Back To The Moon Part 1

BACK TO THE MOON-ARC.

by Travis S. Taylor & Les Johnson.

Prologue.

Mare Serenitatis, the Moon December 14, 1972

Standing on an airless, desolate plain flanked by boulders the size of houses and by mountains taller than eight Eiffel Towers stacked atop one another had a way of leaving a man humbled and feeling just how fragile a human so far from home truly was. Gene squinted in the bright sunlight, pondering what to do next. He and his two colleagues were near the end of a decade-long journey; the three days of travel from the Earth to the Moon followed by three amazing days on the lunar surface were only the most recent portions. The journey of Apollo 17 was the culmination of the most technologically advanced endeavor mankind had ever attempted. With the majestic, stark, and absolutely unforgiving Moon soon to be only a memory, a fleeting moment from his glory days, Gene reached behind his s.p.a.cesuit as best he could to point the camera toward the vehicle that would soon take him from this place and put him on a journey back home. Gene realized that it would be a while before humanity felt the spark to return. Humanity's candle had burned exceedingly bright for a decade, but it just couldn't maintain such a vast level of effort. Going to the Moon was a major endeavor that took the full focus of an entire nation driven by the desire to defeat another great nation. Americans had won the race, and Gene, along with the rest of Apollo 17, was the final flicker of that bright-burning candle.

At a distance of about one mile, the camera would capture his moment of liftoff and transmit the video back to Earth. Or, if something were to go terribly wrong, the video might be useful in reconstructing how he and his partner might have met their untimely demise on the distant lunar surface. The camera, mounted on the lunar rover that had served them so well during their all-too-brief visit, provided a needed connection to mission control back on Earth. Gene didn't want to leave so soon, but at the same time, he was anxious to go home.

After making final adjustments to the camera, he again paused. Then, ever so slowly and with the appearance of great clumsiness due to the limited movement granted by the inflated s.p.a.cesuit, he kneeled down to the surface of the Moon and scratched three letters into the lunar dust. Satisfied with his work, he stood up, brushed off some of the dust from the lower half of his suit, and began Moon-bouncing back toward the Lunar Module.

It was a short walk, but Gene was nonetheless huffing and puffing by the time he arrived. Working against the inflated suit required strength, aerobic conditioning, and endurance all at the same time. Despite the technological prowess required to send him to the Moon, the bulky, awkward, and oh-so-heavy s.p.a.cesuit required considerable effort to use-even in one sixth of Earth's gravity.

Gene stood by the Lunar Module knowing it was his time to make a historical last statement for the bold and ever-decreasingly budgeted American s.p.a.ce program. He uttered what were to be the last words spoken from the surface of the Moon for over a half century.

"Bob, this is Gene, and I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come-but we believe not too long into the future-I'd like to just say what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, G.o.d willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. G.o.dspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

With that, Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan climbed the ladder to join his crewmate and friend, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, in the Lunar Excursion Module. They would then let their training take over and begin all the prelaunch preparations required to get them off the surface of the Moon and on their way back to the only place in the universe known to contain life-Earth.

The next day, with the camera recording nearly every detail, the LEM named Challenger Challenger lifted into the blackness of s.p.a.ce, carrying two brave men back toward home, leaving the Moon lifeless once again. lifted into the blackness of s.p.a.ce, carrying two brave men back toward home, leaving the Moon lifeless once again.

Humanity had left its mark on the Moon six times, impressions of twelve feet, and two of those feet had been Gene's. But he had left more, a more personal mark. Etched into the lunar dust, probably to remain undisturbed for several human lifetimes, or more, were the letters TDC TDC-the initials of Cernan's daughter.

"Shh, Mommy! They're leaving the Moon for good!" Bill gave his mother a stern shush as the precocious five-year-old kept his eyes glued to the small black-and-white television in the family room. He leaned in and squinted at the screen as if that would help him see more details of the s.p.a.ceship and the Moon. All it really did was accentuate the large phosphorus pixels of the old black-and-white picture-tube technology.

"Don't sit too close to the TV, honey-it will hurt your eyes," his mother said.

"Oh, mom."

"So, you think the s.p.a.cemen are neat?" Bill's father smiled proudly at his son.

"Yeah, I like the Moon. I'm gonna go there someday." To Bill, the statement was simply the fact of the matter. He was was going to go to the Moon someday. going to go to the Moon someday.

Chapter 1.

As famously depicted in the movie 2001: A s.p.a.ce Odyssey, 2001: A s.p.a.ce Odyssey, the movements of objects in s.p.a.ce did appear to be ch.o.r.eographed like those of dancers. With grace, precision, and painfully slow forward motion, the two-hundred-eighty-two-thousand-pound Earth Departure Stage, or EDS, and the four-person Orion capsule moved closer and closer to each other. From the Orion capsule's point of view, it was moving toward the EDS, with its att.i.tude-control thrusters firing in quick "bang bang" succession. As the distance between the two s.p.a.cecraft decreased from kilometers to mere hundreds of meters, the glorious blue and white Earth moved quickly beneath them only a hundred or so miles away. the movements of objects in s.p.a.ce did appear to be ch.o.r.eographed like those of dancers. With grace, precision, and painfully slow forward motion, the two-hundred-eighty-two-thousand-pound Earth Departure Stage, or EDS, and the four-person Orion capsule moved closer and closer to each other. From the Orion capsule's point of view, it was moving toward the EDS, with its att.i.tude-control thrusters firing in quick "bang bang" succession. As the distance between the two s.p.a.cecraft decreased from kilometers to mere hundreds of meters, the glorious blue and white Earth moved quickly beneath them only a hundred or so miles away.

The latest test flights of the vehicles that would hopefully carry people back to the Moon for the first time in over fifty years moved toward completion. The present tests were an important step even though no people were onboard either of the vehicles.

The vehicles were on autopilot, testing the "new and improved" automated docking and rendezvous system that NASA had been working on since the s.p.a.ce-shuttle days. Gone was the day of the astronaut "rocket jockey" controlling every s.p.a.cecraft movement with a throttle and stick. Of course, the "rocket jockeys" themselves didn't agree with the move, and the general public typically liked the notion of the superheroic s.p.a.ce-pilot astronauts. However, the guys with the software had won the technical arguments and determined that having the pilot "out of the loop" was by far a safer approach. Or so their calculations indicated.

The ma.s.sive aluminum-and-composite EDS had been launched just hours previously by the mighty Ares V rocket. Measuring over ninety feet long and containing enough fuel to carry four people, a lunar lander, and all the supplies needed for a week's stay on the Moon, the EDS appeared to be dead, floating effortlessly two hundred and ten kilometers above the Earth. The over-one-hundred-forty-ton behemoth moved around the Earth at nearly seventeen thousand miles per hour. The Orion was closing in on it, moving with about the same speed, adding only enough velocity to catch up with the EDS in order for the two s.p.a.cecraft to dock.

And the distance was closing-rapidly. Too rapidly. The first warning bell sounded in mission control at 2:58 p.m., local time. n.o.body was particularly alarmed by the bell.

"Bill, we've got an anomaly with the Orion's close rate on the EDS," Marianne Thomas said calmly from her console near the back right corner of Constellation Mission Control at the Johnson s.p.a.ce Center in Houston. The anomaly had been simulated in training, but she hadn't expected it to happen during the test. But that was why they trained. "Orion's laser ranging indicates they're closing faster than programmed and faster than the onboard computer says it's going." There was only objectivity in her voice and not a trace of the anxiety that she was starting to experience in her gut.

"Roger that," Mission Commander and Blue Team's Flight Controller Bill Stetson responded automatically-again, thanks to the training. "Do we have confirmation of the closure rate from GPS?"

The onboard differential GPS system was supposed to be able to resolve the relative positions of the two s.p.a.cecraft and calculate relative motion based on successive position measurements. Stetson was set to command the next flight-the one that would actually carry people to the Moon-and was in charge of this portion of the final flight test. Up to this point, everything had gone fairly smoothly, and this was just fine with Bill Stetson.

"Bill..." Thomas hesitated, a pause that was noticed by all in the room, including Stetson. "Looks like we have no data from GPS." Her eyes were scanning the display in front of her, desperately trying to find out why there was no data and simultaneously not believing that she would be the one with the flight anomaly. She pursed her lips and repeated her last words for clarity. "We have no data from GPS. I'm trying to find out why."

Throughout mission control, those on console were verifying and reverifying the data scrolling across their screens, hoping to have some bit of information to provide that would help all in the room understand the situation. Only a minute had pa.s.sed since Thomas' announcement, but to those responsible for the success of the test flight, it seemed like an eternity. Finally, the technician monitoring the Orion's propulsion system saw something and spoke up.

"Orion propellant is showing lower than predicted," the console tech said. He then hesitated a moment before continuing. "It's not enough to trigger an alert, but it is lower than it should be." The technician, known to his comrades and friends as "Stubborn Stu" due to his alleged inflexibility in virtually all things, might also have been called "Meticulous Stu" for his attention to detail. Whatever the nickname might have been, when he spoke, his colleagues always listened.

"Roger that, Stu." Bill thought about the data briefly. He knew that less propellant in the tank could mean that more propellant was being used than predicted. And that could account for the Orion moving too fast. If the engines were burning for even a fraction of a second too long, then they would consume more propellant. And if they were consuming too much propellant, then the s.p.a.cecraft was accelerating faster than expected. That wouldn't be good.

Of course, there could also be other explanations. In this case, the specific reason why the propellant was low was not of immediate concern. But Bill was certain that the fact the propellant level was too low was all the confirmation he needed to conclude what his next step ought to be.

"Marianne, what rate does laser tell us we're dealing with here?"

"Hold on." Thomas tapped some keys on her console without hesitation and then replied. "According to laser, we now have a delta-vee excess of slightly over five meters per second and accelerating. No confirmation from GPS."

"Sheesh," Bill muttered to himself. Five meters per second was just a little more than fifteen feet per second. All in the room understood the implications. The Orion and EDS were designed to soft dock with one another. In other words, their rate of closure would gradually decrease to only a fraction of a meter per second when they finally made contact. If they were to collide moving tens of feet per second, not only would the docking maneuver fail but it might result in a crash, with the loss of both the Orion and the EDS being a real possibility. And that was simply not acceptable to NASA, mission control, or Bill Stetson.

"Abort options?" Stetson hated to ask the question, but mission procedures gave him no option. A safe abort and potential retry in a few orbits was simply the right course of action to consider. Lives were not at stake, but billions of dollars and months, perhaps years, of schedule were. And Bill Stetson didn't want a test-flight failure to set back the date for his flight to the Moon. Who knew how the press would handle another NASA failure? The evening news report of a disaster in s.p.a.ce might be enough to halt the Moon mission altogether.

The technician who reported the excess propellant usage had on his screen an algorithm that constantly told him what propellant would be required to perform an abort and an estimate of the trajectory and time required to recover from the abort so that another attempt could be made. Bill knew that the console tech was ready for his question.

"Well, Bill," Stubborn Stu started, "if laser ranging data is correct and we have to perform a burn to take out that velocity and then fly around a few orbits to try again, we will be at the minimum propellant margin for the rendezvous. But it still won't meet mission-success criteria. The EDS will have been on-station too long. Propellant boil-off will exceed TLI commit."

Though never actually uttered, virtually everyone in the room heard the expletive that Stetson thought to himself. Bill pulled his headset free for a second and adjusted his thinning hair while making a motorboat sound with his lips. Not being able to do a TLI, or Trans-Lunar Injection, burn of the rocket engines would mean not going to the Moon. The longer the EDS had to wait, the more propellant would evaporate-reducing the total burn-time possible for the engine. They had to fire before too much had boiled off.

The EDS was powered by one of the most energetic rocket fuels known-liquid hydrogen. When combined with an oxidizer, in this case the ultimate oxidizer, liquid oxygen, the combustion produced the rocket thrust that would propel the EDS toward the Moon. It was these same propellants that powered the three main engines of the old s.p.a.ce shuttle, producing much of the cloud of steam that was the hallmark of a successful launch.

Unfortunately, to keep hydrogen liquid, it had to be kept cold. In fact, the temperature had to be kept to about minus four hundred twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit. To do this, the huge hydrogen tanks in the EDS were kept wrapped in the best thermal insulators known and placed in the vehicle so as to minimize the heat they might receive from the sun and that reflecting back into s.p.a.ce from the Earth. It was, in effect, a large thermos bottle in orbit. It was also an imperfect thermos bottle; some heat inevitably would always get through to warm up the hydrogen. As the volatile gas warmed, it boiled and evaporated and then vented into s.p.a.ce. Hence the phrase "boil-off."

Engineers designed the EDS tanks and propulsion system to have enough liquid-hydrogen propellant remaining-after boil-off-to complete the mission even if the craft had to remain in orbit for a few days before beginning its trip to the Moon. If its time in orbit exceeded the design limit, then there would simply not be enough fuel remaining to complete the mission. Since there had been some minor glitches before this one, the allowable time in Earth orbit was close to being over, and a further delay would mean that the burn to send the Orion to the Moon would not happen-at least not on this test flight.

"Oh, well," Bill Stetson responded with an audible sigh as he readjusted his headset. He then straightened himself in the seat and barked, "Release the automatic docking system to manual control. Give me real-time data from the laser ranger and don't give me any more data from the d.a.m.ned GPS!" This, too, they'd practiced in training. A manual docking was something the astronaut corps had insisted upon since the Shuttle-Mir program of the 1990s. This was what the pilot and mission commander lived lived for. In an instant, Stetson decided to a.s.sume control of the Orion instead of asking his pilot, Charles Leonard, to do so. It was his call and he made it. Leonard heard the call and, though disappointed, accepted the decision and made himself ready to step in should he have to do so. for. In an instant, Stetson decided to a.s.sume control of the Orion instead of asking his pilot, Charles Leonard, to do so. It was his call and he made it. Leonard heard the call and, though disappointed, accepted the decision and made himself ready to step in should he have to do so.

Switching views on the monitor in front of him and seeing the requested data feeds appear on the secondary monitor to his right, Stetson prepared to take manual control of the Orion. Forgetting about the paperwork that would be required should he be successful, and the probable reprimand should he fail, Stetson gave the order to release the vehicle to manual control.

"Alright, give her to me," he said.

To a detached observer, it would have appeared that Bill Stetson was beginning to play a video game. With a controller that looked like the technological cousin of a PlayStation game controller and an LCD screen with a simulated 3-D rendering of both the Orion and the EDS, he a.s.sumed manual control.

At first, he saw no discernible effect from his efforts. He'd begun by firing the thrusters on the Orion that were responsible for making a rendezvous possible. But he didn't fire them to accelerate the craft; rather, the opposing sets of thrusters were used to slow it down. Newton's laws are unforgiving. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. To speed something up, you fire rocket engines. To slow that same something down, you fire rocket engines that point in the opposite direction. And it takes the same force to accelerate to fifteen feet per second as it does to slow down by fifteen feet per second.

"You should be seeing something. The propellant in the tanks is starting to drop rapidly," Stubborn Stu said calmly. "You still have plenty remaining, but I'm definitely seeing it." He, like just about everyone else in the room, was starting to perspire. It was a stereotypically hot Houston afternoon in a room with stereotypically cold Houston air-conditioning doing nothing to prevent the perspiration from coming. It just made the sweat feel uncomfortably cold.

The sweat starting to bead on Bill's forehead glistened in the control-room lighting. He kept a watch on the laser-ranger data, and finally the velocity numbers began to decrease. The velocity dropped from an excess of five meters per second to four. Then to three and finally to a closure rate that should permit safe docking. This happened not a minute too soon-as Stetson fought to bring the closure velocity down, the distance between the Orion and the EDS continued to dwindle. They were now only a hundred meters away from one another and in desperate need of fine guidance for the final rendezvous. This, too, was a maneuver that the team in mission control had practiced manually, and their training not only took over for these last few minutes of the rendezvous, but it alleviated the stress and allowed the heart rates of the console techs to fall back to normal.

"We have manual docking in three...two...one." Marianne Thomas provided the countdown. Bill could tell from the tone in her voice that she was grateful he had overcome the problem and that it wasn't something she'd done. He figured that the engineer already was beginning the mental construction of a fault tree that would help the mission-review team find out why the automated system had failed and why the GPS data was suddenly blank.

"Phew," Stetson said, relieved at completing the docking maneuver successfully. He then declared, "We're not finished here yet, people. Need I remind you, we've got a vehicle that needs to be checked out and sent on its way to the Moon. No dinner and bar just yet." And he knew that he was correct. If nothing else went wrong, the flight was supposed to continue to the Moon, with the EDS lighting its engines to escape Earth's gravity in just a few hours.

The two concurrent failures still needed to be explained and corrected. While the GPS measurements would be useless at the Moon-which had no Global Positioning System satellites-the onboard computer that was supposed to make sense of the laser-ranging data would be used again when the Altair lunar lander returned from the surface of the Moon to rendezvous and dock with the Orion in lunar orbit, allowing the crew to transfer back to the Orion for their trip home. Yes, this was an unmanned test flight, but the systems nonetheless had to work or the launch of the actual mission would be postponed indefinitely until the problem was resolved. The public and political pressure was mounting to kill the s.p.a.ce program, and having to scrub so close to launch could be a public-relations nightmare. Bill hoped to circ.u.mvent all that.

The decision to continue the mission or not would have to be made within hours or the liquid-hydrogen supply would boil away uselessly into s.p.a.ce. That would give the ground-support team at least a few days to troubleshoot the automated rendezvous and docking system, and its computer and software, to find the source of the problem and hopefully fix it. At least, that's the logic Stetson was using when he made the decision that only he could make.

"All right, everyone, we're go for Lunar Orbit Insertion unless and until I say otherwise. We'll get this problem fixed and patched before it's needed again. Let's stay the course." In his unflappable way, which was one of the reasons he had been selected to be the commander of the first human lunar return flight, Stetson both committed the mission to the next phase and rea.s.sured all in the room of the can-do att.i.tude that was so crucial to past mission successes, had been missing at NASA for decades, and, while on his watch, was absolutely crucial to the current mission-his mission. Bill was going to go to the Moon or bust.

Chapter 2.

The cause of the rendezvous and docking failure was still unknown, but virtually every member of the team that developed the system and its flight computer were called in to begin working on understanding the failure and figuring out how to fix it. Rocket scientists and engineers in Houston, Texas, and Huntsville, Alabama, found out that they wouldn't be going home on time. A flurry of cell-phone calls, e-mails, and text messages to spouses or significant others went out explaining that they wouldn't be home for dinner. Take-out pizza would be the most common meal of the day.

Thirty-six hours later, the command was given for Lunar Orbit Insertion. In typical NASA fashion, the media were told that all systems were "nominal," thereby guaranteeing that the viewing public would be put to sleep by the whole event. To those engineers engaged in making it happen, however, "nominal" would not be the word that first came to mind. It certainly wouldn't be the story they told their families and friends later in the week.

Upon receiving the command, the EDS fired up its single J-2X cryogenic engine, which began to burn two hundred twenty thousand pounds of hydrogen and oxygen, accelerating the hundred-ton Earth Departure Stage to greater than the twenty-thousand-miles-per-hour velocity required to escape the pull of Earth's gravity.

If not for the incredibly cold liquid-hydrogen fuel circulating through the pipes wrapping the outside of the J-2X engine, the h.e.l.lish six-thousand-degree heat produced by the burning of the hydrogen and oxygen in the combustion chamber would have almost immediately melted the nozzle. The fuel circulated through pumps and around the exterior of the rocket-engine nozzle and then back into the engine, where combustion would take place. The hydrogen and oxygen burned together and forced superheated and pressurized ga.s.ses out through the throat of the nozzle to its exit and then into s.p.a.ce with a pure bright orange and white fiery glow.

The J-2 engine originally flew on the second stage of the venerable Saturn V rockets that carried the Apollo astronauts to the Moon. The J-2X was an upgraded version for the new generation of Moon rockets, and it was designed to complete its job in just less than seven minutes of burn time.

Throughout this acceleration, the Orion continued to perform what was known as the barbeque roll, so-called because it resembled the process of slow-cooking a pig on a spit over an open fire, slowly turning the pig so as to not overcook one side from the intense heat of the flame. The Orion performed this slow roll for the same reason-so as to not cook the ship by having one side of the vehicle continuously exposed to sunlight and therefore becoming a barbeque in s.p.a.ce. After all, n.o.body likes their rocket overcooked on one side and raw on the other, especially not the astronauts inside it.

In addition, the delicate solar arrays that would power many of the onboard functions, previously unfurled like origami, were rotated so they would continuously point toward the sun. The solar panels were crucial in maintaining the electrical power required to keep the Orion's systems functioning.

All of these pointing-and-control maneuvers were controlled by onboard computers. And all of the onboard computers that performed this function had within them a board manufactured by Alcoa Electric Corporation. This same board was used to control the automated rendezvous and docking maneuver between the Orion and the EDS.

"Bill, I think we've got one of the problems figured out." Stetson, without having to look up from what he was doing, recognized the voice at the door as that of the chief engineer for the rendezvous and docking system. It had been almost two days since the nail-biting Earth-orbit rendezvous of the Orion with the Earth Departure Stage, and no one was really expecting the engineers to figure out the cause of the problem so quickly. Not that Bill Stetson would appear to be surprised by anything.

"Come in." Stetson looked up from his desk and motioned for the seasoned but ever-eager Rick Carlton to take a seat at the small conference table across the room. Bill rose from his chair and strode to the table, the alpha male in the room by the way he carried himself and his purposeful stride to the chair adjacent to the one Carlton had just occupied. "What have you got?" he asked.

Carlton, no lightweight by anyone's standards, was intimidated by the astronaut's presence. Bill could tell, but then he hoped the man would get over it because Bill didn't go through life trying to intimidate people. It wasn't his style. He wasn't trying to be intimidating-he just was. Asking him not to take control over just about any situation in which he found himself would be like asking the sun not to shine. Bill was just one of those people who demanded attention and he usually got it.

"Uh," Carlton began his explanation, nervously shuffling the papers he'd brought in with him, "the glitch appears to be in the flight-computer software. You know the software was the tall pole leading up to this flight, and I am surprised the IV&V didn't catch it long before now." The NASA Independent Verification and Validation team had the task of approving all flight software. The team's job was to be another set of eyes to review all the software, line by line, just to make sure it was correct and that there wouldn't be any major flight-system failure from faulty computer code.

"Really?"

"Yeah. The computer is supposed to take all the sensor data from the Orion and route it to the systems that need the information to function. It's supposed to take data from the laser ranging, the GPS, the sun sensors, and just about every other sensor on the vehicle and make sense of it. Sort it and then funnel it out to the elements that need it next. In our case, however, that didn't happen." Carlton paused, and Bill could tell that the pause was not only to take a breath, but also for effect.

"Why not?" asked Bill, looking at Carlton expectantly but not impatiently.

"Well," Carlton began again, "the software got to the computer all right, but the code added the position-error function to the data twice, making its actual position appear to be incorrect, thus causing the ship's thrusters to overcompensate in an attempt to get it where it was supposed to be-which it already was, at least the first time. Since it didn't know where it really was, it appeared to be where it was at an earlier time. The thrusters fired to move it to where it was supposed to be, and then the lag happened again. The ship appeared to have not moved or moved only slightly. The thrusters then fired again, making the Orion move faster than it was supposed to in an effort to get to where it thought it should be when, in fact, it was already there." He began to wonder if his wordy explanation was making any sense.

"Hmm." Bill nodded.

"Are you following me?" Rick Carlton asked, but Bill Stetson was not just following him; he was ahead of him in his thought processes.

"So, the Orion, thinking it was sitting where it used to be sitting, fired its thrusters to get where it thought it was supposed to be when in fact it was already there. And then it got stuck in this loop, making the ship accelerate when it should have been slowing down. Correct?"

"Yes." Carlton, who seemed pleased that Stetson had understood him, nodded and continued. "And then there is the matter of the missing GPS data. Shortly before Earth departure, the data started appearing again. The only thing we can figure is that there is some sort of short in the system. We've isolated the problem to a particular circuit board. A loose connector or a lead that wasn't well potted could have caused it. We still don't know exactly, but..." He trailed off, lost in thought or perhaps unsure of what he should say next.

"But what?" Bill asked.

"Well, the same board is used in several pieces of hardware throughout the Orion and some in the Altair." Altair Altair was the generic name of the lunar-lander craft, not the name given to any particular lunar lander. "We believe there is a quality problem with this one board, and that's it. But there is a chance the problem isn't isolated. If it's a generic problem with the board's design, well, then we have a big problem." was the generic name of the lunar-lander craft, not the name given to any particular lunar lander. "We believe there is a quality problem with this one board, and that's it. But there is a chance the problem isn't isolated. If it's a generic problem with the board's design, well, then we have a big problem."

Stetson knew what that problem would be. If the board's design was at fault, and it had to be replaced wherever it was used in the entire system, then America's return to the Moon would be on indefinite hold until a replacement was designed and the entire system a.s.sessed for any unforeseen changes that might result. It could mean a mission delay measured in years.

"Good work, Rick." Trying to rea.s.sure himself as much as Carlton, Stetson added, "Let's take it one step at a time. Since we can't look at the board until the Orion returns from the Moon, let's not sweat it too much. Once the team gets it in front of them on a workbench, they'll be able to make that call."

Carlton stood up, picked up his papers, and started to walk out the door. He almost made it before Stetson called out his name and asked another question.

"Rick, what other hardware might be affected?"

"Uh..." Carlton frowned and looked toward his feet before answering. "Lots. The Orion att.i.tude-control system and solar-array pointing system, the Altair att.i.tude-control system, both communications systems, and just about every other piece of hardware that has to be concerned with pointing in one direction or another. It's all over the place."

"Okay. Thanks," Stetson responded. The tone of his voice conveyed both concern and that the discussion was over.

"I guess I've been dismissed," Bill overheard the man mutter to himself as he hurried out the door and down the hallway toward his office. Bill paid it no mind at all. He had more important things to deal with.

Elsewhere, the now-docked Orion and Altair lunar-lander vehicles, thousands of miles away in s.p.a.ce, separated from the EDS and began the remaining part of their journey toward the Moon.

Chapter 3.

"Where's Bill?" Astronaut Jim England was looking for his longtime friend. England was a tall, lanky man with a noticeable "hillbilly" accent that he seemed able to turn off and on at will depending upon the situation. Presently, his p.r.o.nunciation of "Bill" would make listeners swear it was a two-syllable word. He'd known Stetson since their first flight to the International s.p.a.ce Station together back in the shuttle days and had immediately become a part of Stetson's inner circle of close friends. England never seemed to meet anyone he didn't like, and almost everyone responded to his warm personality by counting him as a friend.