by Dan Eaton
Sandy looked at me for a couple of seconds and then a look of understanding came over his face.
“I get where you are coming from,” he said, “There’s some amazing stuff going on around here. We’re literally building a new world all around you kids, but we’ve been so intent on keeping you safe that you’ve been missing the excitement.” I was glad Sandy understood.
He asked me, “Do the other kids feel the same way?” I thought back to July when school had started. I think we were all excited and Miss Gayle had made things fun, but I think we were all feeling a little restless these days in varying degree.
I told Sandy, “I don’t know about all of us, but I think some of us are. You should ask Miss Gayle what she thinks. But Sandy, even if she says we are all affected what can we do?”
Sandy gave me a smile and said, “Good suggestion about talking to Miss Gayle. I’m sure she’s got an idea of how the class is doing. As for what to do about it, I’ve got some ideas if Miss Gayle, Christine, and your parents will approve. Hang in there Bryce and give me a couple of days to get something worked out.”
It was Friday, a couple of days after I had talked with Sandy and he hadn’t said anything further. Miss Gayle had us doing individual study assignments after lunch and none of us were really surprised when she asked for our attention after giving us an hour to work on the assignments. She liked to break things up so we were all looking forward to an interesting session with her.
She whimsically said, “And now for a little something different…” and as she finished saying that, the door opened and Christine and Sandy stepped in. Miss Gayle said, “Hi Christine, Hi Sandy. Class, the three of us have been discussing a certain lacking in your education that sorely needs to be addressed. You are in the middle of one of Mankind’s greatest endeavors and we’ve been trying so very hard to make things normal for you that we’ve forgotten there’s nothing normal about the situation you are in. It’s extraordinary and we need to do a better job of sharing that with you. I really wish I could go with you and see what you are about to see. Since I can’t, I want you to write a report of not less than twelve hundred words describing what you are about to see. Sandy tells me there are some security concerns, so please send them to Christine, who will then send them to me in an encrypted format. So no talking about this when you get back. Please follow Christine and Sandy now and have a good time. You are dismissed for the rest of the day.”
Everybody was looking at each other wondering what was going on but I had a big smile on my face. This had to be the result of the talk Sandy and I had had. I didn’t have a clue about what we were about to see, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be boring. We followed Christine and Sandy down the corridor until we reached the doors to the viewing chamber. By then, we all had been through the safety class so we were all cleared for the doors with the yellow habitat warning on them. We made our way up the stairs and into the viewing chamber proper. I was somewhat surprised to see a group of six adults were already up in the chamber.
Christine got our attention and said, “We’ve got something special for you to see today. Sandy knows the details so I’ll let him share them with you. Sandy.”
Sandy walked over to the East wall of the viewing chamber and said, “You’ve all been here before and I know you like the view but today I have something a little more spectacular to see. Out that way in the distance you can see the Manufacturing Module. The smaller building laying further to the Southeast of that belongs to one of the private companies doing business here at the habitat. I’ve been asked not to disclose their name until they make a public announcement about what you’re going to see in about five minutes. You should be able to just make out a round bump sticking out beyond the top of their building. Watch that bump and you should see something pretty neat. Please don’t tell anyone outside of the Habitat about this until Miss Gayle tells you it’s okay to talk about it.”
I walked over to say hi to Sandy and he greeted me with, “So, uh, Bryce I hope you enjoy this. I told you some amazing things are going on around here and Christine and I are working to make sure you kids can share in some of it.”
We stood in silence, soaking in the incredible view around us. Sandy had been keeping his eye on his watch and finally said, “Okay, here we go! 20…..10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.” We saw a brief flash of light out beyond the building we were watching and then the round bump we were watching began to rise. It went from being a round bump to being a globe broken at the horizontal center line by an inset band containing dark rectangles that must be windows. Below that the lower hull was divided into four quadrants by landing gear and taking up the bottom of the lower part of the sphere were twelve powerful engines. We could see the exhaust plume coming from beneath the ship, although it was hard to see and nothing like what a rocket liftoff from Earth was like.
I suddenly realized why the ship looked so familiar and blurted out, “Holy shit, that’s the Aries 1B from 2001.”
Sandy laughed and said, “So, uh, you’re right in concept, but in detail it’s different.” I asked Sandy what he meant and he said, “When Kubrick and Clarke set out to make the proverbial “Good science fiction movie” Kubrick sought to make the visuals very realistic and to some extent form followed function. So the Aries looked real because it was designed for the job it had to do and not for some artistically pleasing idea of a spaceship the set designer had. What you just saw out the window was designed for the same job as the Aries was, so it’s not too surprising they look similar. The details are very different, so that is definitely not the Aries 1B. That said, however, I know a guy on the design team and if they tell you their work wasn’t inspired by the Aries, they are lying.”
We continued to watch the ship as it climbed higher into the sky and moved further away from us. It only took about seven minutes for it to achieve lunar orbit. Sandy told us this was the last un-manned test flight of the ship. The short mission was to ascend to orbit, make a single orbit of the Moon, and then de-orbit and land back on the pad it left from. Sandy said an orbit would last about 120 minutes and anyone interested in seeing the landing should come back in about two hours.
I asked Sandy if he could tell me more about the ship. The rest of the class had headed off, but Nina and Myra had wandered over to listen to us.
Sandy said, “It’s designed to be a transport for any destination in cislunar space.” Looking at Myra and Nina he asked if they were familiar with the Aries 1B from 2001.
Nina said she was but Myra said, “Only vaguely.”
Sandy continued, “The Aries 1B was a lunar transport used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The ship you just saw was designed for the same type of job and is similar in construction. There’s a circular pressure hull with a passenger deck at the horizontal centerline that can hold thirty people. It carries a crew of four, two flight deck officers and two attendants. Sorry, no stewardesses like in 2001. The ship carries enough fuel and has enough thrust that it should be able to make the run from here to LEO in 24 hours. Instead of drugging you for the trip you can stay awake and look out the windows if you want. It should really help boost the lunar tourism business and also be a blessing for those of us that didn’t enjoy the trip on the current generation of lunar shuttles.”
Nina was really interested in what Sandy was saying. I was surprised when Myra had decided to stay. She loved working with plants with my mom and I hadn’t realized she was interested in tech like a lunar transport.
Nina spoke up and asked, “Sandy, where are they getting the crew from?”
Sandy answered, “So, uh, when they go into normal service I think the companies that buy them will supply the pilots. There’s plenty of people with the skill. I assume most of them will transfer over from the current lunar shuttle fleet. I understand the plan is for the habitat modules to be replaced with freight modules on all of the lunar shuttles configured for passengers. The freight jobs all fly automated. The pilots that will fly the manned test f
lights work for the private company.”
Sandy said he needed to get on back to work and everybody else had left. I was a little hungry, so I decided to stop by the cafeteria for a snack before returning to watch the landing. I told Nina and Myra where I was heading and they both decided to come with me. When we got to the cafeteria, we found the rest of the class finishing up their snacks.
Willie looked up at me when we walked in and said, “Hey, Bryce, I saw you smiling when Christine and Sandy came in. You knew what was going on. What gives?”
My classmates were all looking at me so I sat down and told them about my frustrations about being on the Moon and it being boring despite my parents living out what had to be the adventure of their life.
Nina spoke up then and said, “Me too. We’re at this historic point in Mankind’s history, and we might as well be living in a cave back home.”
I went ahead and told them how Sandy had noticed something was bothering me and had said he’d look into it. I said, “So you see Willie, I didn’t know what we were going to be shown, but when I saw Christine and Sandy walk into the classroom I knew it had to be something cool.”
Willy gave me a huge smile and said, “I don’t know about being bored, but getting the afternoon off school on a Friday and getting to see the launch sure rocked. You going back to watch the landing?”
I said, “Yes.” Nina, Myra, Willie, and Adam said they were going back too. Ananyu said she needed to go help her Dad about the time the landing was occurring so she couldn’t go.
When it got closer to the expected landing time we all headed back. We found the chamber had a few more people in it than before, but it was cool because they knew where to look for the incoming lander. I had guessed based on the outgoing trajectory that the landing path would be just to the North of the Habitat but one of the guys that actually knew had us watching off to the West of the Habitat. Nina was one of the first to spot it, coming in high and just to the South of the Habitat. It was still hard to see the exhaust plume and it looked a little weird because instead of the sharply defined exhaust column of a rocket seen on Earth, the exhaust of the landing transport flared out much more swiftly. This was due to it not being constrained by an atmosphere like it was on the Earth. The transport slowed as it approached the private landing pad and then settled into a slow descent onto the pad. We couldn’t see the moment of touch down due to the intervening building, but we all cheered when it was clear the transport was down safely.
Myra came over and gave me a hug and asked, “Still bored?”
I told her no and wondered what other surprises Sandy had in store for us. Seeing the transport launch and recovery was something exciting that felt like what I ought to be seeing when living on the Moon. But Sandy had said we were in the middle of some amazing stuff going on around here so I couldn’t help but wonder what else he’d be able to show us and more importantly, when that would be.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A dumbass move
We were sitting in class and Nina shared a story about how the previous fall her dad and Uncle had taken her on an elk hunt in Colorado. Her family felt their chances of being selected for the mission were pretty good so her dad and his brother wanted to get out for some special time together. Nina had been deer hunting before, but never for elk. Her dad and Uncle wanted to bring her along as a really special reward for how hard she’d been working. The highlight of the trip for her was when she was able to bag a large bull elk at one hundred and thirty yards with her uncle’s old Winchester Model 70 rifle. It was clear from her excitement that she really liked that Model 70 and she said when she was older she wanted to get one for herself.
I started thinking about it and realized I had a golden opportunity to win some points with both Nina and Sandy. Sandy had told me I was welcome to use the shop equipment for my own projects as long as I was careful and just used the material from the scrap bin. If I needed something special he was willing to get me the material, but made it clear he wanted to know what he was getting into first. I figured if I could build a reasonable facsimile of the rifle I could give it Nina to for her birthday that was coming up. This might endear her to me and would surprise Sandy with a project he could be proud of me doing.
So I started researching the project and found there were plans and instructions out on the Internet for building similar bolt action rifles. The more I read though, the more I was thinking it might be beyond my capabilities. Sandy had taught me a lot about using the lathe but we had just started on the milling machines. From the instructions it was clear that some of the parts would need to be milled. I’d have to get Sandy to show me how to use one of the mills which meant it wouldn’t be a surprise any more. Another problem I found was what to do about a stock for the rifle. The Model 70’s stock was made from a big hunk of wood and getting wood was not going to happen. I thought maybe I could get a stock printed on one of the 3D printers and while doable was probably something else I needed Sandy’s help with.
Dad always taught me that when you have a heavy-duty, complicated problem you should break it down into simpler pieces. If it was really complicated you sometimes had to build something even simpler just to give you an idea on how to build the more complicated thing. I was thinking about it and realized that building a pistol was a much simpler task. Once I got the pistol built I’d have a better understanding of how to build the rifle. If I still thought the rifle was beyond me I could always give Nina the pistol and either way Sandy would be proud of me.
I went back to the Internet and found plenty of pistol plans online. I kept looking and discarding the ones that were too complicated. Eventually I found one that was perfect. It was called a zip gun and was made of a small number of pieces that only required a lathe or drill press to machine. It was really just a tube without even a grip, but as I looked at the plans, I realized it would be easy enough to add a grip.
That evening I went back to the machine shop. Sandy was still there and I told him I wanted to start working on a side project.
He asked me what it was and I said, “I want to surprise you. I did a lot of research and I think I’ve found a project I can do with what you have taught me. I’ll show it to you when I’m finished. I really hope you’ll like my work.”
Later I dug through the scrap bin and found some small pieces of stock I could use to build the gun and set them aside except for the chunk I needed to make the first piece. The machining was simple enough that I figured I’d make one part a night until I was finished. The next day I spent some time in school working on a CAD drawing for the grip so I could feed it to the class printer overnight. I got lucky that evening at work and found a spring the size I would need. The next morning I collected the pistol grips from the printer and that night I completed the last part. It wasn’t that much work to assemble it so I stayed a little later and put it together.
I couldn’t wait until school was over the next day so I could go to the shop and show Sandy what I had built. I decided to ask Sandy if it was good enough for a present and if it was I’d see about making a box to hold it so I could wrap it up nice for Nina’s birthday. I didn’t have any ammo for it, but I figured if she really wanted to shoot it, she could get the 22’s for it.
I walked into the shop ready to grab the gun from my locker and show it to Sandy and that’s when things went sideways. Sandy was standing outside his office talking to Christine and he looked pissed and she didn’t look very happy.
As soon as he saw me he said, “Bryce, get over here now.” I hurried over wondering what the fuss was about and he asked me, “So, uh, did you build a gun?”
I said, “I did and I really want to show you it and get your opinion.”
He just looked at me like I’d grown a second head. Before he could say anything more Christine quietly asked me to go get the gun and bring it to them. I ran and got it from the locker while I was trying to figure out what was happening. The only thing I could figure was maybe there had been s
omething important in the scrap box and I ended up using it for stock and I wasn’t supposed to.
When I got back to them Sandy held out his hand and I gave him the gun. Christine suggested we step into Sandy’s office. Once we were in and the door was closed Christine asked me why I had built a gun. I told her I had wanted to surprise Sandy with my first shop project and I intended to give it the gun to Nina because she liked guns. I looked at Sandy and said, “I had carefully researched how to build a Winchester Model 70 like she really wanted, but I realized I didn’t have the skill to pull it off by myself. So I scaled things back until I found a project I could do.”
Christine said, “Do you have any ammunition for the gun?”
I said, “No,” and she seemed to relax a little.
During all of this Sandy was examining the pistol and hadn’t said anything.
Christine said, “Don’t say a word to anyone about the gun. For right now, just go straight home and stay there. I’ll call your parents and talk to them shortly.”
I said, “What’s going on?”
She gave me a concerned look and said, “You building a pistol may be an issue with the Habitat. Give me a little time to figure things out, but for now I need you to just go straight home.”
Christine waited until Bryce left the shop and then looked over at Sandy and said, “Well, what do you think?”
Sandy looked her in the eye and said, “I’m actually kind of proud of him. Where he was doing something I taught him he did a good job. Where it was something I hadn’t shown him it’s not so great, but it’s still passable. He didn’t pick a project that was too much for him and he saw it through and got it done.”
“That’s just peachy”, Christine said, “We’ll give him an A in shop before we have to send him and his parents back to Earth. It’s a gun Sandy. You know the rules about guns on the base. Immediate one way ticket home.”
