Archimedes. The last-named measures seventy-eight kilometers in diameter; its rim, relatively low, only rises to an altitude of 2,457 meters.

  “Such is the region that Scherrebek intends to explore, at least in part. It’s well enough defined by maps and photographs for us to find our way round there without difficulty, and it has the advantage of concentrating within a relatively small area the characteristic types of lunar geological formations. Naturally, it will be necessary for the Selenit to transport us from one place to another, because, even on the surface of the Moon, where weight is feeble, we won’t be able to cover a considerable distance on foot in our suits in a single stage. I think the Selenit will be able to cover five or six hundred kilometers without difficulty, though, on the plains of the Sea of Rains.”

  Sherrebek’s voice resonated in the acoustic apparatus. “We’re falling on the Moon.”

  In conformity with Monsieur Esnault-Pelterie’s calculations, whose conclusions that constructors of the Selenit had accepted on that point, it would be sufficient to commence braking, but activating the engines to slow down the fall, when they were no more than a short distance from the lunar surface—approximately two hundred kilometers—but Scherrebek had to furnish a few blasts with the small tubes to make the Selenit turn around and place her posterior section downwards, with the prow turned toward the Earth.

  The explorers now saw the lunar surface rising toward them, like a huge balloon, part of which, lit by the sun, was spreading a dazzling light, while the other, which was only receiving the reflection from the Earth, was gleaming feebly. The details of the dark part were nevertheless visible at that short distance in the “earthlight.”

  “How will we know when we’re no more than 250 kilometers from the lunar surface?” asked Brifaut.

  “Still by measuring the angle that the star presents to us—which is to say, the angle made by two visual rays tangential to the lunar surface, one at the North Pole and the other at the South. Trigonometry permits us to calculate what that angle will be when we’re 250 kilometers from our satellite, the radius of the Mon being known. It’s exactly 121° 56ʹ 34ʺ, which is slightly more than a third of the celestial circumference.

  From that moment on the passengers of the Selenit never ceased observing the progressive increase in size of the Moon. They could not help feeing a certain anxiety at the moment when they were about to make contact with the unknown world. In spite of the most exact previsions and the most scrupulous calculations, something unexpected might occur at the moment of landing, and the slightest accident might prove fatal. A delay of one second in the maneuver, or an engine breakdown, and the Selenit would crash into the ground instead of settling there softly. It was also necessary to take account of the inequalities of the terrain. Scherrebek might well have chosen a region of the plain that was relatively untormented, but they could still collide with an unsuspected projection or fall into one of the crevasses so frequent on the lunar surface.

  “The sun’s setting!” exclaimed Brifaut, who was
observing through a periscope.

  “What!” said Bojardo.

  He looked too. The lunar crescent was diminishing, and the sun was gradually descending behind the prodigiously-magnified mass of our satellite.

  “Of course,” said Goffoël. “We’re penetrating into the cone of shadow. In a few minutes, we’ll no longer see either the Sun or the slightest illuminated zone on the Moon. We’ll be in night, and we’ll no longer be able to count on anything but the light reflected by the Earth, our fatherland.”

  “Would you believe how beautiful she is, our Earth, seen from here?” said Bojardo, with a lyrical enthusiasm. “Don’t you think that one appreciates her better when one’s separated from her, as we are, by a 350,000-kilometer desert? She’s hospitable, fecund and generous. One can walk freely on her surface and breathe everywhere. One finds an abundance of water, plants, animals…oh, the Earth!”

  “If you miss her so much,” said Espronceda, “why did you leave her?”

  “I didn’t know that it was going to have such an effect on me. And then, in spite of everything, I have a keen desire to see what’s happening on the Moon.”

  The Sun had completely disappeared. The Selenit was in night, but they could not have made out the contours of the Earth-lit Moon any more distinctly.

  “Notice,” observed Dr. Lang, “that because of the curvature of the surface, we can now only see a limited part of the lunar globe from the distance we’ve reached, close to the limit of 250 kilometers set by Scherrebek for the commencement of the braking maneuver. Seeing the Moon at an angle of about a hundred and twenty degrees, we can only embrace a sixth of its surface with the gaze—which is to say that we can discover a horizon whose diameter in approximately equal to the radius of the moon, which is 1,740 kilometers. That horizon is 5,463 kilometers in circumference, whereas a lunar meridian measures nearly 11,000 kilometers. If we were above the Earth, at the same distance, we’d see a much more extensive horizon because, the globe being larger, its curvature is less pronounced—and we’d also have to take account of the atmospheric refraction, which heightens images at the horizon, whereas the effects of the lunar atmosphere are insensible.”

  The dull rumble transmitted to the interior of the Selenit by the vibrations of the engine tubes became audible again. Scherrebek had just given the order to brake by activating the engines.

  At the same time the passengers—who had lost all sensation of weight many hours before—had the impression of suddenly becoming material beings again. The deceleration that the engines brought to the fall by making an effort in the inverse direction was, in fact, equivalent to an augmentation of the lunar attraction, rendering it almost equal to eight at the surface of the Earth. Until that moment, by contrast, since the Selenit had entered the Moon’s gravitational field, as it had been passively obedient to the force that solicited it, and escaping, so to speak, beneath the feet of its passengers, animated by the same movement, the latter had had no more weight than any other objects contained within the interplanetary vehicle.

  “Well,” exclaimed Dr. Uberaba, “we’ve ceased to be pure spirits!”

  Fortunately, Scherrebek had instructed Garrick and Kito only to apply a progressive deceleration to begin with. If they had recovered their normal weight abruptly, the passengers, taken by surprise, would have fallen over and might have experienced serious accidents, such as syncope or congestion.

  “Look out—the train’s coming into the station!” said Goffoël.

  “In how long?” asked Brifaut.

  “We’re reaching the end of our voyage. In three and a half minutes, we’ll be at rest on the lunar surface.”

  Care had already been taken to secure all the objects inside the Selenit, in anticipation of the change of position that the machine, previously vertical, was about to undergo, in order to land on the Moon horizontally. The passengers installed themselves in such a manner as to suffer the impact without any accident.

  Scherrebek steered in such a way as to land in the north of the Sea of Rains, not far from the rim of Plato, a large crater ninety-six kilometers in diameter, whose rampart rises up 2,417 meters, and which marks the north-eastern extremity of the Alpine chain. The great somber cavity was clearly distinguishable by earthlight, surrounded by a pale wall, to the south-west of which the numerous peaks of the Alps extended, while the little group of the Tenerife Mountains was also visible to the south. The massif of the Alps was cut through the middle by a large black band, orientated north-westwards, which indicated the position of the Great Valley.

  Although the light cast upon the Moon by the Earth at that time was at least ten times more vivid than the brightest moonlight on the Earth’s surface, it was nevertheless insufficiently powerful to permit all the details of the terrain to be distinguished. The chaotic, tormented surface of the Moon took on a fantastic and terrifying aspect under that illumination.

  The horizon was shrinking rapidly as the Selenit drew nearer to the ground. The diameter of the lunar horizon, for a man standing in the middle of a plain, is less than five kilometers, while on Earth it surpasses nine. If the ground is perfectly flat, the gaze only extends 2,430 meters.

  Dr. Lang. whose memory as a storehouse of numbers, was in the process of giving these precisions to Madeleine when the acoustic funnel caused the captain’s warning to resonate:

  “Look out! We’re touching down!”

  “Cut the power!” roared Scherrebek then into the acoustic channel to the engine room.

  At the same instant, an impact—not very violent—shook the Selenit from top to bottom. The projectile vehicle had touched down at its inferior extremity. It remained in equilibrium momentarily, and then tilted slowly sideways.

  “Gas to the right!” shouted Scherrebek.

  As soon as the engine had stopped, the passengers had felt an abrupt lightening, as at the moment when they had escaped the terrestrial attraction. They no longer weighed more than a sixth of their normal weight.

  In the engine room, Garrick and Kito were attentive to the maneuver. They knew that the fate of the Selenit depended on the rapidity and precisions of their actions. They brought one of the lateral tubes into play, in the direction in which the apparatus was tilting, in order to slow and deaden its fall.

  For a moment, the Selenit seemed to float in mid-air, but it pivoted on itself, and leaned over in the other direction. Immediately, the engineers applied reaction in that new direction.

  That struggle against weight lasted twenty seconds. Finally, the Selenit was lying on the ground. If the engines had not intervened to slow the fall, that would have happened in ten or twelve seconds, and the upper extremity of the vessel would have made contact with the ground at a velocity of sixteen or twenty meters a second, which might have been sufficient to cause a disaster. As it was, the velocity of contact was no more than two meters a second; that was still a rude shock, given the mass of the Selenit, but the vessel was solidly constructed; its envelope and all its organs resisted the impact.

  As for the passengers, in spite of the precautions they had taken, they were forcefully jolted and thrown into one another.

  Nor were they at the end of their ordeal. Scherrebek had not succeeded in landing exactly where he had intended, between the crater Plato and the little group of the Tenerife Mountains.

  In the final seconds of the fall, the Selenit had been carried a little toward the north-west by its acquired momentum, and it had not landed on the plain but on the ultimate buttress of the southern slope of Plato. Scarcely had it touched down than it lurched sideways, and while the passengers let out a cry of anguish, it began to roll down the slope of the mountain.

  The crew members tried to hold on to whatever came to hand. Garrick and Kito, were attached to their maneuvering station, but they had not had time to stand up, in order to assume a new posture, when the Selenit was lying on the ground, and they found themselves sprawling on the floor again, which the machine had already dragged along the declivity. Garri
ck bumped his head rather rudely against the wall, and, half-stunned, only just retained enough strength to cling on to the straps retaining him.

  Kito found himself upside-down momentarily, but he was an energetic fellow endowed with great presence of mind. He succeeded in delivering gas to the tangential tubes whose reaction would oppose the rotation that had gripped the vessel. His initiative did not stop the fall, but it slowed it down.

  For half a minute, the enormous mass of the Selenit tumbled down the slope, rebounding from rocky projections. If the misadventure had occurred on Earth, the hull would not have resisted, and the machine would have been torn apart, but thanks to the reduction in weight, the expedition escaped catastrophe on this occasion.

  Having reached the bottom of the slope, the Selenit covered a further two hundred meters rolling over the plain, and stopped. Instead of resting normally on its caterpillar tracks and struts, however, it had ended up lying on its left side.

  In the crew section, Madeleine and her companions came to their feet, standing on the lateral wall of the Selenit.

  Scherrebek and Galston appeared in the doorway to the command post.

  “Anyone injured?” asked the captain.

  “Roll call!” shouted Brifaut.

  Uberaba had lit three electric lamps a few seconds after the fall. Two were still shining, and permitted the members of the expedition to examine one another.

  “Roll call!” Brifaut repeated. “Madeleine Brifaut!”

  “Present!” replied the young woman, albeit in a tremulous voice.

  “Bojardo!”

  “Present!”

  The Frenchman named each of the crew members who were in the main section successively. All of them responded. None had any injury, or even a serious bruise. Scherrebek and Galston were unharmed. Kito and Garrick made their appearance, They too were safe and sound.

  “Everyone’s in good health,” said Bojardo. “It’s only a minor problem, then.”