‘Old Woman and the Moon’ Ch. 3 + Phases of Earth, and Lunar Ice-Seeking Rover

Short story continues from prompt “‘Old Man and the Sea’ but on the moon, with ladies.” For this week’s In Real Life, I talk a bit about NASA’s Artemis Mission to build a lunar base.

Previously…lunar astronaut Serena Santiago has what might be her last breakfast before she goes on her secret mission. Her friend starts to get suspicious but helps Serena into her space suit…

Marylin’s back turned. She stepped across the threshold into the Hab and closed the foyer’s inner hatch. While Marylin wasn’t looking, Serena stowed an extra life support backpack among the supplies in the Watchdog’s cargo bed. Watchdog’s robotic arms whirled frantically as it re-organized its cargo to a favorable center of gravity. Serena stepped between the hatch’s window and Watchdog to hide her theft. Watchdog beeped its all-ready tone. It sounded reproachful.

The lights in the Hab’s foyer turned red, painting Serena’s white suit the color of warning. Marylin’s smile was tight as she waved through the window. The audio countdown started.

A pulsing heart icon appeared in the middle of Serena’s view. Watchdog’s robotic voice came over Serena’s helmet speaker.

“Serena, please cease high energy activity until respiration and heart rate normalize.”

Serena had always laughed at the NASA-fication for the command to rest. Overexerting the suit’s air purification system was life-and-death, but a human would have just said, “Let’s take a breather.” This time, she couldn’t find the humor. She was leaving on a risky mission, not only with no other humans, but she was actually planning on neutering Watchdog too. She’d only have her suit’s internal metrics and her own mental math to keep her alive.

Serena forced herself to inhale slowly2-3-4, hold-2-3-4, exhale2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

If Watchdog kept barking, it would broadcast to the Hab’s PA system, cueing the Commander to assign someone to review suit vitals in the control room.

I know what I’m doing-2-3-4, reviewed it 20 times-2-3-4, this is worth it-6-7-8.

Serena’s heart icon disappeared and the lights turned green, signaling it was safe to exit.

Serena opened the external hatch and stepped out onto the moon.

A full Earth hung on the horizon. Strings of gold latticed its blue face where lights marked the spot where people were having dinner, reading, watching movies, maybe dancing. One of those little golden spots was Boca, where the very rocket scheduled to drag Serena back to Earth was being staged for launch.

Serena turned away from Earth and looked up. The sky was an ocean of darkness that seemed to flow and to fall, like it was draping its dragon’s hoard of infinite, glittering galaxies around Serena’s shoulders.

Watchdog beeped its question tone behind Serena, sending a roster of command options to her suit’s visor. She’d stopped too long and it didn’t know what to do.

Serena bounded over to the new crew rover. Watchdog trundled faithfully behind. Clouds of white dust hung behind them.

Watchdog rolled itself aboard the cargo bed and Serena toggled the switch so that the bed tilted to horizontal. She forced herself not to look over at the old crew rover, affectionately called “Brick House” for its bulk and habitability—it was the only rover that was pressurized. Its treads were trashed and still required ten hours worth of repair. No one would be coming after Serena. The crew would find her mission’s estimated destination coordinates and her instructions on how to recover the new rover buried about 5 hours into the tread repair—too late to interfere.

She was borrowing, not thieving.

Serena walked to the newer rover’s helm and buckled in. She and Watchdog rolled away from Base.

As soon as they descended into the neighboring crater and were out of sight from the Hab, Serena initiated her mission checklist.

First, to silence Watchdog. She unbuckled herself and turned to face the rover’s cargo bed. Watchdog pinged in greeting.

1)  Change Watchdog’s channel from the Hab’s frequency to the (empty) orbital station’s

2) Upload suit’s vitals recording from uneventful thirty-fifth moonwalk into Watchdog’s local storage drive

3) Initiate playback of the vital’s log

4) Switch Watchdog back to Hab’s frequency

Now, to modify the crew rover.

“Rover, stop.” she cued, and the vehicle decelerated smoothly until it was still.

The rover’s autopilot sent options to Serena’s visor. The usual sample-collection map unfurled, then a roster of control options she’d statistically want after stopping popped up.

Serena roved her eyes through the list until the last option: ‘End route’. She deployed the manual break and stepped out of the rover.

It had taken Serena twenty Walks to gradually test out modifications to the rover that would enable it to drive further than its design and protocols were built for.

5) Conserve power: disconnect additional avionics cabling and other nice-to-have sensors and systems

6) Extend power: connect Watchdog’s battery to the rover’s supplemental port

7) Reduce weight: offload all scientific equipment but the tiny long-cable camera for ice-hunting

She also needed to double check the spare life support assets.

No one would miss the stolen backpack—there were no other Walks on the mission manifest for today. But that also meant no one else had looked at it. She went through the checklist and was relieved it passed.

She checked the pressures and the levels on Watchdog’s spare O2 tank and snap-on CO2 removal pack.

8) Confirm supplementary life support is filled and ready

Now, the final action that had the highest impact risks and least predictable likelihood: disabling the rover’s autopilot.

How Serena had obsessed over VIPER’s lunar ice prospecting map from these craters fifteen years ago. She knew it by heart. But VIPER’s data wasn’t enough to accurately plan today’s mission. But without the rover’s autopilot, it would be all she’d have to go on.

The new rover’s autopilot was designed to be extremely conservative, to calculate and guard its power. To evaluate the terrain and never get stuck.

Without autopilot, Serena might accidentally guide the rover into a crater it couldn’t climb out of. Without autopilot, there was only Serena’s own mental math to predict there precise point of no return—no way to get home with the remaining rover power while there was still breathable air. Sure, the rover had its onboard solar recharge capability, but she and her backpack couldn’t leech more O2 and CO2 removal catalyst from the environment.

She had 8 hours-worth of good air on her own back.

8 more in the stolen backpack.

And 2 on Watchdog.

She had 18 hours. She could get twice as far across the far side of the moon than anyone ever had before.

Serena hesitated.

She simply couldn’t leave autopilot live. At any moment, Commander or even Houston could commandeer the nav system, and drive it back to Base via remote controls.

Her whole life’s mission, forty years of extreme dedication, had culminated in this trip to the moon where her directive had been to find lunar ice.

Two weeks after she’d arrive at Base, NASA had ordered the next two years to focus on landing pad construction and power grid upgrades. Exploration beyond Base had been de-prioritized until 2047—two years after Serena was scheduled to land back on Earth. She’d be forever marooned on her home planet as she aged out of candidacy to return to the moon.

Four decades of purpose, evaporated in a single decision that she was in no position to challenge.

And for all her training and social conditioning, Serena couldn’t accept it.

This mission was risky she knew. Down to the third decimal point.

67.823% likelihood she would not return to Base.

That she’d die, passed out from too much CO2. Gone in her proverbial sleep.

Selfish. Extravagantly narcissistic to commandeer an asset taxpayers had spent billions on, remove its safety protocols, and drive it into a crater, alone. Flagrantly disobeying her Commander and potentially obligating a dangerous rescue attempt from innocent crew members.

In2-3-4 hold 2-3-4 out 2-3-4-5-6-7-8

In her mind’s eye Serena saw Marylin sitting alone and shy across the room her first week at Base. Noticing but not commenting on how Serena wasted her rations. Politely ignoring quiet suggestions from the rest of the crew to tread carefully around the mad old lady. Gradually sitting closer until a month after Marylin arrived, they were chatting every meal and Serena actually ate all her calories.

Serena had taken all precautions to sever ties to Base. There was no way Commander would allow a rescue given protocols. With Brick House out of commission it was untenable. No one would be risking their lives to come after her.

Certainly not Marylin.

Serena was alone. She had made sure of it.

8) Switch from auto nav to manual.

To be continued…

Author’s Note

On knowing and not knowing

When I’m surprised to find a nugget of information that others in the field already have down pat, I often doubt myself. I wonder if everyone else goes straight to doubt, or if other’s have a healthier relationship to learning new things?

I’ll give you an example from writing this chapter. In spite of being a space enthusiast for many years, and working in the space industry, I had not connected the facts of the Earth and Moon’s relationship to imagine how Earth would look viewed from the Moon. It was a surprise I tripped over in my research for this. First I doubted, then I caught myself, then I just allowed my brain to marvel and savor and aggregate. But that allowance step is a very intentional one. Is that how everyone feels?

No spoilers, but Serena and Marylin will grapple with doubt, discovery, shared knowledge of facts, versus compassionate solidarity.

I’m excited to get there.

Science In Real Life

The Reality Check—where I admit one spot where I took creative license:

Let’s talk about Watchdog!

I do not claim to know if or when NASA might be convinced to allow a single crewmember to go on a moonwalk alone. I also have no knowledge of anyone making a lunar Rover that would take on the role of behaving like another crew member on the moon to enable this.

I needed it to be normal for Serena to go wandering out alone.

And much more so, I wanted to write an oversized Wall-E x NASA’s Opportunity Rover trundling around on the Moon after my heroine. By which I mean, I’m infusing Wall-E’s adorable spunk and Opportunity’s loyal grit into Watchdog—not using either of these bot’s original design function.

Phases of Earth

An astronaut stepping out of their Habitat on the South Pole of the Moon would see Earth hanging in the sky, much like we see the moon at night. Earth would also appear to go through phases, waxing and waning throughout each month. What’s different about viewing Earth from the Moon: the location of the Earth wouldn’t appear to move in an arc across the Moon’s horizon. Instead it would appear in pretty much the same elevation, moving across the horizon in a straight line.

That’s due to two facts:

“The moon is tidally locked with Earth, meaning the moon’s orbital period matches its rotational period. It takes about a month for both the moon to orbit Earth and for the moon to rotate on its axis.” Ref A

The moon is tilted only 1.5 degrees on its axis vs Earth’s 23.5 degree tilt

photo credit Rob King, Ref B

Artemis Mission

NASA is planning on building out a base on the Moon so humans can continuously live there, like we’ve done in Low Earth Orbit on International Space Station for over 20 years. While the Base is a 10-15 years in the future venture, there’s actually a piece of the plan launching in 2024! A rover called VIPER that is planned to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is headed to the moon to seek lunar ice. Once Falcon is close enough to the Moon, Astrobotic’s Griffin Lander will carry VIPER down to the Moon’s South Pole. Once VIPER exits Griffin, off she goes looking for ice!

The map Serena obsessed over to prepare for her secret mission came from this adventuresome bot.

If you’re interested in VIPER, take a gander over here!

If you’re interested in NASA’s plan for lunar spacesuits, check this out!

References:

A) Gannon, M. (2019, May). If You’re On the Moon, Does the Earth Appear to Go Through Phases? Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/65831-earth-phases-from-moon.html.

B) King, B. (2018, October 17). OBSERVING EARTH FROM THE MOON. Retrieved from https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/explore-night-bob-king/observing-earth-from-the-moon/

Disclaimer

Though I am aiming to write near-future sci-fi with the boost of accuracy granted me as a space industry professional, there are many ways I take artistic license. Any resemblance to my employer’s or customers’ technology or their private technical development strategies are purely coincidental. I will not write about topics that are too conflicted to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The sci-fi section of my newsletter is fiction inspired by scientific advances that are described in the public domain, or already published at trade shows or other vectors. Primarily, I lean on what NASA and space companies advertise, but quoting and annotating everything as fact or fiction would infringe on the enjoyment of the story. If you have questions or concerns about something I’ve written, please don’t hesitate to reach out!