Into the New Millennium: Trailblazing Tales From Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 2000 - 2010 (41 page)

Her great-grandfather
? "It's my privilege, ma'am," I said. Her badge sported the seal of the DHS and her last name at the bottom in capital letters, "PRESSA." I wondered what kind of work she did for them?

While Dr. Winkler escorted Mr. Smith to a chair, Ms. Pressa handed me an old-fashioned wired headset and a speaker box. "This is a Mission Control headset and speaker box from the Apollo Restoration Project. I rigged up an interface so you can plug these into your laptop." She pointed to a rocker switch on the cord. "This is the push-to-talk button that he'll use to talk to Ms. Phillips. If he starts spouting nonsense, just unplug him from the laptop—he'll hear a click. Tell him we lost the signal." I nodded, hoping I'd not need to do that.

She continued. "The speaker box is set to broadcast and receive. The flight director and all the team will hear everything said in this room, so be careful to always call him Mr. Smith."

"I understand," I said. I decided not to tell her I didn't know his real name anyway.

"Okay then, I'll let you get to work." She settled into a chair next to Dr. Winkler.

I motioned Mr. Smith to join me standing behind the simulator. Our interface to Mission Control was the same set-up I'd used earlier, except that I'd added some bar stools in case our feet got tired. Also, I'd left the projector off since we had live images from Mission Control. The view from Ms. Phillips' helmet cam was in the center of the screen. On the right was a graph of data from the spacesuits showing power and carbon dioxide levels and stuff like that. On the left was a plot of the planned trajectory of the direct ascent rendezvous. It looked pretty simple; an arc from the surface that intersected a dotted circle around the Moon. The cargo ship was marked by a yellow Pac-Man that was slowly eating its way around the dotted circle. I smiled. Someone on the flight control team had a sense of humor.

"I saw that movie," Mr. Smith said, looking at the TV. "Isn't that the one with Tom Hanks in it?"

"No," I said. "This is a live image from the Moon. There's a woman who needs to fly to lunar orbit."

"What's a woman doing on the Moon? Is this some Russian stunt?"

"No, she's an American," I replied patiently.
Had he forgotten everything we'd told him already?
My heart rate climbed. "What's important is that if she doesn't rendezvous with a cargo ship in lunar orbit, she and the other passenger will die. Unfortunately, she's not a pilot."

Mr. Smith frowned. "She'll never make it."

"Not on her own, she won't," I said. "That's why we need you. NASA has set up the computer to fly the ascent automatically—you know, like ‘pings'?" I hoped I had the term right.

He nodded. "Pings works great," he said.

I continued. "Yes, and pings was recently updated so that it can do all the calculations really fast. But it can't fly like the best LM pilot alive."
No need to say the only one
. He smiled at this praise. "So NASA needs you to help this woman—her name is Ms. Clara Phillips—with the launch and rendezvous."

"I can do that," Mr. Smith said, placing his large hand on the stick, just like he'd done hours earlier. I let out the breath I'd been holding.

I looked over at Dr. Winkler who gave me a thumbs-up sign. Mr. Smith donned the old-fashioned headset like he wore one every day. I plugged it into my laptop. If Mr. Smith got confused, I'd be responsible for literally pulling the plug.

"Houston would like to do a voice check of their secure line," I said.

"Hello, Mr. Smith, this is Houston Capcom. How do you read?"

"Roger, Houston, read you five by," Mr. Smith answered.

"Good. The flight director would like to speak to you."

"Go ahead," Mr. Smith said.

"Hello, Mr. Smith. I'm Flight Director Keegan Taylor," he said. "We appreciate you helping us in this emergency. Time is short, so let me fill you in on a few details."

Mr. Smith listened intently as the flight director explained that they were going to do a direct ascent, and that they might need him to take over manually.

"Understood," Mr. Smith said.

"Oh, and if you're willing, we'd like you to talk to Ms. Phillips, tell her what to expect before it happens—keeping in mind the 1.3-second signal delay, so she'll stay calm. Can you do that?"

"Sure," Mr. Smith replied simply.

"Good. Then I'll have Capcom patch you through to Ms. Phillips. Her first name is Clara."

The capcom's voice came over the speaker, "Clara, this is Houston on Private Channel Alpha, do you copy?"

A second later, she responded, "Yes, Houston, I hear you. My hands are shaking so badly, I'm afraid I'll press the wrong buttons!"

"Clara, you will do fine," the capcom assured her. "You just press PROCEED at T-5, and the computer will take it from there."

"But this LM was never tested under real conditions, and I'm not a pilot!"

"We know that, Clara. But that engine worked on every
Apollo
flight, and the systems are looking good. To reassure you, we've asked a very special person to come out of retirement. I'm going to patch him through to speak to you. He wishes to keep his name secret, and goes by Mr. Smith, but we have verified that he is in fact one of the original
Apollo
moonwalkers."

A second later, she said, "But that's impossible! The last one died in a car crash with his wife. I went to their funeral!"

"Apparently, only the wife actually died in that crash. Mr. Smith was sent to a secret location to spend his last years free of media scrutiny."

"The tabloids were actually right!" Ms. Phillips laughed. "Oh my, that was insensitive of me. Is Mr., uh, Smith listening? Please tell him I didn't mean to make light of his loss. I'm sure it must have been very hard."

"Yes," Mr. Smith said. "I miss my wife."

Oh no! He mustn't start thinking about his wife right now. He'll be of no help at all.
I unplugged his connection to Ms. Phillips. "Mr. Smith," I whispered, pointing at the display, "What does that light mean?"

He stared at the panel seen through Ms. Phillips' helmet camera. "The LM fuel tank pressure is low. Must have a leak. Better take off soon."

Good
. He was back on track. I plugged him back in. I saw Ms. Pressa smiling at me.

The capcom was talking to Ms. Phillips, I supposed answering a question about how Mr. Smith had gotten involved in this rescue. "Mr. Smith heard about your situation on the news and contacted us to see if he could help. We had him fly a simulator and update the model for use in the autopilot. He's standing by to speak with you."

"I can't believe this!" Ms. Phillips said. "I must be out of my mind or talking to a ghost."

"I'm not a ghost," Mr. Smith said. "And you won't be either, as long as you stay calm and follow directions." He paused in thought. I kept my finger on the plug just in case he changed subjects. "Once you reach orbit," Mr. Smith said, "You'll just coast right to where the command module can get you."

"Command module?" Ms. Phillips repeated.

"He means the cargo ship," the capcom said.

"Oh, of course. I understand," Ms. Phillips said.

They went through some preflight checks of switch positions and reviewed the procedures. Mr. Smith seemed calm and in control, every bit the old
Apollo
astronaut.

The liftoff was right on time. Ms. Phillips yelped when the engine fired, but Mr. Smith soothingly told her that was nominal (a word he used instead of "normal"). "You'll go straight up for about ten seconds," he reminded her. "Then you'll pitch over and move horizontally with respect to the lunar surface. You should have a great view out the window."

The image of the cockpit on the TV jiggled up and down in response to the engine. No sound penetrated through the airless cockpit. The view out the window changed from black sky to lunar gray as the ship nosed down.

"Guidance, report," the flight director demanded.

"Flight, cg shifted at pitch over."

A second later we heard Ms. Phillips shout, "Dr. Canterbury!" The pitch over had thrown the injured man out of his harness. One arm smacked Ms. Phillips across her faceplate.

I involuntarily winced and sucked in a breath, though she was perfectly fine inside her helmet.

Mr. Smith spoke softly. "Ms. Phillips, grab his wrist. When the ascent engine shuts down, he'll float right to you."

"Flight, engine shutdown."

"Trajectory report," the flight director ordered.

"The computer didn't fully compensate for the cg shift. We'll need a correction from the RCS."

"Mr. Smith, stand by for remote ops."

"Roger, Flight," Mr. Smith said.

We saw Ms. Phillips pull on Dr. Canterbury's wrist, rotating him so that he was facing her. She reached to pull the harness around him.

Dr. Canterbury's eyes opened. He jerked and hit the hand controller. The two historians tumbled. Out the window, the gray lunar surface was replaced by darkness and then surface again in rapid succession.
They're spinning!

Mr. Smith pulled the hand controller to one side and released it. After a short delay, I noted that the view rotated more slowly.

"Flight, Guidance. LM is in stable BBQ mode."

"Nice flying, Mr. Smith," the capcom said. "My guy in the simulator says you used about half the fuel he would have."

"She's not out of the woods yet," he said. "Look at the disk key."

Huh?
There were no woods on the Moon. And what kind of a disk had a key?
Click
. I yanked the plug from my laptop.

Mr. Smith continued talking. "Apo loon is . . ."

"Sorry, I think we've lost our link to the spacecraft," I said, looking at Dr. Winkler. He in turn was looking at Ms. Pressa.

Ms. Pressa was texting quietly on her phone. "Communications restored," she declared.

I took the hint and plugged Mr. Smith back in. A text message appeared on my laptop saying, "‘Not out of the woods' means ‘not out of trouble.' ‘DSKY' is a display in the LM."
None of that was nonsense
? My face burned with embarrassment. I had a lot to learn.

The guidance team reported that they had the orbital correction calculated, including the additional jet firings. The flight director gave them the go to have the automatic system command the jets to make the necessary corrections. "Capcom, warn Ms. Phillips that there will be jet firings."

Ms. Phillips got Dr. Canterbury secured in his harness and tightened her own. His eyes had closed again. Surgeon feared that the acceleration, though gentle compared to an Earth launch, might have acerbated his injuries.

After the maneuver, the trajectory plot showed that the LM and "Pac-Man" cargo ship would rendezvous on schedule. Capcom informed a relieved Ms. Phillips that all was well.

"Except she's going to crash," Mr. Smith said.

What?
I rested my fingers on the headset connection.

"Mr. Smith, Flight speaking. The trajectory looks good to us. Why do you think she is going to crash?"

"I told you, look at the DSKY. You only raised apolune from 40.1 to 40.6. That's too low for the CSM."

A text appeared on my laptop saying, "Apolune is the highest point in a lunar orbit. CSM = command and service module." I looked up at Ms. Pressa and nodded to let her know I understood. I pulled my hand away from the connection.

Mr. Smith continued. "You need forty-two nautical miles or the CSM can't get to her in time."

"Nautical miles? What kind of dumb unit is that?" I blurted, and then covered my mouth. I hadn't meant to say that outloud for the whole team to hear! Ms. Pressa frowned, I assumed at my outburst, and texted furiously. Nothing showed up on my laptop, though.

"Break, break," Capcom interrupted. "Lunar Ops reports the LM is out of range by about ten kilometers!"

Mr. Smith was right?

"Guidance, Flight, we've uncovered the problem. The LM software uses nautical miles and the corrections we made assumed statute miles. We're off by a factor of 1.15."

Ms. Pressa rose from her seat and paced back and forth.
Not out of the woods, indeed!

"Guidance, get me the right numbers for Mr. Smith to fly to. Capcom, inform Ms. Phillips we'll be doing another maneuver."

Precious time ticked by while the LM rapidly approached the point of no return. The trajectory map refreshed with a new image showing the LM arcing up but not quite reaching the intersect point with the cargo ship. Unless it changed course fast, the historians were doomed. If I hadn't cut off Mr. Smith's comments earlier, would they have discovered the problem sooner? Was this all my fault? Maybe I didn't have the right stuff to be a pilot after all.

Lunar Ops reported that she had moved the cargo ship to a slighter lower orbit that would help close the gap. But it also increased her speed. That seemed counterproductive to me until I saw on the plot that the intersection point was farther around the Moon than predicted earlier. Orbital mechanics was confusing!

Finally Guidance reported they had the commands ready. The flight director said to execute them. If anything went wrong, we would know in a few minutes. If so, we might need Mr. Smith to fly to the numbers manually.

Ms. Pressa approached and held up her phone. I heard the shutter sound of a camera snapping a photo.

"What do you think you're doing?" Mr. Smith shouted. Ms. Pressa looked puzzled. "Just taking your picture, Grandpa," she explained.

Uh-oh. He didn't like to be called that!

"Grandpa! You didn't think I was too old at the bar the other night!" He squinted at her badge. "P . . . R . . . E . . . S . . . S . . . You're a reporter! Get out!" He pushed her back with the heel of his big left hand. Her phone clattered across the floor, and she fell back into a chair.

The security guard from the door seemed to appear out of thin air, "Director, are you okay?" he asked, lifting her to her feet.