Chapter 10 Chapter 3 Landing on the Moon

The Russian astronomer was a tall, thin, fair-haired man with an unlined face and an unrecognizable age of fifty-five—the past ten years had been spent building a large radio observatory on the far side of the moon, where the Two thousand miles of solid rock, immune to the electronic noise of Earth. "Hello, Heywood!" he said, shaking hands firmly. "Where does the universe meet! How are you?—how are the lovely children?" "We're all well," Floyd replied affectionately, but also a little absent-mindedly. "We used to talk about your hospitality last summer." His failure to sound more affectionate made him uncomfortable; Dimitri back on Earth had entertained them for a week's vacation together in Odessa, and had a really good time.

"And you—I suppose you're going up?" Dimitri asked. "Uh, yes — I'm leaving in half an hour," Floyd replied. "Do you know Mr. Miller?" The guard came over at this moment and stood respectfully aside with a plastic cup full of coffee in his hand. "Of course I do. But please put the coffee down, Mr. Miller. This is Dr. Floyd's last chance to have a good drink—don't pass it up. No—don't say no." They followed Dimitri from the main hall of the lobby to the observation room, where they sat down at a table to watch the movement of the stars in the dim light.The space station No. 1 rotates once per minute, and the centrifugal force generated by this slow rotation constitutes an artificial gravitational force equal to the gravitational force on the moon.Experience has shown that this is a pretty good compromise between Earth's gravity and total weightlessness: moreover, it gives travelers to the Moon an acclimatization process.

Outside the window where you can barely see your fingers, the earth and the stars pass by quietly.At this time, this side of the space station faces away from the sun: otherwise it would be impossible to look out, because the lounge would be exposed to the sun.Even with its back to the sun, the sunlight reflected from the earth illuminates half the sky, obscuring all but the brightest stars. As the space station orbits toward the Earth's shadowy side, the Earth dwindles; in minutes it will become a giant black disk with city lights shining everywhere.Then the sky will be dominated by the stars.

"Ugh!" said Dimitri, who had gulped down his first drink and was shaking the second. "What's the matter with the epidemic that is rumored in the United States? I was going to go to the United States this time, 'No, Professor,' they said to me. 'We are sorry, but strict quarantine is implemented now, when will it open? Further notice." I went to all the back doors; there was no way.Now please tell me what's going on. " Floyd was upset.Here we go again, he thought.I really can't wait to hit the road at once.Fly to the moon. "Alas - the quarantine is purely a routine precaution," he said cautiously.

"We're not sure yet if it's necessary, but it's better to be careful." "But what exactly is the disease—what are the manifestations? Is it from an extraterrestrial source? Would you like the help of our medical profession?" "I'm sorry, Dimitri - asked us not to talk about anything now. Thank you for your offer to help, we can handle it." "Hmm..." Dimitri said, clearly in disbelief. "It seems odd to me that you, an astronomer, be sent to the moon to investigate infectious diseases." "I'm a thing of the past as an astronomer; haven't done research in years. I'm an expert in science now, that is to say, I don't know anything."' "So do you know what TMA-1 refers to?"

Miller seemed to nearly choke on the drink, but Floyd was stronger.Without batting an eyelid, he stared straight at his old friend and said quietly, "TMA-1? What a strange word! Where did you hear it?" "Never mind it," retorted the Russian, "you can't fool me. But, if something happens to you that you can't handle, I hope you won't delay too long before calling for help." Miller glanced at his watch deliberately. "We'll be on board in five minutes, Dr. Floyd," he said. "I think we'd better get going." Although he knew they had twenty minutes left, Floyd hurried to his feet.It was too hasty, because he had forgotten that there was only one-sixth gravity here.He grabbed the table and managed not to float out.

"Nice to meet you, Dimitri," he said, not quite sincerely. "Hope you have a good trip to Earth—I'll call you when I get back." After they left the rest hall and passed through the U.S. re-export checkpoint, Freud said, "Scared—it's dangerous! Thank you for your rescue." "I understand, Doctor," said the guard, "I really hope he's wrong." "about what?" "About something we can't handle." "That," Floyd replied firmly, "that's what I want to know." Forty-five minutes later, the Aries-IB lunar spacecraft lifted off from the space station.

There's none of the effort and rush of take-off here on Earth—low-thrust plasma jets pour jets of electricity into space, producing just a barely audible, distant whistling sound.The gentle push lasted more than fifteen minutes, and the slow acceleration did not affect people's actions in the cabin.However, once the thrust is stopped, the spacecraft is no longer constrained by the Earth as it is when it is connected to the space station.It has broken free from the shackles of gravity and has become a free-standing planet, orbiting the sun in its own orbit. According to the original design, the cabin in which Floyd was alone could accommodate thirty passengers.He felt a little unaccustomed to seeing the empty seats around him, and felt quite lonely, especially when he was under the dedicated care of the male and female flight attendants—not to mention the pilot, co-pilot, and two mechanics.He doubted that anyone had ever been given such special treatment in history; and probably never would again in the future.He recalled the cynical remark of a not-so-famous pope once: "Now that we have the Curia, let us enjoy the power." Well, he, too, enjoyed the journey and the ease of weightlessness.By being free from gravity, he is also—at least temporarily—free from the troubles of life.Someone once said: You may be frightened in space, but you will never be upset in space.Exactly right!

It appeared that the flight attendants were determined to make him eat non-stop for the entire twenty-five hours of the journey, and he had to refuse one dish after another.Contrary to the ominous predictions of early astronauts, eating in the absence of gravity is not a problem.He sat at an ordinary dining table, on which the plates and cups were fixed, as in a ship tossed and tossed across the ocean.All kinds of dishes are a little sticky, otherwise they will fly away and float in the cabin.So pork chops had to stick to the plate with gravy, and salads had to be tossed with a gummy dressing.

With attention, and a little skill, there are very few things that cannot be handled safely; only hot soup and particularly crumbly pastries are off limits.Beverages, of course, are a different story; all liquids come in plastic squeeze tubes. The design of the toilet - painstakingly worked out by a whole generation of heroic but under-appreciated volunteers - is now largely invulnerable.Shortly after the free fall begins.Freud made some investigations.He went in and found that it was equipped with the equipment of ordinary toilets in airplanes, but it was illuminated by a red light, which irritated the eyes uncomfortably.A notice in large letters said: "For your comfort, please read the following instructions carefully!!!"

Floyd sat down (as people do, even in weightlessness), and read the announcement several times.After making sure nothing had changed since his previous trip, he pressed the "Go" button. An electric motorcycle on the left starts to spin, and Floyd appears to be moving.As the circular said, he closed his eyes and waited.A minute later a soft bell rang, and he opened his eyes and looked around. The light was now a pleasant pink and white; but, more importantly, he was again under the influence of gravity.Only the slightest tremor indicated that it was a false gravitational force, caused by the whole lavatory spinning like a roulette horse.Floyd picked up a bar of soap and watched it fall in slow motion; he judged that the centrifugal force was about one quarter of the normal gravitational force.But it's good enough; everything is guaranteed to move in the right direction, which is crucial in a toilet. He pressed the "Stop, ready to go" button, and closed his eyes again. As the rotation stopped, the gravitational force gradually disappeared, the bell rang twice, and the red warning light came back on.The door was now fixed in place, allowing him to slide into the cabin, where he attached himself to the carpet as quickly as possible.He had long since lost the novelty of weightlessness, and was glad that a pair of velcolo loafers enabled him to walk almost as usual. Even just sitting and reading, he has enough entertainment.If you get tired of reading official reports, memos, and records, you can connect the letter-sized "news pad" to the intelligence line of the spacecraft, so that you can browse the latest news on Earth.He can summon the world's major electronic newspapers one after another like a mantra; he has memorized the call signs of all the more important electronic newspapers, and there is no need to check the schedule printed on the back of the "news mat" in his hand.He turned on the short-term memory device on the display and quickly scanned the headlines on the first page, remembering that those were worth reading.Each piece of news has its own two-digit symbol; press the symbol, and a postage stamp-sized piece of news expands to fit the size of the screen for comfortable reading.After reading one article, you can dial back to the full page and choose another article to read carefully. From time to time the captain and other members of the crew walked into the cockpit and chatted with him a few words.They were in awe of the honored guest, and undoubtedly curious about the purpose of his visit, but they dared not even hint at it, as it was too polite to ask questions. Only the cute little female flight attendant seemed unrestrained in his presence.Freud soon discovered that she was from Bali, bringing a certain quietness and mystery of the largely unspoiled island beyond this horizon.His strangest and most fascinating memory from the trip was her performing certain classical Balinese dance moves in the absence of gravity, against the backdrop of a blue-and-green fang-shaped Earth. There was a period of sleep on the way, the main lights in the cabin were extinguished, Floyd wrapped his hands and feet with elastic sheets, and the rabbit had to float into the air by himself.The arrangement seemed rudimentary—but, in the absence of gravity, his mattressless bunk was more comfortable than the most luxurious upholstery on Earth. After he wrapped himself up, he fell asleep fairly quickly, but he also woke up once in a haze, completely unable to understand the strange environment he was in at that time.For a moment, he felt as if he had entered a semi-dark Chinese palace lantern; the dim light from the square seats all around produced this illusion.He then said to himself firmly and effectively; "Go to sleep, boy! It's just a normal moon landing." When he woke up, the moon had swallowed half the sky, and the braking action was about to begin. The wide, curved windows in the odd-shaped walls of the cockpit were now looking toward the sky, not toward the nearby moon, so he stepped into the control room.From here, on a rear-view TV screen, he can watch the final stages of the descent. The approaching mountains of the Moon are very different from the peaks of the earth; they have no dazzling snow cover, no form-fitting clothes of green plants, and no crowns of floating clouds.However, the strong contrast between light and shadow gives the Moon's mountains their own strange beauty. The descending ship hovered close to the day-night line, looking down at the tangled, craggy shadows, individual buttes gleaming in the slowly unfolding lunar dawn.Landing in such a place would have been scary enough, with all the possible assistance of all the electronics; but instead of landing, they drifted slowly away, toward the far side of the Moon. After his eyes gradually adapted to the dimmer light, Freud discovered that the far side of the moon was not completely dark.It shone with a ghostly light, and valleys and plains were still visible.The earth, like a gigantic moon of the moon, casts its splendor on the land below. On the driver's dashboard, lights flashed on the radar screen, and numbers flickered on and off the computer monitor, recording the distance to the approaching moon.As the jet engine began to decelerate slightly and steadily, the weight was gradually regained, and we were still more than a thousand miles away from the moon.After what seemed to be a long time, the moon slowly expanded across the sky, the sun sank beyond the horizon, and finally a huge crater filled the view.The spacecraft descended towards the peaks in the crater—suddenly, Floyd noticed that a bright light was shining at a certain frequency near a mountain peak.It's like the navigation light of an airport on Earth, and his throat tightens unconsciously as he stares at it.This shows that humans have established another foothold on the moon. At this time, the crater expanded a lot, the surrounding barriers were sliding out of the horizon, and the countless small craters in the crater also began to reveal their true sizes.Some of them, though very small in the distance of space, are innumerable miles wide, and could hold several great cities. Under the automatic control, the spaceship glides down from the starry sky and lands on a barren landscape. In the sky, the earth is like a gibbous moon casting a layer of silver light.Someone was shouting over the roar of jet engines, and there were bursts of electronic beeps in the cockpit. "The control tower at the Kelevius Base reports that Special Aircraft-14, you have descended smoothly. Please manually check the landing gear gate, water pressure and shock absorber air pressure." The driver pressed various switches one by one, and all the green lights were on. He shouted back: "All manual inspections have been completed. The landing gear brake, water pressure and shock absorber air pressure are normal." "Got it," replied the Moon.The landing continued in silence.Conversations were still plentiful, but now by machines, communicating with each other with opposing flash pulses, a thousand times faster than the slow-thinking men who made the machines communicated. Some of the peaks were already taller than the ship; only a few thousand feet above the ground, and the navigation lights shone like stars above a cluster of low buildings and alien vehicles.During the final stages of the descent, the jet engines seemed to be playing an eerie tune; the engines turned on and off, making one final fine tune to the dive. Suddenly, a whirlwind of dust covered everything, and the jet engine finally released a puff of air, and the spaceship shook gently, like a rowboat rippling in the microwave.It took several minutes for Floyd to truly appreciate the stillness that enveloped him and the faint gravitational pull that tugged at his limbs. In a little more than a day he made in absolute safety this unimaginable journey which man has dreamed of for two thousand years.For him, it was just a routine voyage, and he has now landed on the moon.