The navigator did his best, using every clue he could gather: forward speed readout, their nav map, the heading data and the latest looks at the lunar surface on the screen.
“Ten!” he said decisively. Then “Nine!”
He’d play the cadence right to the last, based on everything he saw. He said eight, seven and six quickly, and then five, four and three in an even rhythm. He could feel his heart racing, knowing this was all or nothing, based on too much guesswork.
“Dva . . . raz! Now, Gabdul, brake!”
Gabdul reversed hard, held it for two seconds and released his hand completely, listening to the small springs make a quick thocking sound as the hand controller returned itself to center. All eyes were glued to the screen.
His plan had been to bound over the edge at full speed and then lurch to a stop, driving the eight wheels backwards, encouraging the sand to slide off the top as Lunokhod came to rest on a steep angle.
The image resolved itself, drawing line by line from top to bottom on the monitor. All they could see was a screenful of lunar regolith, no horizon visible.
“We’re in!” Gabdul turned to look at the rover’s attitude sensor—a bit tipped left, but steeply nose-down. He read the number aloud, triumphant: “Thirty-five degrees!” That was basically the physical limit for a slope of loose regolith. They couldn’t have done it any better. No one knew if they’d be able to drive out, but they’d done all they could.
Gabdul turned to the vehicle systems operator and asked the question on behalf of everyone. “Are we still getting hotter?”
The internal temperature readout was steady for many seconds. Longer than they’d seen during the race across the surface. Hopes rose. Then it clicked up by a tenth of a degree. And then another. And, as they all watched, by yet another.
It hadn’t worked. The jolt hadn’t shifted enough of the blanket of dust.
After three months of exploration, thousands of images and data points, and discovery of concentrated radioactivity on the Moon, the mission was over.
Lunokhod was in its grave.
Outside their building, the huge antenna that had brought the team the bad news pivoted, almost imperceptibly, its focused commands and patient listening circuits searching for a new signal. As soon as it found it, the self-tracking mechanism locked on and began following, steering precisely. The processors analyzed the timing and frequency shifts of the signals, and started doing the math. As it continued to track, the accuracy got better and better, until it had a solution threshold that could be trusted.
A second computer took that information and ran it through equations that included the mass and exact positions of the Moon and the spinning Earth, and used models of the friction that the atmosphere and shock waves would cause. It added the known characteristics of how previous missions had steered themselves, and how much g they had pulled as they descended.
In less than two minutes it had a result, and automatically transmitted it to the flight dynamics officer at his console in TsUP in Moscow. He looked at the screen with its table of flickering numbers, watching them update and become even more accurate with each passing second.
He leaned back and turned, waving to get the attention of the flight director. They now knew exactly where Apollo 18 was going to splash down.
56
Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii
Kaz stretched and yawned as he stepped out of the dark interior of the C-141 transport plane, blinking at the bright Hawaiian sunshine, looking around the ramp and spotting the white Sea King helicopter waiting for them. He’d slept, but his lower back was aching; Air Force seats were built for troop transport, not comfort. As he stiffly walked down the airstairs, he could feel the heat reflecting up off the tarmac, his shirt starting to stick to him in the humid ocean air. Behind him, JW was noisily descending. A seaman met them at the bottom and took their hand luggage to transfer to the helo.
Al Shepard had gotten off first and was already taking the salute from the Sea King crew. Behind Al, waiting his turn, was the Soviet attaché, tall in a dark suit. In Houston, he’d introduced himself briefly as Roman Stepanov, his English good but thickly accented. He’d kept to himself during the flight, reading papers from his briefcase and dozing like the rest of them, even though each of the three Americans had moved to an empty seat in the Soviet’s row during the flight to make conversation. Kaz had held out his hand across the seats. “Hi, I’m Kaz Zemeckis, crew liaison. Been working in Mission Control throughout the flight.” Stepanov, broad-shouldered and fit, had returned the hand-shake with a firm, dry grip and said, “Hello.” The remaining hair on his prematurely bald head was neatly trimmed, his thick eyebrows were arched, and his small ears were a poor match for his large, hooked nose. His pale-gray eyes and thin mouth were expressionless. A thoughtful face.