Marianne Dyson: Fly Me to the Moon

“Mr. Smith,” Mr. Taylor interrupted. “We think the other crewmember has a concussion and other injuries and is in and out of consciousness. Ms. Phillips will have to fly it solo.”

“I understand,” Mr. Smith said. “That’s not a problem. But I need a body next to me to judge what panels and displays may be blocked.”

“Right,” I said. At least I was good for something!

We hooked up my laptop projector to Dr. Winkler’s computer, so it would output whatever NASA sent through. The screen showed two triangular windows looking out over a gray landscape with a black sky beyond. No stars were visible. The cockpit was crowded with gauges and switches.

“We’ve activated the link. We’ve got one of our lunar pilots in a simulator here to fly the cargo ship.”

“Roger,” Mr. Smith said. “Fuel tank pressure low.”

“Yes, we think there’s a slow leak in the helium tank,” Mr. Taylor explained. “The batteries are also not fully charged, but should last long enough to reach the cargo ship.”

“Understood,” Mr. Smith said. “T minus 5. Engine arm. Pilot should hit PROCEED, but because he’s unconscious, I must reach over him and do it.”

“Noted,” Taylor said.

“I should hear the bang of the bolts releasing the lander and then feel like I’m riding in a high-speed elevator as the engine kicks in.”

“Roger that,” Taylor said.

I could hardly believe this was happening to me. To me! I was flying with one of the Apollo astronauts. The last living Apollo astronaut! Not even my mother would believe this if I told her. But I wouldn’t break my promise to Mr. Smith, even after I figured out his real name.

“No, that’s not right,” Mr. Smith said.

“What’s not right, Mr. Smith?” Mr. Taylor asked.

“The LM didn’t have a barbecue mode. We had to fire the jets manually to start the ship spinning.”

“Noted.”

“But the flight is so short, you don’t need to worry about overheating. It might be best to just let it coast. It will also be one less thing for the pilot to worry about.”

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Taylor said. “The cargo pilot has a lock on you.”

Mr. Smith looked at the ceiling. “The upper window is blocked. Can’t see target.”

“That’s okay,” Mr. Taylor said. “You don’t have to line up and dock. The cargo ship is going to match rates and take you into its hold.”

“It’s big enough for that?” Smith said.

Mr. Taylor smiled. “Yes, sir. It’s a fuel tanker.”

On the computer screen, I saw the curve of the Moon’s horizon below us. “Look at the crescent Earth!” I blurted out in excitement. Mr. Smith ignored me. At least I could verify that this part of the simulation was correct. The Moon I’d seen last night was just past full, and the Earth and Moon were always in opposite phases. I wondered if I’d ever see the Earth from the Moon for real? I hoped so.

As the ship arced around to the far side of the Moon, the Earth sank below the horizon. Long sunrise shadows spread across rough crater floors below us.

“Got you,” Mr. Taylor said. The simulation stopped.

“We going into blackout now?” Mr. Smith asked.

“No sir, we have almost continual communications thanks to lunar orbiting relay satellites.”

Mr. Smith raised an eyebrow even though Mr. Taylor could not see him.

“It still takes 1.3 seconds for light to travel one way from the Moon, 2.6 seconds roundtrip. But with your help, we’ll have the computer programmed to handle most problems.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Smith agreed. “Pings works pretty good.”

I mouthed “Pings?” at Dr. Winkler.

He whispered back, “Sounds like an acronym for the navigation program.”

I nodded and mouthed “Thanks” back at him.

“Need to run it again with some failures?” Mr. Smith asked.

“Yes, that would be very helpful,” Mr. Taylor said. “But first let’s take a break and see what questions the pilot and guidance team have for you.”

Dr. Winkler helped Mr. Smith to the sofa on the side of the office, and I sat down too. I don’t know which one of us was more dazed. “Can I call my wife now?” Mr. Smith asked. “She’ll probably worry.”

Dr. Winkler smiled. “She’s fine. She’s with her mother.”

“Oh, right,” Mr. Smith said. He looked down at his slippers. “Mother is going to be mad.”

It was the strangest afternoon and evening I had ever spent in my life. I stood by Mr. Smith while he flew one simulation after another, with jets failed, with computer problems, with navigation errors, with popped circuit breakers. As I watched, I realized that even with his Alzheimer’s, Mr. Smith still knew more about spaceflight than most people alive today. I felt incredibly lucky to have the chance to learn even a tiny bit of what he could teach me.

During breaks we ate snacks and drank decaf coffee and followed the progress of the crew on the Moon. Ms. Phillips had gotten the injured historian strapped into the module.

Dr. Winkler called my mother and asked if I could stay for dinner and into the evening. He said he had recruited me to help with a memory experiment involving one of the patients, and it would mean a lot if I were there until the patient went to bed. He’d get me a cab home. My mother fully supported my activities here, and after verifying with me that I had done my homework in study hall as usual, agreed I could stay as late as ten.

A nurse brought us dinner, and we ate there in Dr. Winkler’s office. Mr. Smith fell asleep on the sofa soon afterward. I moved the simulation equipment out to the lounge and connected the big television to the NASA feed. Then I returned to Dr. Winkler’ office.

The flight team was discussing possibly changing the rendezvous sequence. Because the batteries in the spacesuits had only a few hours left, the initial decision was to fly something called a direct ascent. But Mr. Smith had advised against it, saying that direct ascent was too risky for Apollo. As a result, Flight Director Taylor ordered a special “tiger” team to investigate options and report back.

One of the tiger team members confirmed that direct ascent wasn’t used for Apollo. “Although that option is the simplest, requiring only a single burn of the ascent engine to put the LM on a path to intercept the target ship a half orbit later,” the man reported, “the Apollo team felt that the likelihood of variations in the thrust during ascent presented too much risk. The short duration of the approach didn’t allow much time for their old computers to calculate, and the crew to execute, the maneuvers to correct the flight path. If those corrections weren’t made, the LM would miss the interception point and crash into the lunar surface.”

“Couldn’t the command module have changed course and rescued the LM?” the flight director asked.

“In some cases,” the man replied. “But course changes require fuel, and its fuel was very limited.”

“I assume that the computer and fuel issues do not apply in our case?”

“That’s correct,” the man responded.

“Flight, Lunar Ops,” a woman’s voice called.

“Go ahead, Lunar Ops,” the flight director said.

A short pause ensued. “Thank you, sir. My main concern is time. No offense to the guidance team, but they were still making changes to the software half an hour ago. There’s a reasonable chance that we will need Ms. Phillips to take manual control. I understand she has walked through the procedures in the cockpit, but that’s no substitute for flight experience—especially with an untested vehicle! She needs time to adjust to the actual vehicle and environment. The coelliptic sequence gives her a whole lunar orbit to do that—and also makes my job as cargo pilot easier if I have to rescue her.” She’s the one who will fly the cargo ship remotely! She’s probably at the lunar south pole!