Contact across the Solar System

To the Moon

During that time, the Americans were working on sending some of their astronauts to the Moon. They were preparing with test flights, gradually testing the hardware that they planned to use. Late in 1968, they were preparing to do what Kalna and Ilmuth had done so long ago: send an Earther to the Moon, or in the Americans' case, three Earthers. The three Apollo 8 astronauts will be going where George had gone way back when, into orbit around the Moon.

Kalna decided "This I *have* to see", and Ilmuth agreed.

They arranged to stay at the home of some residents in Titusville, a town close to Cape Kennedy, as the launch site was then known. They asked the Titusville guys what to bring, and they said binoculars and portable radios, since the launchpads are rather far away from Titusville, and since they'll need to catch news broadcasts. A few days before the launch, they got a pickup in a scout, flew in a ship to Florida, then got a dropoff near Titusville, where the residents picked them up.

On December 21, the day of the launch, some other residents joined them, having driven from Miami and Washington DC, and they all headed out for a Titusville beach. All these resident SSC people looked like the numerous other tourists who had come to watch this event. The Saturn V rocket was in the distance across the river and flatland, with its dark-red service tower advertising its presence. On the radio, they heard the Mission-Control announcer describe how the Mission-Control crew was checking out the rocket's systems, and how system after system was ready to go for the launch. One minute: its tanks were all pressurized. Then it was under its own power.

"T-15 - 14 - 13 - 12 - 11 - 10 - 9 - we have ignition sequence start - the engines are armed - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 0"

Huge clouds of smoke came sideways out of the launchpad.

"We have commit, we have - we have liftoff, liftoff at 7:51 AM Eastern standard time ... We have cleared the tower."

The rocket started on its way, making a bright plume of flame, passing its service tower in a few seconds. Its exhaust plume was longer than the rocket itself.

In a minute, it was above most of the Earth's atmosphere, and in a few more minutes, it discarded its now-empty first stage. Its second stage started, and not long after, its crew's rescue rockets sped off. By then, the rocket was too far to see, but many people continued to listen to their radios. The Mission-Control announcer seemed almost self-congratulatory by saying how well the rocket was doing at each step. The rocket got into outer space, gradually accelerating to orbital velocity. Then it discarded its second stage and its third stage started. It ran for a while, then stopped. The rocket was now in orbit around the Earth.

Some other residents pressed Kalna and Ilmuth into service as the resident experts on Earther spaceflight.

"What happens to those released stages?"

"They fall into the ocean", said Kalna, "their launchers don't even try to retrieve them."

Her questioner seemed baffled and Kalna telepathically sensed it.

"Yup", she said, "the Earthers sometimes act as if their planet is a limitless garbage dump."

Another one asked "Why do they keep on saying 'It's looking good', 'It's looking good', 'It's looking good'? Are they that desperate to reassure themselves?"

Kalna responded "There are several people involved in watching the rocket and in controlling it. So they want to keep everybody up to date, it seems."

A bit later, "Did they dump the third stage also?"

"No", said Ilmuth, "they are keeping it because they'll need it to get to the Moon. By the way, that's coming up in a few hours, and we might as well stay here for it."

The others agreed. It was a nice excuse for a party.

A resident noted "I saw a newspaper article about how Earther spacecraft return by hitting the atmosphere."

Kalna said "Yes, they crash into the Earth's atmosphere. It's rather hard to believe that they act like meteorites, but they do it. They don't even try to slow down -- they crash at full speed. We've even seen them do it -- it looks like a meteor."

She paused.

"Every time they've done it so far, it's from low orbit. They slow down just enough to lower their closest distance into the atmosphere. But Apollo 8 will be coming straight from the Moon at escape velocity -- about 11 km/s -- instead of orbital velocity -- about 8 km/s. It'll have twice the kinetic energy, so it'll be especially bad."

Ilmuth noted "The reason they do it is to save on fuel, so they don't have to take any extra fuel with them. They're good enough at it so they can survive it without needing to slow down."

Ilmuth continued to listen to the radio, and a little over two hours later, she announced "They've gotten the go-ahead to continue to the Moon." Several minutes later, she announced "They're on their way to the Moon" and after a few minutes more, "They've discarded their third stage."

"What's going to happen to it?"

"I'm not sure. It will either crash into the Moon or else it will go into orbit around the Sun."

She paused.

"In any case, the next big event is about three days later, when they reach the Moon. They'll go into orbit around it, orbit it a little bit, then get out of orbit and return home."

The residents soon decided to go their separate ways, and they returned to their homes, with Kalna and Ilmuth getting picked up by a scout that night and dropped off near LA.

When they got home, the Apollo 8 spacecraft was still on its way to the Moon. When it got there, on December 24, one of its crewmen read some of Genesis 1, of all things.

Ilmuth said about it "I like that story."

Kalna responded "What do you see in it?"

"God is nice and orderly in it, creating step by step. It makes the Earth the whole Universe, but it's nice and orderly."

"I suppose that our ancestors thought that our city caverns were the whole Universe."

"Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. But to repeat that when one has found out otherwise?"

Ilmuth continued "It also has water above the sky, and I've never been able to figure that one out."

"Me neither."

"Another thing I like in it. It has both sexes created side by side."

"Yeah", said Kalna, "I've never understood the second Genesis creation story. How was the first man supposed to reproduce? Why not a woman who could do parthenogenesis?"

"Beats me. That one's very improvised, as if God couldn't quite figure out what to do."

One of the Apollo 8 astronauts also said that the far side of the Moon looks like a sandbox where a lot of kids had been playing -- it's mostly cratered. No mention of George having been there first, not even to laugh at him about how ludicrously wrong he was. Why oh why oh why did George have to write those silly things about the far side of the Moon being Earthlike, the two women thought. They took him there in a ship that could easily hold that big Earther Saturn-V rocket, a ship that got to the Moon much faster than that the Earthers' Apollo spacecraft did, a ship that did not need to discard pieces of itself as it traveled. As a space explorer, George may have been a good philosopher, they glumly concluded.

After spending nearly a day orbiting the Moon, the Apollo 8 spacecraft left its orbit and headed home. Two days later, it arrived at the Earth, and the two caught its return on TV. The spacecraft split in two, and its "service module" moved itself away. Its "command module", containing its crew, oriented itself so that its heat shield would face forward, against the oncoming atmosphere. When it hit, it was a nail-biter for a few minutes as the heated atmosphere blocked radio transmissions. It succeeded, and the spacecraft went the rest of the way by parachute. It wasn't very big, not much bigger than its three crewmen together, and it was all that was left of that huge rocket that took off from Cape Kennedy a week earlier.

It and its crew were picked up by the crew of a nearby aircraft carrier, using the carrier's helicopters. "Very familiar sorts of vehicles", said Kalna, laughing. Helicopters were certainly the closest thing that the Earthers had to the SSC's scoutcraft, at least in how they maneuver.