Doug straightened in his chair and confidently responded, “Absolutely not, Mr. President. We did land on the moon, and we have plenty of proof to discredit whatever they bring forward. I have no idea why they would make such an accusation. They can only lose this fight and ruin their recent good standing among the world.”
The president got up from behind his desk, pen in hand, walked around to the front and leaned back. Looking directly at Doug he asked, “What proof do we exactly have? Can’t we just aim one of our high powered telescopes, like the Hubble, and see some of the hardware left on the moon, and end it right there?”
Doug was now looking up to the president, his neck craned awkwardly. “Unfortunately, the world does not have a telescope powerful enough to see any of the hardware left on the moon.”
The president, surprised to hear this asked, “You’re kidding me! We can see light years away outside our own galaxy, but we can’t see a goddamn car on the moon?”
“That is correct, Mr. President. In fact, it’s as if you were flying in Air Force One and you tried to look down with your naked eye and pin point a grain of sand. Just impossible with the technology we have today.”
“So it sounds like the only way to verify the hardware and footprints is to send a rocket to the moon.”
“That is correct, Mr. President.”
“Unbelievable. And China is the only country to have done that in forty years,” the president said, crossing his arms.
“Not exactly, sir. A few countries in the last ten years have sent unmanned rockets to the moon, like Japan and India. Of course Russia sent the Luna probes up in the ’70s to gather lunar samples, but after that program the moon was ignored for almost twenty years. We sent up probes in the ’90s to determine if there were any ice reserves, but our last rocket to the moon was in 1999. There were no pictures taken on any of those missions or on missions by the other nations to verify the landing sites. There just hasn’t been a need to do this since no country ever questioned us landing before.”
“Well, it looks like we have a country questioning us now!” the president said dryly. “China knows what they are doing. They are purposely claiming this now, after we have retired the Shuttle and are years away from having a rocket ready to get men back in space. I hate having to rely on the Russians to fly us into space.”
“I hate relying on Russia too,” responded Doug. “But as you know, due to the budget cuts set up by congress and past administrations, NASA was forced to stop flying the Shuttle to allow for the development of the next generation of manned rockets. Unfortunately SpaceQuest has been behind schedule and has forced us to rely on the Russians. But as you know, many of us at NASA have been very concerned and vocal this gap would exist between when the Shuttle was discontinued and when the next generation of rockets would fly. We all have been nervous counting on private enterprise to prevent this gap.”
“Too bad that decision wasn’t made during my watch,” said the president. “I can’t believe the past administration was comfortable relying on private companies to launch astronauts and supplies to the space station when they were still years away from testing their rockets. I would have extended the Shuttle past 2011 to insure there was an overlap with SpaceQuest’s rockets or whatever commercial firm was used.”
The president turned and walked back around to his chair, not saying a word and sat, in deep thought. The room was quiet for a moment. Bill, in frustration, said to no one in particular, “I still can’t believe there is not an easy way of verifying the hardware left on the moon. If we could just do that, we could end everything right now. Instead we have to rely only on evidence here on Earth, and since China just flew to the moon and claimed they did not see our hardware, they probably now have the world behind them and will only question whatever evidence we bring forward, or say. It’s our word versus theirs.”
Doug responded encouragingly, “Well sir, we are in the process of sending up a lunar orbiter to the moon later this month. It’s called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. It will be our first mission to the moon since 1999, but unfortunately it is not designed to take detailed pictures of the landing sites. Its mission is to scout the moon and work out the best landing sites for future explorations. That’s why I was hesitant to bring this up. However, we do plan on putting the LRO in an elliptical orbit where it will fly over and take pictures of each one of our landing sites. These pictures are only being done because we need to test the cameras and the project team thought it would be cool taking pictures of each site, kind of a nostalgic thing. But due to the altitude of the LRO and the cameras used, the hardware left will look like specs in the pictures, hardly something we could use to discredit China’s claims. However, I believe we may be able to modify the LRO to take more detailed pictures, but it would probably require a lower orbit with a stronger camera. I will need to discuss this with the project managers to see if we can do this, and do it fast.”
“Well that’s encouraging,” said the president. “I want a report on my desk by tomorrow morning stating if it can be modified.” The president leaned back in his chair. “What other proof do we have to satisfy the world?” There were many hoax proponents saying the moon landings were faked and how they had proof. He never took them seriously, but now one of the leading nations of the world made this claim. This was cause for concern and needed a response. In the file in front of him, one of the items he read was the latest Gallup poll showing millions of Americans believing the moon landings never happened. Americans! He figured the number was much higher outside the United States. With many nations either upset with or jealous of America, it would not take much for the world to go along with China
“The best evidence we have right now, sir, are the moon rocks,” stated Doug.
The president slammed his fist down on his desk, and barked at Doug. “Well how can China say they have similar rocks? Is that possible?”
Doug jumped in his chair, and responded anxiously, “No sir, it is not. If their rocks came from a meteorite as they claim, the rocks would have frictional burns from entering the atmosphere. Obviously our moon rocks were not subjected to such frictional damage since they did not fall to Earth, but instead were carried in our capsule with the astronauts. Any travels they may have encountered were done in the vacuum of space. This alone should be evidence enough. Also, I doubt they have 300 lbs of these rocks. Scientists have searched the world over looking for moon asteroids, and have found only 20 lbs combined. Finding 300 lbs would be very unlikely. The United States does have a small amount of moon rocks that we did get from meteorites, but we are talking about pebbles.”
Bill, sensing he made Doug uncomfortable, leaned back in his chair and questioned him in a calmer voice. “So, then how are we able to prove our rocks came from the moon?”
“First, the moon rocks are over 600 million years older than Earth rocks. Second, the scientific community has never disputed the fact that our rocks were from the moon. Finally, Russia did send up robotic missions to the moon to retrieve samples. They did three of these missions successfully back in the ’70s. The samples brought back were compared to our rocks and proved to be of the same origin and makeup. However, Russia was only able to bring back a total of 11.5 ounces of samples over three missions versus the over 820 lbs we have, that is basically one one-thousandth. So I am very confident the rocks China has will not even compare to ours, and everything should end right there.”
Bill leaned forward on his desk and looked Doug directly in his eyes. “Well I am glad you’re confident, but I’m not. I don’t underestimate the Chinese. They’re up to something. They would not bring these accusations in front of the UN and the whole world unless they knew what they were doing. I feel they have something up their sleeves.”