“Nothing. Everything’s okay. Your mom watched over us, over.”
Dmitri looked back at Anya and they both smiled. By the relaxed set of her shoulders, she was relieved, as was he. He fell back in his seat, thankful both men survived.
He leaned forward. “Dad, what does the girl say in the bar?”
There was a silence for moment before Viktor answered, “Go hang yourself.”
Laughter was heard throughout the control room.
PETER FINALLY HAD HIS FIRST OPPORTUNITY to take a long look at the moon from the small porthole window by his seat, amazed at the awesome sight in front of him. Viktor was busy parking Maria 1 into her final orbit where Peter would do his spacewalk and take the pictures.
Ever since Peter was a kid, he dreamt of someday flying around the moon, just like his father. Here he was, just four miles above the surface, where only a handful of men had been. The moon engulfed his entire window, where he felt like he could reach out and touch it. He was surprised at the detail he could see, especially the different geological formations of the craters as they passed. However, they were still too high to see the landing sites with the naked eye. He would have liked to have been lower, but they needed at least a 20,000 ft altitude to clear the mountain ranges. At this height he would be able to get the high resolution pictures using the high powered camera lens, possibly even to the level of detecting the footprints left. He was looking forward to seeing one of the sites up close.
Unfortunately Mission Control put them in a very unstable orbit due to the mass concentrations they were flying over. These mascons were tugging at their ship due to their stronger gravitational forces versus other areas of the moon, which caused their orbit to slowly degenerate. They needed to do periodic boosts from Maria’s onboard thrusters just to hold their orbit. Regrettably, they had very little fuel left. Viktor figured they probably had enough to hold them in the orbit for twenty-four hours before they would run out, at which time their altitude would slowly degrade until they eventually crashed into the moon.
“Maria 1, this is Mission Control,” said Dmitri over the radio.
Peter signaled he would answer since Viktor was busy. “Maria 1 here, over.”
“How’s everything going up there?”
“Your dad is parking us in our final orbit. All is looking good, over.”
“Roger. Looks like you will have some company. The Chinese decided to go into lunar orbit. Not sure what their purpose is, but you may want to warm up some tea, over.”
Peter chuckled. “I’m going to put a sign outside our door saying ‘No one’s home.’ Are they in the same orbital plane?”
“Looks to be very close. They did some course corrections, so they are up to something. They look to be thirty minutes behind you,” said Dmitri.
“What can they do to us now that we’ve reprogrammed the laser? I’m not worried about them.” Still looking out his window, Peter said, “Dmitri, remember when we were kids pretending to fly to the moon?”
Sarcasm filled Dmitri’s voice. “You mean when you had to be the commander?”
“Yep. Well you should see this, it’s an amazing sight. Better than what we imagined. It’s beautiful in an odd way, looking so peaceful down there. I’m in awe that Dad actually walked down there forty years ago.”
“I’m sure it’s a moving experience for you, Peter. I’m jealous.”
Peter suddenly turned away from the window. “Hey, didn’t we make some kind of a bet as kids on who would get to the moon first?”
“I think the bet was who would get into space first.”
“I think it was the moon,” pressed Peter, knowing Dmitri was first in space.
Dmitri said, “You’re probably right. So I guess you win.”
“Thank you,” said Peter.
“I spoke to Doug Rose this morning and he said the session at the UN is scheduled for tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern Time to present the pictures you will be passing on. He said you’re aware of all this?”
“Yes, but wasn’t sure of the exact time,” said Peter, glancing at his watch, still set on Florida time.
“He requested you take some early pictures of some of the landing sites from inside the Soyuz and submit those as soon as you can.”
There was a pause, before Dmitri’s voice slightly softened. “He’s aware you no longer have an airlock, so he has asked that you start your spacewalk just before the session, allowing you enough time to get some high resolution pictures taken and submitted before the session starts.”
Peter knew his friend was thinking that would be the moment his father would die. “Roger.”
Dmitri’s voice became stronger. “Hopefully you will be able to pass on a live video feed that can be transmitted while the session is in progress. Do you think you will be able to transmit the pictures wearing the EMU suit?”
Peter never trained on doing that during the spacewalk since no one considered they would be without an airlock. All his training was submitting the pictures from comfortably inside the Soyuz. But it was possible. “Fortunately I only need to connect one cord and punch a couple of computer keys to download and transmit. I’ll practice with an EMU glove on to make sure I can punch one key at a time. I’ll probably strap the computer by the hatch so I can access it from space. It’ll be tricky, but probably doable, over.”
Having been informed of Viktor’s earlier heroic EVA to jettison the booster, Dmitri asked, “Roger. How much oxygen is left in the EMU suit?”
“I’ll have about five hours total.” As Peter said this, it hit him his last five hours alive would be in that suit.
“Roger. I’ll let Doug know. He wants you to pass the video feed through us.”
“Roger,” said Peter looking over at the EMU suit. A chill ran through his body as he realized he was staring at his tomb.
PETER AND VIKTOR HAD FINISHED their dinner and were now sitting silently in the spacecraft. Both men had completed all of their tasks and were now in a mandatory rest period. Peter had successfully sent the last set of pictures taken from inside the Soyuz and transmitted them on to the SR2 military satellite, which automatically forwarded them to NASA. He had looked at the pictures before sending. Unfortunately the porthole window did blur the images, but for the first round of pictures they were still good enough to prove America landed, even if the pictures were of only one landing site. Not only did the pictures clearly show the bottom of the Lunar Lander, they also showed the American flag and even some small experiments left. The high resolution pictures taken on his spacewalk should be even better and would definitely pick up the footprints left. The early pictures taken were not of his dad’s landing site because the lighting at the time was bad, but that would improve when he did his spacewalk. He planned on focusing solely on that site, which would give NASA pictures of two sites. He looked forward to seeing his dad’s old stomping grounds and the footprints he made forty years ago.
The astronauts lucked out that China’s landing site was in the sunlight and not too far off their orbital plane. With some minor adjustments to their spacecraft’s position, Peter was able to take pictures of their site after pinpointing the location from the transmission received from the laser. The pictures were not as close as the pictures taken of the American site, but they were still close enough to tell the equipment left was not America’s. When Peter looked at those pictures on the computer he could see small red squares on some of the equipment he was sure were Chinese flag insignias. He hoped NASA had the technology to magnify the picture to verify, providing even better evidence.
Now with the early pictures passed on, there was not much left for the astronauts to do until they started preparing for Peter’s spacewalk less than ten hours away. All that was required were the periodic boosts needed to keep the spacecraft in orbit.