by Neil Clarke
“There’s no problem with me,” Mr. Smith said, a bit breathlessly. “I just need to call Houston, and they won’t let me use the phone.”
“I see,” Dr. Winkler responded. “Pulse is elevated. Blood pressure a little high, but otherwise you seem fine.” I sighed with relief. “Would you like me to make that call for you?” Dr. Winkler offered.
“Yes, please!” Mr. Smith said.
“Okay, then, come with me to my office.”
I assumed this was Dr. Winkler’s way of getting Mr. Smith to a place where he could examine him better and make sure he calmed down. We each took one of Mr. Smith’s arms and helped him down the hall to Dr. Winkler’s office. While we walked, I summarized what we’d seen on the television and explained that Mr. Smith seemed to think he could help the stranded historian learn to fly the lunar module.
Dr. Winkler listened silently. We entered his office and he asked us both to take a seat. While he shut the door, I saw that the newsfeed on his computer was following the lunar crisis. So, he already knew what was going on.
“Mr. Smith, please tell me how you think you can help those people on the Moon.”
Mr. Smith repeated that he could fly the simulator and create the program they needed. Dr. Winkler had Mr. Smith drink some pink liquid and then asked him some technical questions using terms I recognized from some of the flight simulations we’d played. I wondered if Dr. Winkler was also a pilot. I don’t know if it was the pink liquid or the joy of sharing a favorite memory, but when the doctor asked a number of questions about the Moon, Mr. Smith’s answers were surprisingly detailed. The only thing he was confused about was what the Russians had to do with an American woman on the Moon.
“I’ll have to notify your family,” Dr. Winkler said. Mr. Smith nodded.
Dr. Winkler then moved to the computer and tapped away at the keys. I got Mr. Smith a cup of water from the little sink in the corner and sat down again.
Dr. Winkler looked up at Mr. Smith. “I’ve got permission to release your records to NASA. Do you trust George, or do you want me to ask him to leave during the call?”
Ask me to leave? What was going on? Why would NASA be interested in his medical records? Dr. Winkler sure was good at playing along.
Mr. Smith gave me the security guard look again. “He’s okay. He’s a training instructor.”
Dr. Winkler raised an eyebrow at that. “We take turns flying simulators,” I explained.
“I know,” Dr. Winkler responded. He did? I guess I should have known that the head doctor would keep tabs on the activities of his patients.
“And I know that his time with you has helped him retain some memories that are important not only to him, but perhaps to those people on the Moon right now.”
“Seriously?” I blurted.
Dr. Winkler smiled. “Yes, seriously. Now, George, Mr. Smith has agreed that it’s okay for you to be here during this call. I don’t know what you’ll overhear, but he’s trusting you to keep your mouth shut about it. Can you promise to do that?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Is Bob Smith really a fake name?”
Dr. Winkler didn’t have time to answer before the screen changed to an image of a serious-looking young man. “This is flight director Keegan Taylor at Johnson Space Center. I understand you have an old Apollo guy who thinks he can help us create a trajectory for Ms. Phillips to fly?”
“Can he hear me?” Mr. Smith asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Winkler answered. “I have two-way voice, but one-way video. I know how you hate cameras, Mr. Smith.”
“Yes, thank you,” Mr. Smith said. “You know who I am?” he asked.
“Your name is blocked out in the file I received, but I was told that you worked on Apollo.”
My grandfather had told me about Apollo, but even he had only been a kid back in the late 1960s. I wondered if Mr. Smith had worked on the program as a college student. That would put him in his eighties.
Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “I know how to fly the lunar module,” he declared. “I’m one of the astronauts who walked on the Moon.
I stared dumbfounded at Dr. Winkler. Why would he let Mr. Smith call NASA with a story like that? How embarrassing!
Mr. Taylor frowned. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t have time for crank calls. The last Apollo moonwalker died nine years ago in a car crash. If he were still alive, he’d have to be, like, a hundred years old.”
Dr. Winkler interrupted, “One hundred and three. Excuse me, Mr. Taylor, but please read the complete file I sent you. It will explain why you were led to believe that he had died.”
Mr. Smith was 103? Mr. Smith was an Apollo moonwalker?! Suddenly the fake name and the paranoia of reporters and his confusion about the Russians made sense. Reporters would have pestered him for reactions to space events, politicians would have insisted on his presence at anniversaries and special events, and his Alzheimer’s would have made it harder and harder for him to cope. His wife must have taken the brunt of it until she died in that car accident. Living here anonymously was probably the family’s way to give him some well-earned peace and dignity during his final years.
And I had doubted he was even a real pilot.
The flight director’s eyes grew round as he scanned the file Dr. Winkler had sent. “Oh, I see,” he said. “But considering his condition, Doctor, can we trust what he will tell us?”
“Memories associated with intense emotions and skills that were trained to the point of instinct are the last to be affected by the disease. He has also been refreshing those memories through flight simulations thanks to his young friend George here.”
I looked down at my sneakers in embarrassment. I was just having fun sharing a love of flying with Mr. Smith. I had no idea I was flying copilot with one of the most famous pilots in history! I wondered which one he was? Armstrong? Young? Cernan?
“Then let’s get started,” the flight director said. “We have photos and technical drawings that the Apollo Restoration Project sent us of the cockpit. These were made from an old NASA mockup that unfortunately was destroyed in a hurricane a few years ago. The computer switches and displays are all exactly as in the original, but the museum installed modern computers and communications. So we have the ability to create an autopilot. What we don’t have are any records of the actual flight-handling characteristics of the module. The best we have to offer is a children’s educational game developed by some engineering students at Texas A&M. It’s called Fly Me to the Moon.”
“That’s the one I brought with me!” I said. I dragged my laptop and hand controllers out of my backpack. “I’ve got it right here.” I flipped the screen open and started the boot process.
“I didn’t come here to play games,” Mr. Smith said.
“You don’t understand,” Mr. Taylor said. “It is not a game, it’s a simulator. The students used very sophisticated software to model the flight characteristics. What I’d suggest is that we set up the sim from here and have you fly a rendezvous with the cargo ship, noting any differences between the original and the simulator. Can you do that, Mr. Smith?”
“Sure,” he said simply. “Piece of cake.”
I wondered what cake had to do with anything? I glanced at Dr. Winkler. He smiled and whispered to me, “An old expression meaning something is easy.”
“Thanks,” I whispered back.
Dr. Winkler cleared off his desk for the computer, but Mr. Smith shook his head.
“I have to fly it standing up,” he said.
Mr. Taylor nodded. “He’s right. No seats in the lunar module. And Ms. Phillips will be wearing a spacesuit because we aren’t going to pressurize the module. Do you want gloves, Mr. Smith?”
“No, my hands are stiff enough without them!” he quipped.
Dr. Winkler and I laughed. I lifted a stool onto the desk and set the laptop on it to project against a white board on the wall. Mr. Smith placed the hand controllers at waist height on a book on the desk. He asked Dr. Winkler to clos
e the window blinds and turn off the lights. I took care of the lights while Dr. Winkler closed the shades. It wasn’t really dark, but it would help Mr. Smith focus.
“Young man, come stand to my right,” Mr. Smith said. “I’m the commander, and you’re the pilot.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I decided he’d forgotten my name again.
“Mr. Smith,” Mr. Taylor interrupted. “We think the other crewmember has a concussion and other injuries and is in and out of consciousness. Ms. Phillips will have to fly it solo.”
“I understand,” Mr. Smith said. “That’s not a problem. But I need a body next to me to judge what panels and displays may be blocked.”
“Right,” I said. At least I was good for something!
We hooked up my laptop projector to Dr. W inkler’s computer, so it would output whatever NASA sent through. The screen showed two triangular windows looking out over a gray landscape with a black sky beyond. No stars were visible. The cockpit was crowded with gauges and switches.
“We’ve activated the link. We’ve got one of our lunar pilots in a simulator here to fly the cargo ship.”
“Roger,” Mr. Smith said. “Fuel tank pressure low.”
“Yes, we think there’s a slow leak in the helium tank,” Mr. Taylor explained. “The batteries are also not fully charged, but should last long enough to reach the cargo ship.”
“Understood,” Mr. Smith said. “T minus 5. Engine arm. Pilot should hit PROCEED, but because he’s unconscious, I must reach over him and do it.”
“Noted,” Taylor said.
“I should hear the bang of the bolts releasing the lander and then feel like I’m riding in a high-speed elevator as the engine kicks in.”
“Roger that,” Taylor said.
I could hardly believe this was happening to me. To me! I was flying with one of the Apollo astronauts. The last living Apollo astronaut! Not even my mother would believe this if I told her. But I wouldn’t break my promise to Mr. Smith, even after I figured out his real name.
“No, that’s not right,” Mr. Smith said.
“What’s not right, Mr. Smith?” Mr. Taylor asked.
“The LM didn’t have a barbecue mode. We had to fire the jets manually to start the ship spinning.”
“Noted.”
“But the flight is so short, you don’t need to worry about overheating. It might be best to just let it coast. It will also be one less thing for the pilot to worry about.”
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Taylor said. “The cargo pilot has a lock on you.”
Mr. Smith looked at the ceiling. “The upper window is blocked. Can’t see target.”
“That’s okay,” Mr. Taylor said. “You don’t have to line up and dock. The cargo ship is going to match rates and take you into its hold.”
“It’s big enough for that?” Smith said.
Mr. Taylor smiled. “Yes, sir. It’s a fuel tanker.”
On the computer screen, I saw the curve of the Moon’s horizon below us. “Look at the crescent Earth!” I blurted out in excitement. Mr. Smith ignored me. At least I could verify that this part of the simulation was correct. The Moon I’d seen last night was just past full, and the Earth and Moon were always in opposite phases. I wondered if I’d ever see the Earth from the Moon for real? I hoped so.
As the ship arced around to the far side of the Moon, the Earth sank below the horizon. Long sunrise shadows spread across rough crater floors below us.
“Got you,” Mr. Taylor said. The simulation stopped.
“We going into blackout now?” Mr. Smith asked.
“No sir, we have almost continual communications thanks to lunar orbiting relay satellites.”
Mr. Smith raised an eyebrow even though Mr. Taylor could not see him.
“It still takes 1.3 seconds for light to travel one way from the Moon, 2.6 seconds roundtrip. But with your help, we’ll have the computer programmed to handle most problems.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Smith agreed. “Pings works pretty good.”
I mouthed “Pings?” at Dr. Winkler.
He whispered back, “Sounds like an acronym for the navigation program.”
I nodded and mouthed “Thanks” back at him.
“Need to run it again with some failures?” Mr. Smith asked.
“Yes, that would be very helpful,” Mr. Taylor said. “But first let’s take a break and see what questions the pilot and guidance team have for you.”
Dr. Winkler helped Mr. Smith to the sofa on the side of the office, and I sat down too. I don’t know which one of us was more dazed. “Can I call my wife now?” Mr. Smith asked. “She’ll probably worry.”
Dr. Winkler smiled. “She’s fine. She’s with her mother.”
“Oh, right,” Mr. Smith said. He looked down at his slippers. “Mother is going to be mad.”
It was the strangest afternoon and evening I had ever spent in my life. I stood by Mr. Smith while he flew one simulation after another, with jets failed, with computer problems, with navigation errors, with popped circuit breakers. As I watched, I realized that even with his Alzheimer’s, Mr. Smith still knew more about spaceflight than most people alive today. I felt incredibly lucky to have the chance to learn even a tiny bit of what he could teach me.
During breaks we ate snacks and drank decaf coffee and followed the progress of the crew on the Moon. Ms. Phillips had gotten the injured historian strapped into the module.
Dr. Winkler called my mother and asked if I could stay for dinner and into the evening. He said he had recruited me to help with a memory experiment involving one of the patients, and it would mean a lot if I were there until the patient went to bed. He’d get me a cab home. My mother fully supported my activities here, and after verifying with me that I had done my homework in study hall as usual, agreed I could stay as late as ten.
A nurse brought us dinner, and we ate there in Dr. Winkler’s office. Mr. Smith fell asleep on the sofa soon afterward. I moved the simulation equipment out to the lounge and connected the big television to the NASA feed. Then I returned to Dr. Winkler’ office.
The flight team was discussing possibly changing the rendezvous sequence. Because the batteries in the spacesuits had only a few hours left, the initial decision was to fly something called a direct ascent. But Mr. Smith had advised against it, saying that direct ascent was too risky for Apollo. As a result, Flight Director Taylor ordered a special “tiger” team to investigate options and report back.
One of the tiger team members confirmed that direct ascent wasn’t used for Apollo. “Although that option is the simplest, requiring only a single burn of the ascent engine to put the LM on a path to intercept the target ship a half orbit later,” the man reported, “the Apollo team felt that the likelihood of variations in the thrust during ascent presented too much risk. The short duration of the approach didn’t allow much time for their old computers to calculate, and the crew to execute, the maneuvers to correct the flight path. If those corrections weren’t made, the LM would miss the interception point and crash into the lunar surface.”
“Couldn’t the command module have changed course and rescued the LM?” the flight director asked.
“In some cases,” the man replied. “But course changes require fuel, and its fuel was very limited.”
“I assume that the computer and fuel issues do not apply in our case?”
“That’s correct,” the man responded.
“Flight, Lunar Ops,” a woman’s voice called.
“Go ahead, Lunar Ops,” the flight director said.
A short pause ensued. “Thank you, sir. My main concern is time. No offense to the guidance team, but they were still making changes to the software half an hour ago. There’s a reasonable chance that we will need Ms. Phillips to take manual control. I understand she has walked through the procedures in the cockpit, but that’s no substitute for flight experience—especially with an untested vehicle! She needs time to adjust to the actual vehicle and environment. The coelliptic sequence
gives her a whole lunar orbit to do that—and also makes my job as cargo pilot easier if I have to rescue her.” She’s the one who will fly the cargo ship remotely! She’s probably at the lunar south pole!
“Flight, Surgeon.”
“Go ahead, Surgeon.”
“Sir, I understand Lunar Ops’ concern, but an extra hour trapped in that spacesuit may mean the difference between life and death for the injured historian, Dr. Canterbury. We’re also concerned about Ms. Phillips’ state of mind. She was severely traumatized by the death of the pilot and is barely able to follow simple directions. The sooner both of them get out of those suits, the better their chances for survival.”
Guidance assured the flight director that the new software would support direct ascent, especially after the simulations with Mr. Smith. The flight director decided to stick with direct ascent.
“Flight, Lunar Ops.”
“Go ahead, Lunar Ops.”
Another short delay followed that I now understood was because of the distance the signal had to travel. “I understand and will do my best to support the direct ascent. But I have a request. No offense to the guidance team, but speaking as a pilot, I’d feel a lot better if we have that Apollo astronaut do any flying that’s necessary.”
“You mean have Mr. Smith input the commands to the autopilot program? I’m not sure he’ll be up to it. Doctor Winkler, what do you think?”
“Sir, I’m sorry,” Dr. Winkler said. “But I don’t know what state he will be in when he wakes up from his rest. I have some medication I can give him that should help, and George and I will do our best to remind him of the circumstances. But I suggest that you go with your original plan to have one of your astronauts run the autopilot and talk Ms. Phillips through any problems.”
“Excuse me, Flight,” the flight surgeon interjected. “How about if we have Mr. Smith serve as a coach for Ms. Phillips? Being a historian, having an Apollo astronaut looking over her shoulder could keep her calm and also give her the confidence she needs.”
