Marianne Dyson: Fly Me to the Moon

Mr. Smith didn’t show any signs of recognizing this woman, but he returned her wink and said, “I never forget a beautiful woman!”

Dr. Winkler explained that Ruth Pressa was the relative who had granted permission to contact Mission Control. She shook my hand warmly and whispered in my ear, “Thank you for being such a good friend to my great-grandfather. It means a lot to our family.”

Her great-grandfather? “It’s my privilege, ma’am,” I said. Her badge sported the seal of the DHS and her last name at the bottom in capital letters, “PRESSA.” I wondered what kind of work she did for them?

While Dr. Winkler escorted Mr. Smith to a chair, Ms. Pressa handed me an old-fashioned wired headset and a speaker box. “This is a Mission Control headset and speaker box from the Apollo Restoration Project. I rigged up an interface so you can plug these into your laptop.” She pointed to a rocker switch on the cord. “This is the push-to-talk button that he’ll use to talk to Ms. Phillips. If he starts spouting nonsense, just unplug him from the laptop—he’ll hear a click. Tell him we lost the signal.” I nodded, hoping I’d not need to do that.

She continued. “The speaker box is set to broadcast and receive. The flight director and all the team will hear everything said in this room, so be careful to always call him Mr. Smith.”

“I understand,” I said. I decided not to tell her I didn’t know his real name anyway.

“Okay then, I’ll let you get to work.” She settled into a chair next to Dr. Winkler.

I motioned Mr. Smith to join me standing behind the simulator. Our interface to Mission Control was the same set-up I’d used earlier, except that I’d added some bar stools in case our feet got tired. Also, I’d left the projector off since we had live images from Mission Control. The view from Ms. Phillips’ helmet cam was in the center of the screen. On the right was a graph of data from the spacesuits showing power and carbon dioxide levels and stuff like that. On the left was a plot of the planned trajectory of the direct ascent rendezvous. It looked pretty simple; an arc from the surface that intersected a dotted circle around the Moon. The cargo ship was marked by a yellow Pac-Man that was slowly eating its way around the dotted circle. I smiled. Someone on the flight control team had a sense of humor.

“I saw that movie,” Mr. Smith said, looking at the TV. “Isn’t that the one with Tom Hanks in it?”

“No,” I said. “This is a live image from the Moon. There’s a woman who needs to fly to lunar orbit.”

“What’s a woman doing on the Moon? Is this some Russian stunt?”

“No, she’s an American,” I replied patiently. Had he forgotten everything we’d told him already? My heart rate climbed. “What’s important is that if she doesn’t rendezvous with a cargo ship in lunar orbit, she and the other passenger will die. Unfortunately, she’s not a pilot.”

Mr. Smith frowned. “She’ll never make it.”

“Not on her own, she won’t,” I said. “That’s why we need you. NASA has set up the computer to fly the ascent automatically—you know, like ‘pings’?” I hoped I had the term right.

He nodded. “Pings works great,” he said.

I continued. “Yes, and pings was recently updated so that it can do all the calculations really fast. But it can’t fly like the best LM pilot alive.” No need to say the only one. He smiled at this praise. “So NASA needs you to help this woman—her name is Ms. Clara Phillips—with the launch and rendezvous.”

“I can do that,” Mr. Smith said, placing his large hand on the stick, just like he’d done hours earlier. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

I looked over at Dr. Winkler who gave me a thumbs-up sign. Mr. Smith donned the old-fashioned headset like he wore one every day. I plugged it into my laptop. If Mr. Smith got confused, I’d be responsible for literally pulling the plug.

“Houston would like to do a voice check of their secure line,” I said.

“Hello, Mr. Smith, this is Houston Capcom. How do you read?”

“Roger, Houston, read you five by,” Mr. Smith answered.

“Good. The flight director would like to speak to you.”

“Go ahead,” Mr. Smith said.

“Hello, Mr. Smith. I’m Flight Director Keegan Taylor,” he said. “We appreciate you helping us in this emergency. Time is short, so let me fill you in on a few details.”

Mr. Smith listened intently as the flight director explained that they were going to do a direct ascent, and that they might need him to take over manually.

“Understood,” Mr. Smith said.

“Oh, and if you’re willing, we’d like you to talk to Ms. Phillips, tell her what to expect before it happens—keeping in mind the 1.3-second signal delay, so she’ll stay calm. Can you do that?”

“Sure,” Mr. Smith replied simply.

“Good. Then I’ll have Capcom patch you through to Ms. Phillips. Her first name is Clara.”

The capcom’s voice came over the speaker, “Clara, this is Houston on Private Channel Alpha, do you copy?”

A second later, she responded, “Yes, Houston, I hear you. My hands are shaking so badly, I’m afraid I’ll press the wrong buttons!”

“Clara, you will do fine,” the capcom assured her. “You just press PROCEED at T-5, and the computer will take it from there.”

“But this LM was never tested under real conditions, and I’m not a pilot!”

“We know that, Clara. But that engine worked on every Apollo flight, and the systems are looking good. To reassure you, we’ve asked a very special person to come out of retirement. I’m going to patch him through to speak to you. He wishes to keep his name secret, and goes by Mr. Smith, but we have verified that he is in fact one of the original Apollo moonwalkers.”

A second later, she said, “But that’s impossible! The last one died in a car crash with his wife. I went to their funeral!”

“Apparently, only the wife actually died in that crash. Mr. Smith was sent to a secret location to spend his last years free of media scrutiny.”

“The tabloids were actually right!” Ms. Phillips laughed. “Oh my, that was insensitive of me. Is Mr., uh, Smith listening? Please tell him I didn’t mean to make light of his loss. I’m sure it must have been very hard.”

“Yes,” Mr. Smith said. “I miss my wife.”

Oh no! He mustn’t start thinking about his wife right now. He’ll be of no help at all . I unplugged his connection to Ms. Phillips. “Mr. Smith,” I whispered, pointing at the display, “What does that light mean?”

He stared at the panel seen through Ms. Phillips’ helmet camera. “The LM fuel tank pressure is low. Must have a leak. Better take off soon.”

Good . He was back on track. I plugged him back in. I saw Ms. Pressa smiling at me .

The capcom was talking to Ms. Phillips, I supposed answering a question about how Mr. Smith had gotten involved in this rescue. “Mr. Smith heard about your situation on the news and contacted us to see if he could help. We had him fly a simulator and update the model for use in the autopilot. He’s standing by to speak with you.”

“I can’t believe this!” Ms. Phillips said. “I must be out of my mind or talking to a ghost.”

“I’m not a ghost,” Mr. Smith said. “And you won’t be either, as long as you stay calm and follow directions.” He paused in thought. I kept my finger on the plug just in case he changed subjects. “Once you reach orbit,” Mr. Smith said, “You’ll just coast right to where the command module can get you.”

“Command module?” Ms. Phillips repeated.

“He means the cargo ship,” the capcom said.