Good evening, everyone! This week, I'm pleased to bring you a special treat. Today, we're finally following the crew of Orion Expedition 1 on their way to their mission in the first semi-permanent outpost on the Moon. However, Workable Goblin and I wanted to make sure you all could get a feel for life onboard the outpost and make it more than "just another mission," so we turned to someone who's a past contributor to the TL, and better with narrative writing than seems quite fair given his other talents. Today's post is thus brought to you by none other than nixonshead, and I hope you'll all enjoy this as much as I did!
Eyes Turned Skyward, Part IV: Post #17
This is it!
Edward Boxall, ESA astronaut, moved his booted left foot down to the final rung of the ladder and leaned backwards. Above him, the bulk of Clarke’s Descent Stage loomed brightly, contrasted against the black sky. No starlight made it through the layer of golf filter on his helmet visor, and the Earth, huddling close to the polar horizon, was hidden out of sight behind the lander.
Leaning to look downwards, Ed could see dark streaks in the grey gray lunar regolith where the lander’s rockets had exposed the underlying bedrock. Small stones scattered around the landing site cast long shadows in the almost horizontally slanting sunlight, whilst the bootprints of his crewmates looked like black holes in the world. Soon, his own bootprints would be joining them.
“Hey, Ed, you gonna join us today?”
Ed smiled at the voice of the Mission Science Officer, always adept at breaking the tension in any situation.
“On my way, Winch,” Ed called back over the radio. “Just one small step…”
Ed’s right foot pressed into the gritty surface, quickly followed by his left.
“For the people of the United Kingdom, the member nations of the European Space Agency and the world, may our mission here herald the beginning of a new phase of human exploration and habitation on our nearest neighbor.”
"One-two, one-two. How're you reading me, Anne?" Ed Boxall, the first British astronaut on the Moon, tapped the side of his Snoopy cap experimentally as he stood in his Thermal Control Garment next to ALES-1's suit lock.
"Loud and clear, Ed," Anne Holcomb confirmed from the other side of the room. "Are you getting me through your headphones?"
"Affirmative, I've got good reception," Ed reported. "How about you, Phil?"
Mission Commander Phil Whitt, similarly attired to Ed, gave a thumbs up as he replied. "Also a good signal. Let's hope it's just as good at a range greater than five feet!"
"Anne and I had no problems yesterday," Mission Science Officer Winchell Chung told the pair. "It got a little scratchy when relaying through Mesyat, but line-of-sight was clear as a bell. In any case, you're not going far today, so if you run into any problems just wave at a camera and we can come get you."
On the communications workstation, Holcomb double-checked her read-out before reporting in to Mission Control. "Houston, Orion. Please confirm you have good Alice-1 and -2 comms relay, over." Following a brief but noticeable lightspeed delay, the voice of Capcom came back through both the console speakers and Boxall's and Whitt's headsets: "Orion, Houston, that's a roger on our side, we have good signal on both Phil and Ed. You have a go for EVA at your leisure."
"Okay guys, time to get your shells on," said Chung. "Just like in training, you trigger the hatches and I'll confirm the seal before you undock, okay?"
"No problem," said Whitt as he grabbed the handhold above the suitlock hatch and swung his legs into the waiting suit. Ed followed suit, easily managing to lift himself into position in the 1/6th gravity of the Moon. Like Phil, Ed slid in legs first through the open backpack of the Articulated Lunar Excursion Suit, slipping into the suit's legs before pulling in his arms and pushing them through the holes in front of him until his fingers hit the ends of the gloves. "This reminds me of putting my son into his romper suit when he was a toddler," Ed commented as he pulled his torso and head fully into the suit.
"You don't squirm around half as much as my daughter did when I tried to dress her!" Chung replied. "Okay, Phil, you look good in there. Go ahead and close the backpack."
"Okay Winch," Phil responded. Ed heard a few clicks through the open back of his suit, but otherwise just hung in place waiting for Phil to get to him. With the protective cover still over ALES-2's helmet, there wasn't even a view to enjoy yet. As he waited, Ed started to hum randomly.
"Jeez, Ed, you didn't take that blasted kazoo into the suit did you?" came Holcomb's plaintive question.
Ed laughed. "No, that's pure Edward Boxall, unplugged!"
"You'd better not have anything unplugged," Chung put in. "Otherwise this EVA is liable to be scrubbed". The American astronaut was now behind Ed in the cabin. "Nope, looks like you're all wired up as you should be. Ready for seal?"
"Ready," replied Ed. He triggered the closure mechanism, and with a quiet "thunk!" the background noises of the Orion cabin, which Ed hadn't even noticed up to now, abruptly ceased. Alone in the dark, with just the low whirl of the helmet fan, Ed was unpleasantly reminded of the sensory deprivation tests he'd undergone at Cologne when he'd first been selected as an astronaut. This time though, the silence didn't last long as Holcomb's voice came through his headphones: "Alice-1, Alice-2, Orion. Comms check."
"Alice-1 comms okay," came Whitt's voice, before Ed responded "Alice-2, comms are good."
"Okay guys," Holcomb replied, "It's all looking good from here. Lift up your dust covers and stand by for undock.
"Roger, lifting cover now" Ed reported as he slowly moved the stiff, unresponsive arms of his moonsuit to bring his gloved right hand up to the fabric covering over his helmet. Moving carefully in the unfamiliar suit, he pushed wire hoop attached to the cover upwards and looked out upon the harsh, raw beauty of the lunar surface. Just as it had on his earlier EVAs in the old pressure suits, the view took his breath away, and he sent up a silent prayer of thanks to God that he was lucky enough to be alive at a time when such miracles were possible that he could walk upon the Moon.
"Visual on Alice-2," came Whitt's voice through the radio, and Ed turned his head to see Phil's suit clinging by its backpack to the cabin wall next to him. Whitt's sun visor was down, so Ed couldn't make out his face, but the other astronaut gave him a cheery wave of recognition. Ed returned the wave. "Hi Phil, fancy meeting you here. It's a small world, eh?"
"Smaller than Earth, that's for sure!"
Just then Holcomb's voice broke in over the radio. "If you two have finished your comedy routine, we’ve confirmed a good seal on our side. You can undock when you’re ready."
"Thanks, Anne," Whitt replied. "Alice-1 undocking... now!"
Ed watched as Whitt's suit jerked forward, the rear half of his backpack emerging from the recessed suitlock as he held on to the twin railings either side of him for balance. "I have a good separation," Whitt told Holcomb. "I'm free standing on the platform."
"Roger, Phil. Ed, ready to go for Alice-2 undock."
“Roger.” Ed forced the stiff gloves of his suit to grip the side rails and pulled sharply forward. There was a brief resistance and a loud click as the backpack disconnected from its berth. “I’m out,” Ed called through the radio. Wow, I really am, he reminded himself. Outside on the Moon...
Standing at the edge of the platform that topped Orion’s descent module, Ed looked out across the bleak landscape in awe. If he leaned over the railing and looked downwards (something that was much easier in his articulated Turtle-suit than it would have been in the old A9L), he could see the scars where the base’s descent had disturbed the top layer surface dust. A tangle of footprints and wheel tracks surrounded the lander, along with various boxes and equipment unpacked by Holcomb and Chung on their previous EVA, but out beyond a couple of hundred meters the ground was undisturbed. Primordial. Where no man has gone before...
“Hey, Anne,” Whitt’s voice came over the radio. “Kill the lights for a second, will ya?”.
“What’s that?” Ed asked nervously, tightening his grip on the handrail.
“I just want to try something out,” came the commander’s enigmatic reply.
“Okay, Phil,” Anne called from inside. “Shutting down the floods now.”
As the hab’s external lights winked out, Ed found himself plunged into darkness. Both the sun and the Earth, neither of which ever rose more than a few degrees above the horizon here, were on the other side of the hab, so the only natural light was that reflected from the dusty surface of Shackleton Crater’s rim. Ed moved to switch on his helmet lamp, but Whitt said “Hold on a second. Push up your sun visor and let your eyes adapt.”
Ed did as he was told, sliding the gold-coated visor upwards. Looking over to the silhouette of Whitt in Alice-1, Ed could see the commander using his arms to shield his eyes from the surface moonlight, his body tilted backwards.
“Just take a look at that,” Whitt breathed.
As Ed’s eyes turned skyward, he finally saw why Whitt had ordered the lights off. Shielded from the glare of the sun, with the bulk of the lunar surface hidden from view by the Hab’s descent stage and unfiltered by his protective visor, the full glory of the night’s sky could at last be seen.
“My God. It’s full of stars…”
After two days in the pressurized rover’s tiny cabin, Ed Boxall was longing for the wide, open spaces of the hab module. He and Anne Holcomb had driven almost sixty kilometers around the rim of Shackleton crater, mostly sticking to the peaks but occasionally dipping into the shadowed depression of the crater itself. Ed had never enjoyed road trips, and especially disliked camping. But with no motorway service stations or roadside motels within a quarter-million miles, the camped two-person cabin had to do duty as cockpit, bedroom and bathroom all in one. The dust - which had gotten into the cabin somehow despite the use of suitlocks - was bad enough, but the smell… Maybe I should try describing the smell in my next blog entry, Ed thought to himself. Just to see if the PR guys in Houston let it through…
As if the thought was enough to summon them, the radio crackled into life. “Rover, Houston, how do you read?”
Holcomb toggled the set and replied “Houston, rover, we read you fine. We’re about four kilometers out from Orion and heading back.”
“That’s our estimate too, Anne,” the response came a couple of seconds later. “Ah, we have a request from the science team to make another small diversion.” Even from this distance, Ed could hear the nervousness in the CapCom’s voice at raising the topic. “They’ve identified another potential LITT site close to your track and, ah, they’d appreciate a little ground truth survey.”
Holcomb rolled her eyes and turned to Ed. “Another survey! You want this one?”
“Hey, I got the last one!” he protested.
“Yeah, but I got the two before that, plus I’m designated driver for the next two hours.”
“Rover, Houston, did you read my last?”
“We heard you, Houston,” Anne replied testily. “We’re working through a tasking issue, will advise shortly.”
The two astronauts looked at each other. It was Holcomb who spoke first: “Rock-Paper-Scissors?”
After a best-of-three, it was Ed who reluctantly twisted around in the cockpit to pull himself into the rover’s second Alice suit. If the cabin was beginning to smell like a sports locker room, the suits were closer to a pair of ski boots after a week in the Alps. The Orion hab included a supply of deodorant spray cans in its inventory, but for some reason NASA and its partner agencies had failed to include these in the rovers. The cans weren’t rated for transfer through vacuum, so they hadn’t brought them across before leaving. Ed was planning to raise this issue prominently in the post-mission “Lessons Learned” debriefings. Given his time again, he would have smuggled one over inside his suit, regulations be damned!
Doing his best to ignore the odour, Ed methodically ran through the suit checks. This would be, what, his eighth EVA of the trip? By this point Ed was sure he’d be able to recite the checklist letter-perfect from memory fifty years from now, but the careful attention to detail drummed into all astronauts meant that he used the hardcopy on his wrist and took his time to make sure every point was covered. Checks completed, he disengaged from the suitlock and stepped off of the rover’s small platform and onto the lunar regolith.
The view was familiar after three days of driving, but still stunning. The rover was perched on the rim of Shackleton, currently in sunlight but not in one of the Peaks of Eternal Light such as like the one hosting Orion. Looking down slope, Ed could see for a hundred meters or so before the crater plunged into darkness like a shore disappearing into the ocean. Even with his sun filter up, no details were visible in that inky pool. To the left and right he could see the occasional outcrop of rock as sections of the rim breached the terminator, but directly ahead there was just the pitch-black curve of the horizon blotting out the stars.
But there was work to be done. Reaching up to activate his helmet lamp, Ed began headed down into the darkness with bounding strides. Over the past three weeks each member of the Orion team had settled on their own preferred means of extravehicular locomotion. Holcomb was a bunny-hopper, but Ed found he preferred this gentle lope, springing from one foot to the other. He found he could build up a surprisingly rapid pace if all he needed was to go in a straight line, as now, and it only took a couple of minutes to reach the edge of the sunlit region. It was only as he approached the shadow zone and started pushing back with each step to slow down that the full inertia of his body plus the suit made itself felt. Also making themselves felt were the blisters he’d earned on the ball of each foot from making exactly this maneuver over the past few days.
Wincing slightly at the pain, Ed radioed back to Holcomb in the rover. “I’m at the edge of the shadow now.”
“Roger that, I’ve got visual on you,” came her reply. “The map says the permanent shadow zone is about fifty meters further down, a little to your right. There should be a crater about twenty meters across almost directly ahead of you. If you skim the right side of that and keep going, you should get there.”
Ed moved cautiously into the shadow, swinging his helmet light around slowly as he advanced, trying to spot a landmark in its dim puddle of light.
“I don’t see... Ah, there it is! Okay, bearing right.” Now sure of his direction, Ed set off once more, this time keeping to a pace slow enough to be sure of spotting any potential trip-hazards. Fortunately, there seemed to be few rocks in this area larger than his fist, and the gentle slope was at a reasonably constant grade. Not much risk of making a Little Step here, Ed thought to himself, but better safe than sorry.
“Okay, you can stop about there, Ed,” Holcomb told him. “You’re about at the right spot. How’s it looking?”
“Unremarkable,” Ed responded, looking around. “The slope’s shallow enough for LITT. Should be no problem setting up the tripods.” He kicked experimentally at the surface. “Regolith is moderately thick, about four, five centimeters... Oh wow!”
“What’s up, Ed?”
Ed looked down at the shallow trench he had scuffed in the dirt, rocking slightly to change the angle of his lamp. Was that sparkle..?
“I think we’ve got ice here! Just a few grains, but very close to the surface. I’m going to grab a sample.”
The long handled scoop was back at the rover, so kneeling down in the articulated suit, Ed dug his gloves into the regolith and grabbed two big handfuls of the dirt. A couple of sample bags were still attached to the waist of his ALES, so he dropped both handfuls into one and popped the seal closed.
“What do you think,” Holcomb asked. “Is there more here than over at Bussey Wells?”
“Could be,” said Ed, scuffing his way around the site. “It’s certainly closer to the surface, and seems to be all over this area. Only four klicks out from the hab, too. Looks like this area could have more value than simply a place to put a telescope.”
“Hold on,” said Holcomb, “I’ll bring the rover in closer and join you. We should get some more samples before we start calling this place ‘Boxall’s Brook’ or something.”
Ed mulled that over for a few moments, before remembering how he had knelt down in the ALES to get his first sample. That wouldn’t have been possible in the old A9L suits. Maybe that should be commemorated somehow.
“You know, I think I’d prefer the name ‘Alice Springs’...”
“Jeez, I’d almost forgotten how awkward these things are to put on,” Chung groused from the airlock as he fought to lock the pants of his A9L moonsuit to the torso. “Hey Phil, you sure we can’t take the Turtles with us?”
“Forget it, Winch,” Commander Whitt replied. “This is a base now, not a sortie outpost. We can’t tell the next crew they have to stick to their A9ls just because you’re having trouble fitting your beer gut back into your old suit.”
Ed listened to the banter with half an ear as he finished clearing his bunk area in Orion’s dome. No, not his area, not anymore. As Phil had pointed out, the small metal and fabric hut they’d called home for the past month would soon be left empty, waiting to host a new crew. Someone else would be sleeping here next year, and probably someone else again the year after. This was never going to be more than a temporary home for Ed, no different really from the endless anonymous hotel rooms he’d used over his years of training.
No, of course that wasn’t true. Orion was more than a place to sleep. It was their protector and comforter in a barren, hostile, beautiful land. Outside of this Hab and the Clarke, there was no-where else on this entire world where a human being could survive and thrive. The Apollo pioneers had proven the Moon could be reached, whilst the first Artemis sorties had shown how it could be explored. With Orion, humans had finally demonstrated that they could settle down and live on this, the rocky shore of the interplanetary ocean. Whilst Orion was crewed, humanity had two homes in the solar system.
The crews that followed would build on that legacy, extending their stays until finally settling permanently on the Moon. But for the crew of the first Orion expedition, it was time to return to the mother-world.
Eyes Turned Skyward, Part IV: Post #17
This is it!
Edward Boxall, ESA astronaut, moved his booted left foot down to the final rung of the ladder and leaned backwards. Above him, the bulk of Clarke’s Descent Stage loomed brightly, contrasted against the black sky. No starlight made it through the layer of golf filter on his helmet visor, and the Earth, huddling close to the polar horizon, was hidden out of sight behind the lander.
Leaning to look downwards, Ed could see dark streaks in the grey gray lunar regolith where the lander’s rockets had exposed the underlying bedrock. Small stones scattered around the landing site cast long shadows in the almost horizontally slanting sunlight, whilst the bootprints of his crewmates looked like black holes in the world. Soon, his own bootprints would be joining them.
“Hey, Ed, you gonna join us today?”
Ed smiled at the voice of the Mission Science Officer, always adept at breaking the tension in any situation.
“On my way, Winch,” Ed called back over the radio. “Just one small step…”
Ed’s right foot pressed into the gritty surface, quickly followed by his left.
“For the people of the United Kingdom, the member nations of the European Space Agency and the world, may our mission here herald the beginning of a new phase of human exploration and habitation on our nearest neighbor.”
"One-two, one-two. How're you reading me, Anne?" Ed Boxall, the first British astronaut on the Moon, tapped the side of his Snoopy cap experimentally as he stood in his Thermal Control Garment next to ALES-1's suit lock.
"Loud and clear, Ed," Anne Holcomb confirmed from the other side of the room. "Are you getting me through your headphones?"
"Affirmative, I've got good reception," Ed reported. "How about you, Phil?"
Mission Commander Phil Whitt, similarly attired to Ed, gave a thumbs up as he replied. "Also a good signal. Let's hope it's just as good at a range greater than five feet!"
"Anne and I had no problems yesterday," Mission Science Officer Winchell Chung told the pair. "It got a little scratchy when relaying through Mesyat, but line-of-sight was clear as a bell. In any case, you're not going far today, so if you run into any problems just wave at a camera and we can come get you."
On the communications workstation, Holcomb double-checked her read-out before reporting in to Mission Control. "Houston, Orion. Please confirm you have good Alice-1 and -2 comms relay, over." Following a brief but noticeable lightspeed delay, the voice of Capcom came back through both the console speakers and Boxall's and Whitt's headsets: "Orion, Houston, that's a roger on our side, we have good signal on both Phil and Ed. You have a go for EVA at your leisure."
"Okay guys, time to get your shells on," said Chung. "Just like in training, you trigger the hatches and I'll confirm the seal before you undock, okay?"
"No problem," said Whitt as he grabbed the handhold above the suitlock hatch and swung his legs into the waiting suit. Ed followed suit, easily managing to lift himself into position in the 1/6th gravity of the Moon. Like Phil, Ed slid in legs first through the open backpack of the Articulated Lunar Excursion Suit, slipping into the suit's legs before pulling in his arms and pushing them through the holes in front of him until his fingers hit the ends of the gloves. "This reminds me of putting my son into his romper suit when he was a toddler," Ed commented as he pulled his torso and head fully into the suit.
"You don't squirm around half as much as my daughter did when I tried to dress her!" Chung replied. "Okay, Phil, you look good in there. Go ahead and close the backpack."
"Okay Winch," Phil responded. Ed heard a few clicks through the open back of his suit, but otherwise just hung in place waiting for Phil to get to him. With the protective cover still over ALES-2's helmet, there wasn't even a view to enjoy yet. As he waited, Ed started to hum randomly.
"Jeez, Ed, you didn't take that blasted kazoo into the suit did you?" came Holcomb's plaintive question.
Ed laughed. "No, that's pure Edward Boxall, unplugged!"
"You'd better not have anything unplugged," Chung put in. "Otherwise this EVA is liable to be scrubbed". The American astronaut was now behind Ed in the cabin. "Nope, looks like you're all wired up as you should be. Ready for seal?"
"Ready," replied Ed. He triggered the closure mechanism, and with a quiet "thunk!" the background noises of the Orion cabin, which Ed hadn't even noticed up to now, abruptly ceased. Alone in the dark, with just the low whirl of the helmet fan, Ed was unpleasantly reminded of the sensory deprivation tests he'd undergone at Cologne when he'd first been selected as an astronaut. This time though, the silence didn't last long as Holcomb's voice came through his headphones: "Alice-1, Alice-2, Orion. Comms check."
"Alice-1 comms okay," came Whitt's voice, before Ed responded "Alice-2, comms are good."
"Okay guys," Holcomb replied, "It's all looking good from here. Lift up your dust covers and stand by for undock.
"Roger, lifting cover now" Ed reported as he slowly moved the stiff, unresponsive arms of his moonsuit to bring his gloved right hand up to the fabric covering over his helmet. Moving carefully in the unfamiliar suit, he pushed wire hoop attached to the cover upwards and looked out upon the harsh, raw beauty of the lunar surface. Just as it had on his earlier EVAs in the old pressure suits, the view took his breath away, and he sent up a silent prayer of thanks to God that he was lucky enough to be alive at a time when such miracles were possible that he could walk upon the Moon.
"Visual on Alice-2," came Whitt's voice through the radio, and Ed turned his head to see Phil's suit clinging by its backpack to the cabin wall next to him. Whitt's sun visor was down, so Ed couldn't make out his face, but the other astronaut gave him a cheery wave of recognition. Ed returned the wave. "Hi Phil, fancy meeting you here. It's a small world, eh?"
"Smaller than Earth, that's for sure!"
Just then Holcomb's voice broke in over the radio. "If you two have finished your comedy routine, we’ve confirmed a good seal on our side. You can undock when you’re ready."
"Thanks, Anne," Whitt replied. "Alice-1 undocking... now!"
Ed watched as Whitt's suit jerked forward, the rear half of his backpack emerging from the recessed suitlock as he held on to the twin railings either side of him for balance. "I have a good separation," Whitt told Holcomb. "I'm free standing on the platform."
"Roger, Phil. Ed, ready to go for Alice-2 undock."
“Roger.” Ed forced the stiff gloves of his suit to grip the side rails and pulled sharply forward. There was a brief resistance and a loud click as the backpack disconnected from its berth. “I’m out,” Ed called through the radio. Wow, I really am, he reminded himself. Outside on the Moon...
Standing at the edge of the platform that topped Orion’s descent module, Ed looked out across the bleak landscape in awe. If he leaned over the railing and looked downwards (something that was much easier in his articulated Turtle-suit than it would have been in the old A9L), he could see the scars where the base’s descent had disturbed the top layer surface dust. A tangle of footprints and wheel tracks surrounded the lander, along with various boxes and equipment unpacked by Holcomb and Chung on their previous EVA, but out beyond a couple of hundred meters the ground was undisturbed. Primordial. Where no man has gone before...
“Hey, Anne,” Whitt’s voice came over the radio. “Kill the lights for a second, will ya?”.
“What’s that?” Ed asked nervously, tightening his grip on the handrail.
“I just want to try something out,” came the commander’s enigmatic reply.
“Okay, Phil,” Anne called from inside. “Shutting down the floods now.”
As the hab’s external lights winked out, Ed found himself plunged into darkness. Both the sun and the Earth, neither of which ever rose more than a few degrees above the horizon here, were on the other side of the hab, so the only natural light was that reflected from the dusty surface of Shackleton Crater’s rim. Ed moved to switch on his helmet lamp, but Whitt said “Hold on a second. Push up your sun visor and let your eyes adapt.”
Ed did as he was told, sliding the gold-coated visor upwards. Looking over to the silhouette of Whitt in Alice-1, Ed could see the commander using his arms to shield his eyes from the surface moonlight, his body tilted backwards.
“Just take a look at that,” Whitt breathed.
As Ed’s eyes turned skyward, he finally saw why Whitt had ordered the lights off. Shielded from the glare of the sun, with the bulk of the lunar surface hidden from view by the Hab’s descent stage and unfiltered by his protective visor, the full glory of the night’s sky could at last be seen.
“My God. It’s full of stars…”
After two days in the pressurized rover’s tiny cabin, Ed Boxall was longing for the wide, open spaces of the hab module. He and Anne Holcomb had driven almost sixty kilometers around the rim of Shackleton crater, mostly sticking to the peaks but occasionally dipping into the shadowed depression of the crater itself. Ed had never enjoyed road trips, and especially disliked camping. But with no motorway service stations or roadside motels within a quarter-million miles, the camped two-person cabin had to do duty as cockpit, bedroom and bathroom all in one. The dust - which had gotten into the cabin somehow despite the use of suitlocks - was bad enough, but the smell… Maybe I should try describing the smell in my next blog entry, Ed thought to himself. Just to see if the PR guys in Houston let it through…
As if the thought was enough to summon them, the radio crackled into life. “Rover, Houston, how do you read?”
Holcomb toggled the set and replied “Houston, rover, we read you fine. We’re about four kilometers out from Orion and heading back.”
“That’s our estimate too, Anne,” the response came a couple of seconds later. “Ah, we have a request from the science team to make another small diversion.” Even from this distance, Ed could hear the nervousness in the CapCom’s voice at raising the topic. “They’ve identified another potential LITT site close to your track and, ah, they’d appreciate a little ground truth survey.”
Holcomb rolled her eyes and turned to Ed. “Another survey! You want this one?”
“Hey, I got the last one!” he protested.
“Yeah, but I got the two before that, plus I’m designated driver for the next two hours.”
“Rover, Houston, did you read my last?”
“We heard you, Houston,” Anne replied testily. “We’re working through a tasking issue, will advise shortly.”
The two astronauts looked at each other. It was Holcomb who spoke first: “Rock-Paper-Scissors?”
After a best-of-three, it was Ed who reluctantly twisted around in the cockpit to pull himself into the rover’s second Alice suit. If the cabin was beginning to smell like a sports locker room, the suits were closer to a pair of ski boots after a week in the Alps. The Orion hab included a supply of deodorant spray cans in its inventory, but for some reason NASA and its partner agencies had failed to include these in the rovers. The cans weren’t rated for transfer through vacuum, so they hadn’t brought them across before leaving. Ed was planning to raise this issue prominently in the post-mission “Lessons Learned” debriefings. Given his time again, he would have smuggled one over inside his suit, regulations be damned!
Doing his best to ignore the odour, Ed methodically ran through the suit checks. This would be, what, his eighth EVA of the trip? By this point Ed was sure he’d be able to recite the checklist letter-perfect from memory fifty years from now, but the careful attention to detail drummed into all astronauts meant that he used the hardcopy on his wrist and took his time to make sure every point was covered. Checks completed, he disengaged from the suitlock and stepped off of the rover’s small platform and onto the lunar regolith.
The view was familiar after three days of driving, but still stunning. The rover was perched on the rim of Shackleton, currently in sunlight but not in one of the Peaks of Eternal Light such as like the one hosting Orion. Looking down slope, Ed could see for a hundred meters or so before the crater plunged into darkness like a shore disappearing into the ocean. Even with his sun filter up, no details were visible in that inky pool. To the left and right he could see the occasional outcrop of rock as sections of the rim breached the terminator, but directly ahead there was just the pitch-black curve of the horizon blotting out the stars.
But there was work to be done. Reaching up to activate his helmet lamp, Ed began headed down into the darkness with bounding strides. Over the past three weeks each member of the Orion team had settled on their own preferred means of extravehicular locomotion. Holcomb was a bunny-hopper, but Ed found he preferred this gentle lope, springing from one foot to the other. He found he could build up a surprisingly rapid pace if all he needed was to go in a straight line, as now, and it only took a couple of minutes to reach the edge of the sunlit region. It was only as he approached the shadow zone and started pushing back with each step to slow down that the full inertia of his body plus the suit made itself felt. Also making themselves felt were the blisters he’d earned on the ball of each foot from making exactly this maneuver over the past few days.
Wincing slightly at the pain, Ed radioed back to Holcomb in the rover. “I’m at the edge of the shadow now.”
“Roger that, I’ve got visual on you,” came her reply. “The map says the permanent shadow zone is about fifty meters further down, a little to your right. There should be a crater about twenty meters across almost directly ahead of you. If you skim the right side of that and keep going, you should get there.”
Ed moved cautiously into the shadow, swinging his helmet light around slowly as he advanced, trying to spot a landmark in its dim puddle of light.
“I don’t see... Ah, there it is! Okay, bearing right.” Now sure of his direction, Ed set off once more, this time keeping to a pace slow enough to be sure of spotting any potential trip-hazards. Fortunately, there seemed to be few rocks in this area larger than his fist, and the gentle slope was at a reasonably constant grade. Not much risk of making a Little Step here, Ed thought to himself, but better safe than sorry.
“Okay, you can stop about there, Ed,” Holcomb told him. “You’re about at the right spot. How’s it looking?”
“Unremarkable,” Ed responded, looking around. “The slope’s shallow enough for LITT. Should be no problem setting up the tripods.” He kicked experimentally at the surface. “Regolith is moderately thick, about four, five centimeters... Oh wow!”
“What’s up, Ed?”
Ed looked down at the shallow trench he had scuffed in the dirt, rocking slightly to change the angle of his lamp. Was that sparkle..?
“I think we’ve got ice here! Just a few grains, but very close to the surface. I’m going to grab a sample.”
The long handled scoop was back at the rover, so kneeling down in the articulated suit, Ed dug his gloves into the regolith and grabbed two big handfuls of the dirt. A couple of sample bags were still attached to the waist of his ALES, so he dropped both handfuls into one and popped the seal closed.
“What do you think,” Holcomb asked. “Is there more here than over at Bussey Wells?”
“Could be,” said Ed, scuffing his way around the site. “It’s certainly closer to the surface, and seems to be all over this area. Only four klicks out from the hab, too. Looks like this area could have more value than simply a place to put a telescope.”
“Hold on,” said Holcomb, “I’ll bring the rover in closer and join you. We should get some more samples before we start calling this place ‘Boxall’s Brook’ or something.”
Ed mulled that over for a few moments, before remembering how he had knelt down in the ALES to get his first sample. That wouldn’t have been possible in the old A9L suits. Maybe that should be commemorated somehow.
“You know, I think I’d prefer the name ‘Alice Springs’...”
“Jeez, I’d almost forgotten how awkward these things are to put on,” Chung groused from the airlock as he fought to lock the pants of his A9L moonsuit to the torso. “Hey Phil, you sure we can’t take the Turtles with us?”
“Forget it, Winch,” Commander Whitt replied. “This is a base now, not a sortie outpost. We can’t tell the next crew they have to stick to their A9ls just because you’re having trouble fitting your beer gut back into your old suit.”
Ed listened to the banter with half an ear as he finished clearing his bunk area in Orion’s dome. No, not his area, not anymore. As Phil had pointed out, the small metal and fabric hut they’d called home for the past month would soon be left empty, waiting to host a new crew. Someone else would be sleeping here next year, and probably someone else again the year after. This was never going to be more than a temporary home for Ed, no different really from the endless anonymous hotel rooms he’d used over his years of training.
No, of course that wasn’t true. Orion was more than a place to sleep. It was their protector and comforter in a barren, hostile, beautiful land. Outside of this Hab and the Clarke, there was no-where else on this entire world where a human being could survive and thrive. The Apollo pioneers had proven the Moon could be reached, whilst the first Artemis sorties had shown how it could be explored. With Orion, humans had finally demonstrated that they could settle down and live on this, the rocky shore of the interplanetary ocean. Whilst Orion was crewed, humanity had two homes in the solar system.
The crews that followed would build on that legacy, extending their stays until finally settling permanently on the Moon. But for the crew of the first Orion expedition, it was time to return to the mother-world.
Last week, we talked about the revolution in reusable access to space, but this week we're looking at some of the payloads that enables: our eyes on the sky, in the sky, space telescopes.
