“And… now. C3=0.” This term meant that the characteristic energy of the spacecraft was now equal to the gravitational pull of the Earth. The engines kept running, pushing them beyond the invisible boundary – if they lost power now, they would be captives of the Sun forever.
“Welcome to interplanetary space,” Pascale said.
“Bring it on,” said Aleksandr. “This is what we live for. We are a ship of exploration and science. We put our trust in those who built her, and the positive thoughts of the people of Earth who are symbolically riding along with us. We’re boldly going…” he trailed off, as he realized that he was about to quote the most famous line from Star Trek. He chuckled. Laughter was heard from the giant control room at Mission Control. Star Trek had really cracked open the spirit of space exploration; they were merely followers.
“Gene Roddenberry would be proud,” Pascale said.
“Yes, he would. Maybe his spirit is watching us. They did send some of his ashes into space. Maybe they broke free from Earth orbit and ended up heading towards Mars.” Chuckles from the crew.
“Well, congratulations, IME. Godspeed,” Mission Control said. Although they were still within the Moon’s orbit, and thus not yet the furthest humans had ever been from Earth, the transition to an interplanetary trajectory was a first.
An email arrived on Aleksandr’s tablet, from Mission Control. It read:
Commander, somebody on board is sending unauthorized posts to Twitter. You may have already seen it in the media. As you know, the media image of the mission is carefully managed so as to maintain dignity while still engaging the populace. Please have a word with whoever it was, and reiterate that they may use the official channels for mass communication, such as the mission blog.
-Lesley L. Jones, Flight Director, NASA
20
T-plus 7 days
The morning briefing was over. Aleksandr addressed the crew:
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, you know what today’s focus is.” He gestured to his left, where a close-up of the Moon occupied most of the wall.
“We will make our closest approach to Earth’s neighbor. Martin, as Chief Scientific Officer, will be in charge of observations. Nikita, make sure its gravity doesn’t pull us off course too much,” he said, with a sideways grin as he teased the ship’s navigator. “Closest approach will be in two hours. Let’s assemble back here in one-and-a-half hours. That is all.” They closed their chairs and stowed them in the racks in the central tunnel, then dispersed to their various tasks.
At the appointed time, they reassembled in the hub. The Moon was larger in their field of view. It had also changed some in appearance in that time: it was slightly less than a half moon before, and now was nearly full. Kinuko, Alessia and Tung-chi looked out of the starboard dome window, so they could see it with their own eyes. At 100,000 kilometers away, it looked about the size of a golf ball held at arm’s length.
They just stared in silence. They took in the sights, taking turns with the binoculars. It was hauntingly beautiful. Its shades of gray, its plains, mountains, and craters, were easily visible. It seemed to just hang there in space, with the background of stars moving slowly as their viewpoint moved. It was small wonder that ancient societies had worshipped it, and even modern people were transfixed by it.
Martin sat down next to the wall. “Computer, bring up the remote sensing suite and show it in a window five meters by three.” The covers at the front of the ship opened slowly, exposing the instruments. “Computer, focus the suite on the Moon. Show the whole disk. Give me a touch interface.” The science suite swiveled around on its mount. The telescope focused on the Moon.
“Now, we need an area to test the instruments on. I’m going to go with Sinus Iridum. There’s a good cross-section of different types of terrain and surface chemistry.”
He touched that area, just to the north west of the Mare Imbrium (one of the most visible seas even from Earth). He zoomed in, with a two-touch swipe, and selected an area roughly eighty kilometers square. Even though the closest approach would still be 80,000 kilometers from the Moon, the telescope could resolve amazing detail. Large boulders were visible, along with their shadows on the ashen landscape.
Martin checked buttons for the instruments that would be used, and selected a search area and resolution. He hit the “Go” button, and the laser fired at the lunar surface. As soon as the spectrometer had collected its data on the surface composition, the beam moved down a kilometer in the selected area and the measurements began again. This way, measurements were collected in a grid pattern across the entire area. At the same time, radar and lidar sensors swept up and down, back and forth, collecting extremely precise measurements of the surface contours.
Scientists on Earth watched the results with great interest. None of it was new data, of course – everything that could be learned about the Moon by remote sensing was already known. What was not yet known, however, was how the instruments would perform on a real celestial body. They performed flawlessly. 3D models of the surface displayed in another window as they were constructed. Meanwhile, millions on Earth watched the angles of the mountains and valleys seen through the telescope change slowly, as its viewpoint moved at 47,000 kilometers per hour.
That night, as dinner was wrapping up, Martin said, “Now that we’re beyond the Moon’s orbit, we’ve traveled farther from Earth than the Apollo astronauts, and thus any human beings in history. I think we need a movie night to pay homage to them.”
“Apollo 13?” Christopher suggested.
“Um, no. I meant one where the spaceship didn’t blow up. There was this very old documentary on it that I saw once. It was called For All Mankind. Made in 1989. It’s still considered the best short film on it though. What do you guys think?”
The others nodded. “Sounds good.”
“Okay, let’s watch it after dinner’s cleared away. We could all bring our sleeping bags out and have a camp out here.”
“What, you mean all sleep here in the hub?” Alessia asked.
“Yeah, sure. Why not? We can camp out under the stars. Once we set the display to the glass wall, anyway.”
“Well, I don’t want the entire display as glass. I would feel like I was sleeping in the stars, not just looking up at them. Maybe just the top half?” Tung-chi asked.
“Okay, that works. We can have the bottom half look like a forest.”
Dinner was duly cleared away, and the furniture stowed. Sleeping bags, pillows, water bottles, and a couple of stuffed toys were retrieved from cabins (to general amusement), and they bedded down in the hub. When they were ready, Christopher said “Computer, play For All Mankind in a five-by-three window.”
They settled down, as film started. The hub was dark but for the picture. They watched, transfixed, as a man walked around a large circular array of huge spotlights, switching them on one by one. President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech from September 12th, 1962 began to play in the background.
We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. We set sail on this new sea, because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all mankind.
We shall send to the Moon, 240,000 miles away, from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket, more than 300 feet tall, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of withstanding heat and stresses several times more than have even been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food, and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing, on the most hazardous, and dangerous, and greatest adventure on which mankind has ever embarked. Thank you.
The giant Saturn V rocket was shown, standing tall in the night, illuminated by the giant spotl
ights. Its very size and shape spoke of power, of stored potential energy, ready to explode off the launch pad and hurl the small spacecraft at the Moon like some manmade Hercules. It gave them goosebumps. The astronauts were shown, in their bulky spacesuits, riding out to the launch pad and strapping into the tiny capsule atop the Saturn V.
It went on to show the rocking, rolling, G-inducing ride into orbit, and the astronauts’ first experiences seeing the Earth from space. They reflected on seeing fires in the night burning in deserts far below, as nomads camped.
“I saw some of those on our first night on the ISS, before we left,” Kinuko said. “Remember I said I couldn’t sleep? I just gazed out of the window for what must have been hours. I guess the nomads’ way of life is still much the way it was back then, before everything was wired to everything else.”
Knowing grins were exchanged when the astronauts were shown playing and spinning in the weightlessness. The film then went on to show the trans-lunar injection burn. “Flying at nearly 35,000 feet per second, these three crewmembers are traveling faster than man has ever flown before.”
“That’s about ten kilometers a second,” said Emile. The others nodded.
“We passed that on day four,” Nikita replied, “although they only took five minutes from already being in orbit to get to that speed. We took four days. Also starting from orbit.”
“When that engine was on, it was on for a long time,” the narrator continued.
“Not as long as our engine burn,” said Christopher. The others laughed. “Five minutes versus three months.”
They let the rest of the film play, as the featured astronauts embarked on EVAs, played around some more, and then fired their engine in order to be captured by the Moon’s gravity into a lunar orbit. The first footstep on the Moon and Neil Armstrong’s famous words were shown next, followed by lunar exploration activities and finally the flight home.
“You know, they were greater explorers and pioneers than we are in a lot of ways,” Martin said. “Spaceflight was still highly experimental then. They started the Moon program only about three years after the first ever humans went into space. And they actually walked on the surface too. We’re not just talking about some manned flyby mission.”
“Well, we’ll walk on the surfaces of Phobos and Deimos,” Aleksandr said.
“Yeah, but theirs was a far deeper gravity well to get into and back out of,” Martin replied. “Their ascent stage had a brand new engine design – one that could be throttled – that hadn’t even been tested that much. It was only 20 years from the V-2 until the first Saturn V was built. Can you imagine that? From a rocket that barely reached space, and only had the most rudimentary guidance system, to that uber-powerful computer-guided behemoth.”
“That’s the power of politics,” Nikita replied. “My country and yours were locked in the space race. Everything was at stake for the winner.”
“Yeah.”
“Would it have turned out differently if the Russians had won?” Alessia asked.
“Probably not,” Nikita replied. “Both sides already had ICBMs and nuclear warheads. It was mostly for show. An idealistic arm-wrestling match. Just a side note to the Cold War – which, contrary to popular belief, nobody really won.”
Martin thought about a smart-assed reply, but then thought better of it and just nodded. “This thing is like a cruise ship compared to what they had,” he said, changing the subject. They began to settle down for the night.
“Nice pajamas,” Christopher teased as Kinuko came back from getting changed into her Hello Kitty nightwear.
“Why, thank you, kind sir. I see you’re already in your sleeping bag, so you obviously don’t want to show me yours.”
“Ouch, brother. Do you need some ointment for that burn?” Martin teased. “We have some up front. I’ll go and get it for you if you like.”
“No thanks, farm boy,” Christopher replied, referring to Martin’s rural Michigan upbringing.
“Settle down, children,” said Aleksandr. “Computer, simulate a Montana forest scene at night.”
The walls darkened. Trees were silhouetted around them, and a crystal-clear star-studded sky was overhead. The gentle rustle of treetops in the wind could be heard, along with crickets chirping. A moonlit mountainside could be seen in the distance. All that was missing were fresh mountain air and wolves.
Everyone said goodnight, lay down, and drifted off to sleep as childhood memories of camping out filled their minds. The ship flew ever onwards, picking up speed as the Earth-Moon system disappeared rapidly behind them.
21
T-plus 10 days
* * *
Interactions with the Cosmos – The Blog of the International Mars Explorer
We are now flying far more directly away from Earth, rather than a tangential trajectory, so the distance from Earth is really starting to add up. We’re going about 35,000 mph (56,000 kph), and we’re about 4.3M miles (7M kilometers) from Earth. It looks smaller every day – it’s already only a quarter of the size of a pea at arm’s length. The Moon is just a speck. It really makes you appreciate the vastness of the universe, of the cosmos. It would take us 20,000 years at this speed to reach the nearest star. And that’s only the nearest one of billions! You have to wonder how all of this got here. But that’s another story for another time.
Shipboard life has slowed down a bit, now that we’re in the cruise phase of our journey. The ten-hour workdays have been replaced with anywhere between four and six hours for most of us, depending on our duties. Alex still has to work about ten hours though. Poor Commander! And who gets to clean the toilets is still a matter under debate! The cosmic meets the mundane.
There’s not much we can observe out here that isn’t already being observed by space-based instruments far more powerful than ours. Ours are designed for close-up work. I don’t think we’ll be finding too many exoplanets with our little telescope!
-Christopher Fay
22
T-plus 11 days
It was late afternoon. The day’s work was mostly done. Christopher and Martin floated in the roomy airlock suiting area – not in the airlock chamber itself. It was a nice little place to get away from it all, being at the very forward end of the ship, far from the hub, and having decent-sized windows.
“I think we need an odometer app on the computer,” said Christopher. “We don’t need it for navigation really, just bragging rights. Current speed and distance traveled.”
“Won’t the computer just display it?” Martin asked.
“Yes, but only distance from Earth and Mars,” Christopher replied. “They’re always moving, so it doesn’t tell you how far we’ve come from a standing start. So, our speed is our total delta-V, and the distance is an integration of our velocity and acceleration.”
“Can we even run our own stuff on the main computer?”
“In a sandbox. It’s walled off from all computer functions. Display only.”
“Should be interesting to see,” Martin said.
“Yeah. Also, check this out.”
He opened his hand to reveal a metal cube about two inches wide. It was silver, and had tiny ducted fans that passed through its center. “I made a few of these. I plan to work on them a bit more on the trip. I couldn’t test them until we were in flight.”
“What are they?”
“Tiny flying robots. The fans let them propel themselves around. There’s tiny reaction wheels inside too, that let them change orientation, and cameras to let them see where they’re going. Six degrees of freedom, and enough onboard computing power to control themselves.”
“Ooh, sweet.”
“Yeah,” Christopher replied. “It’s partly for the Space Science Department at Oregon State, but really just because I want to do it. And partly because I want to use them to prank people, too.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yep. You can’t come this far and not prank somebody. It’ll be fun to piss the ladies off with
it.”
“Heh.”
“The other thing I want to do with it is implement a SLAM algorithm that works.”
“A what?”
“SLAM – simultaneous localization and mapping. It means that it builds up a map of its environment from moving around. So, it starts out without a map, and explores, building up its map as it goes. It’s been done in 3D environments before; just not in space. I’d let it loose, and it’d just fly around, exploring all nooks and crevices and flying through all openings, until it has a map of the entire ship stored in its memory.”
“Cool,” Martin replied.
“Yeah. Of course, I can’t pull a really good prank with it if they’ve seen it before, but how do you get it to build up its map without it flying around first?”
“Do it when they’re not around?”
“But they’re always around,” Christopher replied, sounding like a schoolboy trying to get away with something out of his parents’ sight.
“Do it at night?”
“Sneaky, sneaky. I like your thinking. Just leave the lights on, in the hub, and let it explore the hub and the main tunnel. I’d just have to make totally sure I retrieve it before it runs out of battery power.”
“How long does the battery last?” Martin asked.
“In a totally weightless environment, hours. I tried it out on the ISS, in one of the modules where the door’s normally closed. In this environment, it’s always fighting just to maintain a hover in the microgravity thing we’ve got going on, even though it’s weak, so about an hour.”
“Will it re-localize if you charge it and let it loose again?”
“Yup. As soon as it recognizes a scene that it’s seen before, from any angle, it’ll know where it is. There’s serious computing power in there. The entire computer is about 5 millimeters wide, and has 2 terabytes of memory and a gangbuster CPU.”
“Nice.” Martin nodded, approvingly. “Are you competing in the ping-pong tournament?”
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