Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe (15 page)

The crew of the Orion-II spent
hours describing, in detail, everything that had happened on their mission.
First, they put together and sent out a detailed report, which was later
reviewed by the top tier of the agency. Then, they spent hours talking with
Jones, as well as a group of scientists selected by NASA, which included astronomers,
physicists, archaeologists and biologists. They also spoke with the medical
team, not just to get a detailed report on their health, but also to understand
how the entire ordeal had affected their bodies.

It was the second day after their
initial contact with NASA, and there still wasn’t a plan in place to get them
to the Space Station. All of the proposed routes were unsuccessful in
simulations. The best the team was able to do was get them to the ISS with
seven percent fuel. But they only had four.

“Houston, this is Orion-II. Do
you copy?”

“This is Orion-II. Go ahead,
Houston.”

“We’ve got Frank’s children here
in the control room. Let us know when you’re ready for a video call.”

Frank immediately sat down. He
fixed his hair and turned on the transmission.

“Hi, kids! It’s so nice to see
you again. What’s this about dad going on a 20-day trip, and you all growing up
15 years and starting college?” Frank said, trying to hide his tears with his
good mood.

Then, they spent almost two hours
talking. Both children told him about their lives up until that point, how they
had dealt with thinking that their father was dead, their achievements, their problems,
and how much they had missed having him around.

However, the one topic they kept
avoiding was their mother.

“Kids, is your mother excited to
see me? Why wasn’t she able to come?” Frank asked again.

“Dad,” his daughter said, looking
to her brother for approval, “you know that mom thought that you had died,
right? It was really hard for her... she spent several years in mourning.
You’re going to have to be strong and understanding... she remarried two years
ago, Dad. She doesn’t know how to deal with all this. Mom has been crying since
yesterday, when she got the news. She’s confused and upset... she probably
won’t come talk to you, at least for the time being...”

His daughter’s words hit him like
a burst of cold air, forcing him to see the truth he refused to understand.

“What are you saying? Your mom got
remarried?”

Russell and Allison looked at
each other. The ship was too small for any kind of privacy. They didn’t know
how to react, so Allison went back to analyzing images of Sater, trying to
pretend like she wasn’t hearing her colleague’s conversation.

“Dad, you two will be able to
talk once you get back. It’s a very delicate situation. She was alone for
almost ten years, raising us and dealing with everything basically on her own.
Five years ago, she met someone. They were together for about three years, and
when I left for college, they got married.”

Frank understood how complex the
situation was. He was frustrated and sad. However, he tried to focus on his
kids and make the best of the last few minutes of the call. He would figure out
a way to deal with everything later.

Meanwhile, Jones was meeting with
his team of engineers in the room they were using as a base for the operation.

“Are you telling me that there’s
no way for the Orion-II to get to the ISS? How can you be so sure? Have you
already simulated ALL our options? What if they use the moon’s gravity as a
boost?” Jones asked, unsatisfied.

“Jones, we’ve looked into that,
as well. We tested everything. In all the simulations, once it’s on its way to
Earth, the ship doesn’t even have enough fuel to escape gravity. In all cases,
they end up reentering. There just isn’t enough fuel for them to drive and dock
onto the ISS,” said Bryan, the head engineer in charge of finding a rescue
route.

Bryan Clark had been responsible
for mapping the trajectory of the first manned mission to Mars, for which
Russell had served as pilot. Bryan was an expert in space navigation. Lately,
he had been working on one of NASA’s most recent solar missions. However, Bryan
had been asked to urgently join the Stellarium-12 rescue mission. He was the
first person that Jones called when he started putting the team together.

“However, the team has come up
with an alternate plan,” Bryan said.

“Let me guess: I was thinking, if
we decrease the weight of the Orion-II and get Frank to run some tests, we
might be able to have them land with just two parachutes. Is that what you’re
thinking?” Jones asked.

“That idea just might work, Dr.
Jones. But no. The idea my team is proposing is a bit less risky,” Bryan
responded.

“Go on. What are you thinking?”

“The Orion-II isn’t orbiting any
planets. It’s floating through space. If they simply accelerate toward Earth,
they’ll die upon re-entry if they don’t have a functioning parachute system.
They also don’t have enough fuel left to perform the maneuvers necessary to
keep from re-entering, and thus attach to the Space Station.”

“I’m with you so far. Get to the
point, Bryan.”

“At first, we thought we might be
able to send something to them. Fuel, for example. Or even an Orion-type ship,
sent straight to them, without them having to move from where they are. The
problem is, in this case, finding them in space would be like searching for a
needle in a haystack... the Orion-II is very small, and we’re talking about
open space. Even the smallest error, the smallest deviation, would cause the
rescue ship to fly by within just a few miles of the ship without even
realizing it. Then, we came up with something that could really work.”

“Come on, what is it?” Jones
asked.

“The Orion-II has enough fuel to
get to the moon. We propose that they travel to the moon, orbit it for a few
hours, and then land,” Bryan said.

“Travel to the moon? Without a Lunar
Module? Well, that would be one way to get them out of open space and leave
them in a place where it would be easier to get to them, as well as a place
closer to Earth... but that still doesn’t solve our rescue issue. They only
have 17 days of oxygen left. After that, they’ll die of suffocation. We will
only be able to send an SLS to rescue them, at best, in two months. By then, it
will be too late,” Jones replied.

“Yes, but with this plan, we
don’t need a rocket to launch an Orion from Earth,” he clarified.

“You’ve got my full attention
now, Bryan. Please, continue,” Jones said.

“Today, we have three spaceships
docked on the Space Station. We have an Orion, a Soyuz, and a Progress. The
plan is to travel to the moon with the Orion that’s at the ISS. However, upon
departing from the ISS, that ship wouldn’t be able to go to the moon by itself.
Which is why we’ll also have to use the Soyuz.”

“Bryan, I have lots of questions,
but I’ll let you finish. You’re smart, and I know you already have the answers;
if not, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But your idea means using the
only two spaceships we have at the ISS capable of transporting people. And, as
you know, they’re there for a reason. That’s the only way people would be able
to evacuate in the case of a collapse at the station,” Jones explained.

“Yes, that’s a risk we’ll have to
take. We’re going to have to use two vehicles. If we go through with this plan,
there won’t be any way for anyone to leave the Space Station for at least two
months, when the next resupply mission is scheduled to get there,” Bryan
replied.

Jones listened, thoughtfully.

“Let me finish,” the specialist
continued. “The plan is for the Soyuz to dock onto the Orion. Then, the Soyuz
will activate its thrusters toward the moon. After traveling two-thirds of the
route, it will undock from the Orion, the crew will move down into the Descent
Module, and it will continue on a reentry route, ultimately returning to Earth.
Meanwhile, now disconnected from the Soyuz, the Orion will activate its
propulsion and finish the mission, landing on the moon. They will rescue the
astronauts and launch back to Earth. Gravity will bring them back, like we did
with the Apollo missions. They won’t have a Lunar Module, but, if they’re
careful, the Orion should be able to land on and depart from the moon without
it. We’ve run the simulations and the plan worked. We’ve already calculated the
date and time at which we should start the mission, as well as their routes.
The launch window opens every two days, the first one being tonight. The next
would be the day after tomorrow. I think that would be our best option,” Bryan
closed.

“Okay, I think that’s the best
plan we’ve got. Thank you, Bryan. I’d like to see the simulation in detail.
We’ll need to have two astronauts on the Soyuz, and two on the Orion. There are
only five people at the Space Station right now, which means that, after this
mission, there will only be one person left there for the next two months, when
it will be restocked. We’re probably going to have to send the Russians back
again, since they just got to the ISS for a year-long mission, but that’s
fine,” Jones said.

Bryan agreed. Finally, they had a
plan.

“Let me see the simulations. I’m
going to go talk to Elizabeth right now. She’ll have to convince the Russian
Space Agency to take part in our plan... which won’t be easy,” he concluded.

 The hours passed by, and a new
day dawned. It was the third day after the Orion-II’s first contact with
Houston. Rumors about the crew’s reappearance were now being reported. NASA had
finally organized their first press conference, which would take place later
that day. Meanwhile, Jones informed the astronauts on the Orion-II of the
details of the plan.

“Houston, this is Orion-II. Do
you copy?”

“Go ahead, Houston.”

“Russell, we’re going to program
the Orion-II’s computers for the return trip. You all will travel to the moon,
land on it, and wait there until another Orion ship arrives to rescue you. You
will travel directly from the moon to Earth, which is good news,” Jones said.

“That’s great, Houston. I’ve
never had the opportunity to walk on the moon, so it would be a great pleasure
to end the mission that way,” Russell responded.

“It should take you three days to
get there. Then, you’ll need to orbit the moon for approximately one day to
gradually decrease your speed and altitude. The Orion-II isn’t equipped for
this type of landing, so you will slowly fall downwards. Bryan will give you
all the details. He has calculated that you will have to wait about two hours
for the rescue ship to arrive. The astronauts who will carry out the rescue
mission are Captain Michael Carter and Dr. Eva Brooks. They were on a mission
at the ISS, but they’re being relocated for the rescue. Do you understand?”
Jones asked.

“Yes,” Russell replied.

“One more thing, Russell. You
should expect an encrypted message with some important instructions. It will be
sent shortly,” Jones closed.

Bryan spent the next few hours
carrying out the necessary procedures with the crew of the Orion-II to get them
on their route. Once he finished with that and got the ship moving, he would
have to do the same with the astronauts at the ISS.

His job at the ISS would be quite
complicated. First of all, because two ships, one American and one Russian,
would have to be docked. This process wasn’t difficult in itself, because the
Orion had been designed with this feature in mind. The latest model of the
Soyuz also came with the necessary modifications for this procedure. However,
it would be the first time this process was carried out in space. Both ships
would disconnect from the Station and navigate toward each other, which is when
the Orion would dock onto the Russian ship.

Once this had been accomplished,
the Soyuz would activate its thrust. Both ships were designed to function and
accelerate with this configuration, but it had never been tested in space. It
had never been necessary.

Aboard the Orion-II, already en
route to the moon, the astronauts discussed the possibility of walking on its
surface. This time, Russell was the one trying to spread his joy to the others,
not only because he was sincerely happy, but because it was a way to get
Allison and Frank’s minds off the news they had received from Earth.

At that moment, the ship received
an encrypted message. Frank immediately opened it and read it to the others:

Orion-II,
since the Apollo missions in the 1970s, no man has returned to the moon. Probes
and robots were sent, and a crew orbited the moon, but no one else has landed
there.

In
2033, China began to send vehicles and probes to explore the moon’s dark side,
with a crew in orbit. We know very little about the dark side of the moon.
Their lunar exploration program continued until 2038, without any involvement
from NASA, which was focused on the Stellarium space program.

Before
the cancellation of the Stellarium program in 2041, NASA started a pre-program
to assess the possibility of sending a manned mission to land on the dark side
of the moon. However, the project was not approved.