He’d walked on the Moon. And now, in that corner of his own Earth, he’d been confronted by rows of kids in a wooden shack who were still being taught – despite his actual presence, despite his eye-witness account from the Moon itself – superstitious fairy tales.
It made the whole damn enterprise seem futile.
Just before coming over to JSC to do his capcom shift today, he’d gotten a package in the post. It was a script for a credit card commercial. Do you know me? Last year I walked on the Moon. That doesn’t help me though when I want to reserve an airline seat … Goddamn garbage.
It was for more money than he’d make in five years. He could only do it if he retired from the Agency.
Jill would surely welcome it. Jill wasn’t like some of the other wives. She didn’t have a military background; Jill had never gotten used to the flights, the dangers, the dilute bullshit that NASA doled out during a mission …
And the fact was, NASA was never going to let him go back to the Moon.
What if he did retire?
Maybe the moonwalker tag wouldn’t endure; maybe he wouldn’t be seen as a hero for much longer. The mood seemed to have turned even more against the program. There had even been criticism, in the press, about his and Armstrong’s conduct on the Moon. They’d spent too long on the ceremonials. They’d collected fewer rocks than hoped for. Most of the samples weren’t properly documented. They’d used the wrong camera to photograph their footprints, so they’d lost time and come home with less interesting photographs. They’d had to cut short the 3-D photography. Even the shots they’d taken in orbit were criticized, as being tourist shots of Earthrise, while the unexplored Moon whipped by beneath them.
Hell, it was hardly our fault. Nixon called us, not the other way around. And what the hell can you do with all that science stuff? It was hardly idiot-proof: too damn easy to make mistakes, when you only have a couple of hours, out of your entire life, to walk on the Moon …
He was already drinking too much, fighting off the depression, the deflation, with alcohol. He’d been just the same after his Gemini flight. A few years of this and he’d turn into some sad, paunchy slob telling war stories to anyone who’d listen, to increasingly blank faces.
He remembered, that day in Nepal, that he’d taken a nap. When he woke up, he needed the bathroom. He tried to float out of bed, and his torso went crashing to the floor, his legs wrapped up in a sheet. And then, when he’d shaved, he tried to leave the after-shave bottle floating in the air. It fell into the sink, smashing into big sharp chunks.
That evening in Nepal, he was to be guest of honor at a dinner at a swank, Western-standard restaurant a mile off. He elected to walk, to clear his head of beer fumes. The road was rocky, badly made, and steep; he was, after all, in the foothills of the Himalayas here. He soon tired.
All along the side of the road as he walked, there were children, kneeling down. They all held candles and looked up at him, their round faces shining in the dusk light like images of the Moon.
It was an act of veneration.
They think I’m a god. A god, come to visit them.
They shouldn’t do this to people, damn it. They’d made him into a stranded moonwalker. He just wanted to walk on another glowing beach.
He tried to focus on what Michaels and Agronski were saying.
Michaels hauled his bulk out of his chair, and let his impressive, waist-coated gut hang over the polished table for a minute. ‘Gentlemen, let’s see if we can’t cut to the chase.’
He pulled a flip-chart away from the wall. The first few sheets were covered with barely comprehensible notes relating to the Apollo 13 astronauts’ abandoned moonwalk checklists: ‘DOCUMENTED SAMPLE: select sample/place gnomon upsun of sample/sample & gnomon [8,5,2] x sun/retrieve sample …’ There was a peculiar poetry in the way these technical people communicated with each other, he reflected.
On a clean page, he began to scribble. ‘Let’s see what we got here. How would we do this? What’s the minimum we have to do to get to Mars? I can see three strands of work for the short term. First, we’ll need flight tests of the nuclear rocketry. Second, we’ll have to man-rate the modules of the Mars ship itself, such as a lander. Finally, we’re going to have to get some experience of long-duration missions in space.’ He listed the items quickly. ‘But, whether we go for the Space Shuttle, or for an uprated Saturn program, or both, you’re looking at maybe five years before a new launch system comes on stream. So for the time being we’re going to need to use the Saturn V to get by.’ He eyed Agronski. ‘You know we’ve already announced the suspension of the Saturn V production line.’
‘Of course.’
‘Now, in addition to the moonshots, we have our Skylab program, which might have needed a couple of Vs. But a couple of months back we redirected the program; we’re going to revert to the Wet Workshop concept, which can be launched by a Saturn IB. So as of now our remaining Saturn Vs – seven of them built or in production, SA-509 through SA-515 – are dedicated to Apollo Moon missions.’
‘How many launches will you need for a Mars program?’ Agronski asked.
Michaels blew out his cheeks. ‘Let’s say, in the next half-decade, six Saturn V flights, and perhaps ten Saturn IBs. That should get Skylab well underway, and perhaps take us as far as the first Earth-orbit manned flights of the NERVA, before we get the new launcher. Joe, does that sound reasonable?’
Muldoon grunted. ‘Yeah. I guess. If you want to cut it to the bone; if you want to run the risk of another Apollo 1 fire.’
‘Now, Joe…’
‘Six Saturn Vs,’ Agronski said. ‘And there are seven Moon flights left, Apollos 14 through 20.’ His lips pulled tight into a thin grin.
So that’s it. Now I know the price, for Mars, for Paine’s job. It was as if Agronski was taking a much-delayed revenge. Agronski had always despised the manned Moon program, opposed it whenever he could. Agronski knows that this is the end of Apollo. Right here and now; right in this room.
Agronski said smugly, ‘Well. Of course I’m aware that there’s a lot of opposition to further Moon flights, even within NASA. The whole system’s too complex. “One of these days Apollo will kill somebody, if it hasn’t already killed Lovell and his crew” – that’s what is being said, isn’t it? I imagine a curtailment wouldn’t be impossibly difficult to sell, even within NASA, now that the first landings have been achieved. And –’
Muldoon kicked back his chair and stood up. ‘So we’re cutting the Moon flights,’ he said. He was tall, intimidating, his disgust majestic. ‘Just when we’ve got there. Jesus Christ, Fred. The later flights would have been the crown of the program,’ Muldoon said. ‘J-class missions, with advanced LMs, three-day stays on the surface, long-duration backpacks that would extend each moonwalk to up to seven hours, and electric cars. We’d have gone to sites of terrific wonder, and beauty, and scientific interest. We’ve even got a tentative plan to go to the far side of the Moon.’
Michaels stared at Muldoon. He prided himself on being a great off-the-ballot politician, but he found words deserting him, at this moment of all moments.
‘I
