Paul Gillebaard: Moon Hoax

Tang quickly maneuvered the spacecraft over the boulder and leveled off above the site. He lowered the craft slowly as Wen continued to read off the altitude. Tang put his head as close to the window as he could, scanning the area below to make sure the spacecraft was centered and clear of any rocks as he lowered. Be careful Tang… you can do this… slow… slow. Finally at the three meter point the landing light came on, indicating the probes below the craft had touched the lunar surface. Tang dropped another meter before cutting the engine. The Jian plummeted the final two meters and hit with a soft thud.

An eerie silence overtook the spacecraft as both men sat for a moment, taking in what they had just done. Then Wen turned to Tang and bowed, obviously relieved his commander refrained from pushing the destruction button. Tang, with a big smile on his face, turned and bowed at Wen. Though the Lander was slightly tilted, it was safely on the moon. Tang was proud to have met the biggest challenge of their mission.

Tang and Wen were exhausted, but they were allowed only six hours on the moon and had an unbelievable workload that needed to be completed in that time frame. They took a few moments to gather themselves, and then helped each other put on their backpacks which were their life support systems. One hour after landing, Tang opened the small hatch, climbed out, and went down the ladder. Before stepping off the footpad, he paused for a moment eyeing the surface up close. His first steps on the surface were going to be an historical leap forward for China. Though only Wen would hear his words, he felt he needed to express this out loud. As he stepped off he proudly said, “ Li shi xing de Yi bu! ” That was all the celebration he allowed himself. He and Wen were there to do a job, and it was now time to focus and do it. Wen came down a short time later. Their mission was to collect up to 300 lbs of various types of rocks, take as many pictures and videos of each other as they could, then most importantly, deploy the laser weapon.

Tang and Wen were back in the Yi with Nei, orbiting the moon, having completed their mission on the surface. They had successfully launched from the lunar surface in Jian’s Ascent Stage. All three taikonauts transported the moon rocks and equipment needed for the trip back to Earth from the Jian. On future moon missions the Ascent Stage would normally be jettisoned before firing the engine for the flight home, but because their landing was done in secret, they had to make sure the world did not see a spacecraft left behind orbiting the moon, indicating they had attempted to land. Jian would instead have to tag along and be jettisoned from Yi right before entering the earth’s atmosphere, burning upon reentry. To save power, the Jian would be off limits, completely powered down. Prior to closing and locking the hatch for good, Tang took one last look inside. The ship had done its job flawlessly, even saving Tang and Wen from that terrifying spin caused by the #4 engine release. Tang sadly said goodbye to his old friend, “ Zai Jian, lao peng you, ” before closing the hatch for the last time.

The three now sat comfortably and exhausted side by side in their couch chairs with Nei in the center seat. Now in their jumpsuits, the taikonauts were excited to be finishing up on their last bit of business before going home. They had been awake for twenty straight hours and were in need of well deserved rest. The last item on their checklist was to arm the laser weapon they’d left on the moon, which they planned to do on their last pass around the back side. After successfully arming the laser, they would begin their journey home and get some long awaited sleep. Nei was responsible for testing and arming the laser. The laser had an elapse time of twenty minutes, from point of identifying and locking on any satellite orbiting above, to powering up and firing. To insure they were not targeted and fired on, Nei was ordered to arm the laser five minutes before they would be coming around the back side, insuring they had time to get out of range from the laser’s tracking radar.

As they reached the back side on what they hoped would be their final orbit, Nei began to receive transmission from the laser. Nei inputted the access code into his computer and was happy to see his screen go dark briefly before it lit back up, now sharing the laser’s local screen. A number entry appeared which was from a random number generator in the laser’s system. This entry was in a format that could not be read by a computer but instead had to be read by a human eye. Nei had to retype the numbers exactly as he saw them before the laser’s computer system would allow him to log in. CNSA wanted to make sure the laser could not be accessed by an unmanned automated satellite.

Nei carefully typed in the number as he read it off the screen. He smiled when a prompt appeared indicating he could now enter their ten-digit password so he could test the laser. His orders were to do several tests arming and disarming it before arming it for the last time. He went through the inputs to “arm” the laser. Nothing happened. He did the sequence again, nothing. Nei was beginning to get frustrated. He was doing everything right. He double checked the procedure and tried again; still nothing. If they could not arm the laser, the whole mission would be a failure.

Nei asked Tang to give it a try. He too had no luck. Concerned, Tang pulled out the checklist for the laser and reviewed it. He and Nei went through the list step by step and everything appeared to be in order. Unfortunately, they could not call Beijing Control Center for advice until they came around from the back side. Tang knew from training if the laser was not responding to the computer, one option was to shut it down and reboot. This procedure took fifteen minutes, and since they had over thirty minutes before they would be back in radio contact with Beijing, Tang decided to give it a try. While they waited in silence, Tang could not help but think of how successful and rewarding the mission had been, even with all of its challenges. However, even though they would still be treated like heroes by their countrymen and written in the history books as the first Chinese crew to orbit the moon, if the laser did not work, the mission would be deemed a total failure to their superiors and the crew would be dishonored within the space program. Such disgrace was a situation he did not want to think about and would do everything he could to prevent.

Once the computer rebooted, Tang again went through the steps and keyed in for it to arm. Nothing! “ Yi-po-see, ” he said in frustration. Since the only way of arming the laser was when they were in view of the back side, they would need to stay in orbit as long as their consumables would hold out to solve the problem. If they were forced to leave the moon, there would be nothing the Beijing Command Center could do to fix or arm the laser from Earth. Transmissions could not pass through the solid rock of the moon and since the moon does not spin like the earth, the laser would always be on the back side relative to Earth. They were now close to coming around and being back in radio contact with the command center.

Tang began radioing in, carefully choosing his words even though what he said was encrypted. “ Beijing, wo shi Yi, ting jian ma ?” Tang impatiently waited; all he could hear was static. He tried again. Finally the command center responded. He informed them the Long , code name used for the laser, was not responding. Between Tang and the command center they went over the procedures to make sure they were doing everything correctly, and then went over troubleshooting options. Tang was to try these ideas on the next pass around the back side. On the next pass, Tang and Nei tried the options suggested and still, nothing. When Yi came back around, Tang radioed he had no luck. Long was still inoperable.