USSR Hoax

27 MONTANA

The rover looked helpless, sitting motionless in the mouth of the menacing dark crater. Tom was tempted to shimmy down the steep incline to save the ride, but it was simply too risky. He couldn’t chance slipping into the deep hole. If only they had the rappelling line he had argued for.

Tom looked over at his partner, still brushing off dust accumulated from his fall. “You okay?”

Dusty looked up, and answered sadly, “I’m fine.”

Tom could tell his partner blamed himself for the loss of the rover.

A static-filled radio transmission sounded in Tom’s helmet. “Tom, H…ston, can yo…ech the rov..?”

The radio transmission was breaking up because the rover’s S-band antenna was tilted away from Earth, their only link back home from their current location. “David, that’s a negative. The rover is twenty-five feet down in the crater. The slope looks to be thirty degrees. I feel it’s too dangerous to try and retrieve.”

“Repe…”

Frustrated at not being heard correctly, Tom repeated in a stronger voice, “That’s a negative!”

“Copy. Term…ate EVA. Retr… to lun… mod…”

“Copy that, end EVA and return to Explorer by foot.”

Disappointed, Tom looked over at his partner who surprisingly looked shaken with shock in his eyes. Dusty frantically started making hand signals, pointing toward the control unit on the front of his suit. A sudden chill shot through Tom’s body as he feared the worst. Concerned Dusty’s backpack might have been damaged by the fall, Tom got in position so he could check the readings on Dusty’s Remote Control Unit. Tom’s heart rate soared seeing warning flags on three critical status indicators. Dusty’s backpack was quickly dying, which on its own would be a problem the two could deal with. But the terrifying fact was, they were experiencing what NASA had been sure would never happen—a double failure. Protocol dictated that when a backpack and the rover failed simultaneously, the astronaut with the broken backpack was to be left behind to die.

By not talking, Dusty was preventing Houston from knowing his situation, leaving it to Tom to make the call on what was going to happen.

Regardless of protocol, Tom couldn’t leave his friend to die, just as Sam hadn’t left Tom stranded in space during the Gemini fiasco. Suddenly Anne’s faint lipstick on Tom’s bubble helmet caught his eye. He instantly relived the moment he promised her he would do everything in his power to return home safely. Attempting to save Dusty went against that promise. Tom estimated he could handle the tough walk back to the LM on his own. But if he took Dusty along, Tom would have to share his oxygen and cooling water along the way, giving them a less than fifty-fifty chance of surviving.

A pleading expression on Dusty’s face showed that he knew what was expected, and he grimly did a cut-throat sign before pointing to his chest. Tom focused back on Anne’s lipstick one last time before looking directly into Dusty’s eyes. Tom couldn’t live with himself if he turned his back on his partner. A burst of adrenaline shot through Tom as he adamantly shook his head “no,” indicating he wasn’t going to leave Dusty.

Houston’s static-distorted transmission ricocheted in Tom’s ears. “Tom, is ever…ing okay? We are get..g bad rea..ings from Dusty’s bac…ck.”

Tom figured the rover’s tilted antenna that also fed the status of the astronauts’ backpacks, was now giving inconsistent readings, preventing flight controllers from determining exactly what was going on.

“Houston, Dusty’s backpack is fine. We are leaving now.”

Tom doubted mission control was receiving a TV picture because of the rover’s position. Even so, he still clutched Dusty’s arm and moved him out of sight of the camera.

Since the two had excellent radio reception between them, due to the VHF antennas on their backpacks, Tom figured if he whispered only Dusty would be able to hear him.

Tom said in a barely audible tone, “We need to hook you up to my buddy system and to your emergency O2.”

Dusty answered softly, “Are you sure?”

Without hesitation Tom nodded.

Sharing Tom’s cooling water would allow for a lower flow setting on Dusty’s emergency oxygen supply, extending his air time to sixty minutes. Once that air ran out, Dusty could use Tom’s emergency supply, allowing for a total of two hours of oxygen. Tom figured they would need to average a walking speed of better than two miles an hour to make it back to the LM before Dusty’s air ran out. This was an exercise they had never trained for since NASA insisted only one man was to walk back under such conditions.

Tom positioned himself behind Dusty’s backpack, pulled back the Velcro cover and removed the stored eight-foot-long emergency buddy hose. Dusty pulled a similar hose from Tom’s backpack along with the six-foot tether line. The men hooked up the hoses to the cooling water connections on each suit. Dusty then pulled down on his actuator cable to start the flow of his emergency oxygen supply. Tom connected the tether line between them. If they pulled apart from each other, the shorter tether line would take the brunt of the force, preventing the longer hoses from being damaged or disconnecting from the suits.

Pointing along the rim of the crater as the path back to the LM, Tom signaled for them to start walking and took the lead.

Right from the beginning, the two astronauts struggled to stay in sync over the rough terrain as they followed the rover’s wheel marks in the regolith. Every three or four feet Tom was jerked back hard by the tether line, causing him to stumble and sometimes lose his balance. No matter what speed he traveled, he couldn’t get in step with Dusty. Finally, one strong tug brought Dusty hard to the ground.

Tom helped his partner up and said quietly, “We need to step in unison.”

Dusty whispered, “How about we walk side by side so we can keep an eye on each other?”

Tom liked the idea. “Let’s give that a try.”

“T… Hou…on, how’s it go…?”

Tom decided he needed to level with David on the seriousness of their situation. Remembering the secret code that they had set up while playing handball, he said, “A-okay. Dusty is wiping off his visor. David, I have to say it’s beautiful here. In fact, Smoky Mountain looks like the hills I saw in Montana when I was nine.”

“Yo… wer… in Mon…a at ni…?”

David was confirming he understood. Tom added, “Roger, family vacation in Montana when I was nine. The hills also look like those we saw from our hammocks in Panama.”

“Dur…g surv…al train…g?”

Tom hoped this clue explained their situation. “Roger, during survival training.”

“Cop… th…t.”

Tom looked down the ridge, estimating they had another 100 meters before reaching the bottom. He took a moment and followed the rover’s lonely tracks with his eyes through the barren landscape to the point where they disappeared over a hill. He needed to decide what direction they were going to take when they reached the hill’s base. The sure way of not getting lost was to stay on the rover’s tracks all the way back to the LM, but it wasn’t the most direct route and would eat into Dusty’s precious air time. Once they had traveled over 400 meters from the rover, they would lose all transmission with mission control, unable to get any guidance. Houston would continue to be in the dark on where they were or how they were doing until they were within range of the Lunar Module’s S-band antenna. Tom decided the smart move was to deviate from the rover’s tracks in a more direct heading toward Explorer. With Earth directly overhead and no compass, their only bearing would be the sun. It was a risky move and one they couldn’t afford to screw up. If he miscalculated and they got lost, they were dead.

“THIS IS HOUSTON. Do you read me, Tom?”

It had been well over ten minutes since David had last gotten a response from the moonwalkers. His friends were out of radio range walking back to the LM. David took off his headset and slumped back in his chair. He stared at his monitor, wondering what he should do. He decided he should at least confide with Dick on what he suspected was actually happening on the moon.

Dick was finishing up with his discussion at the flight director’s console. David jumped up from his chair, hoping to catch his boss in the back of the room where it was a little more secluded. David briefly caught Joan’s eyes as he walked toward the back. She raised her hands, questioning what was up. He just shook his head, gesturing it wasn’t good, before reaching Dick.

David caught up with his boss, tapping him on the shoulder. “Dick, I need to talk with you a minute.”

Dick stopped and turned. “Sure, what’s up?”

Leaning in close, David spoke softly. “I think things might be more serious than Tom is letting on.”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“Tom and I set up a coded way of communicating so only I would know how bad a situation was. He just informed me they’re close to dying.”

Dick narrowed his eyes. “What’s this code?”

“Whenever he says a state followed by an age, the age is how bad things are, which is between one and ten, ten being sure death. He just told me the Smoky Mountains were similar to hills he had seen in Montana when he was nine.”

“I thought that seemed odd, considering what they’re going through. Maybe he’s just concerned about walking back since it’s never been done before. They have plenty of air, so everything should be fine, right?”

David shook his head. “I don’t think they do. I know Tom, and for him to state their situation is a nine, something bad is happening. I believe they’re experiencing a double failure, possibly due to Dusty’s backpack being damaged from his fall.”

Dick took a step back, wide-eyed. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“Tom made a reference to our survival training back in Panama. He mentioned the hills we saw from our hammock. Well, there were no hills, and besides, we were in a tent. But on one of those nights as part of our training, it was discussed what was expected of us if a double failure happened on the moon. Later that night alone in our tent, I asked Tom if he could ever leave his partner.”

“What did he say?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Shit.” Dick looked out to the front of the room with his jaw clenched, clearly weighing his options. After a long, motionless beat, he slowly turned back. “Since there is no way of confirming this hypothesis of yours, and nothing we could do anyway, I suggest we keep this to ourselves. No sense in alarming everyone.”

Dick looked up to the VIP room. “I’ve got to inform the wives everything’s fine.”

SILENCE SETTLED OVER the VIP room as Dick approached the front with definite purpose. Anne tapped her lips as she tried to get an early read on what might be coming. Her gut told her something wasn’t right.

Dick addressed the wives of the crew. “Ladies, I want you to know everything is fine. The men had to leave the rover because it slipped into a crater and was unreachable. We have terminated their EVA, and they are now walking back to the LM. There is nothing to worry about. All lunar EVAs are planned around the possibility of something like this happening. In fact, we have a name for it, called the “walkback limit.” This ensures the astronauts never venture farther away from the LM than they could walk back with the consumables available to them. Your husbands have plenty of air and cooling water. They have drinking water and even a couple of protein bars. This is something they have trained for.”

Joan stepped in. “Is mission control in the blind?”

Dick tipped his head forward. “Mrs. Grant, it’s obvious you’re a veteran at this. Yes, we are unable to communicate with the men right now, but that is expected until they are back within range of the LM’s antenna.”

Anne raised her hand and got a quick nod from Dick. “Tom mentioned a compass is useless on the moon because of no magnetic poles, so how are they going to find their way back to the lunar module while out of radio contact?”

As if expecting the question, Dick leaned against a seat and answered, “They simply follow the rover’s tracks. It’s not like other folks have been up there leaving trails to confuse them. Those tracks will lead them right back to Explorer.” He lifted both hands. “You see, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. In fact, Tom just casually radioed in that some hills he was looking at reminded him of those he saw in Montana when he was a boy.”

Anne tilted her head. Montana? “That’s odd. He’s never mentioned anything to me about being in Montana when he was young.”

After a startled pause, a curious smile appeared on Dick’s face. “I will let you all know as soon as they radio in.”

As Dick left, Anne whispered to Joan, “I’m not buying it. Why did David give you that look if everything’s okay? Plus, did you see Dick’s reaction when I mentioned not knowing Tom had been in Montana?”

Shrugging, Joan simply patted Anne’s leg. “I’m sure everything’s fine.”