Rocket to Luna

Richard Marsten Rocket to Luna

To

All My Sons

Acknowledgments

For the technical information on the three-stage rocket and the Space Station, I am grateful to and have relied upon figures taken from Man Will Conquer Space Soon, a symposium published in Collier’s magazine, March 22, 1952, and subsequently published in expanded form by The Viking Press under the title Across the Space Frontier.

My thanks, too, to Arthur C. Clarke, who graciously answered several tricky questions about the Moon.

R. M.

First Stop

Man will someday leave the Earth. No one witnessing the marvels of today’s science can really seriously doubt this mild premise. As certain as Man learned to cross the seas, as certain as he learned to build wings with which he left the ground, he will leave the Earth for Space.

The question then is not, “Will he?”

It is, “When will he?”

This story is set thirty years in the future. The date is 1983, and Man is attempting his first trip to the Moon. By that time, the Space Station described in the following chapters should be a reality. In fact, thirty years seems like an outside guess in view of the amazing strides science has taken in the past decade.

It is logical that Man’s first trip into Space should be made to our own satellite, and nearest heavenly neighbor, the Moon.

In comparison to the planets in our solar system, the Moon is a stone’s throw away: a mere mean distance of 238,857 miles. Compare this to Venus which, when at her closest to Earth, is still 25,000,000 miles away-or Mars, whose distance from the Earth ranges between 35,000,000 and 63,000,000 miles when the two planets are in opposition.

Or think of the Sun, which is approximately 93,000,000 miles away!

There can be no question that the Moon will be our first stop on the road to the planets.

In the following pages, I have tried to picture some of the problems which may confront our first Moon explorers. These problems are based on facts now available about the Moon.

In the near future, all these facts will be checked at first-hand, by space-suited men roaming the surface of the Moon.

The sons of today will be those men.

And for their sons?

The planets... and the stars!

R. M.

Chapter 1 Stand By for Blastoff

Ted Baker leaned against the tower and watched the frantic figures hurry across the concrete area of the field. High above him, the Air Force’s Sugar Yoke radar antenna swept the skies like a giant, revolving bedspring. The sky was intensely blue, a clear wash of bright ink spilled onto a sheet of drawing paper. Bloated, lazy clouds broke the clear blue, somehow resembling white areas that had escaped the flow of the ink.

The excited activity of a spaceport in full gear was everywhere around him. Trucks, bright red under the brilliant canopy of the sky, flashed over the ground like bewildered beetles. Motor scooters and jeeps twisted in and out between the toolsheds, the radar and radio towers, the fuel tanks, the repair shops, the astronomical labs, the meteorological stations, the weather towers, the bright red and yellow markers on the field.

Men in coveralls, grease-spattered and sweat-stained, hurried over the field with the intensity of marauder ants.

“There will be no smoking in the fueling area,” the loud-speakers blared, their metallic voices loud and strident. “Repeat. There will be no smoking in the fueling area.”

Ted’s eyes roved over the field, picking up clusters of men and vehicles, following moving lines of equipment and testing gear. Like hungry insects drawn to a fallen morsel of food, the men and the machines moved steadily toward a towering perpendicular form that sharply jutted up into the blue.

Ted’s heart gave a sudden leap again, the way it did every time he thought of the spaceport and the three-stage rocket. He was here. He was really here on Johnston Island, far out in the Pacific, far from home and the Space Academy. And in just a little while, he would board that rocket.

A grin worked its way onto his face, and he passed a nervous hand over the bridge of his nose. He looked around him, caught up in the frantic movement of the island, yet wishing there were someone he could talk to. The excitement bubbled up inside him like a seething volcano, and he wanted to stop one of the hurrying men and shout, “Hey! I’m going up to the Space Station. Me, Ted Baker. What do you think of that?”

The figures hurried past, intent on their separate jobs, rushing toward the enormous rocket on the edge of the field. The blasting pits, heat-scorched holes dug deep into the concrete, stretched before him like a row of discolored pockmarks that led to the ship itself.

His eyes studied the sleek outlines of the ship, and the grin magically popped onto his face again. She was a beauty, all right, a dream materialized in metal.