Post by account_disabled on Dec 30, 2023 5:16:23 GMT
From this distance the lunar outpost resembled a large grape half buried in the eluvial deposits of the plain. Victor Bresnik had left the southeastern reaches of the Kies B crater behind him and was now looking from the approaching rover at what would be his home for six entire lunations. Alone, the only man on the Moon, for a mission he had believed in from the beginning. Donald Corbin, Director of Crew Operations, a guy who never failed to wear a baseball cap over his suit, didn't have to convince him to go on this solo space adventure. Victor, divorced for a year and a half and intending to stay there, had realized that he only loved space. Marriage wasn't for him, even though he initially thought he could live with a wife at his side. However, he soon realized that he wanted something else in life, something that no woman could ever give him: the sidereal void beyond the Earth.
Breaking away from the planet and reaching unexpected goals - even if he was aware that he could never go beyond the Moon or Mars. But for him it was enough to leave the earth's atmosphere, penetrate the darkness of the cosmos, navigate the spatial nothingness. Many of his colleagues had confessed to feeling a certain claustrophobia in the Special Data spacecraft, but Victor felt at ease in the narrow compartments of the capsules. Seven months before his departure Corbin had summoned him to his office, a large room full of NASA publications , from whose walls the smiling and motionless faces of high-ranking personalities of the agency stood out. On a shelf, the long history of space exploration was told in miniature by a series of metal models, starting from the old Apollo missions up to the Columbia shuttle and the first missions to Mars.
Behind Corbin, right next to the large window, Victor had noticed the poster for the new EcoMoon space program. It had already been talked about for some years and the first tests of the Eris launch vehicle, which would have sent man back to the Moon, had proved more than satisfactory. “Are we ready to live on the Moon?” Victor asked that day with a mixture of enthusiasm and apprehension. “Not really,” Donald replied. «For now it will just be an outpost. A sort of temporary base, if you want to call it that. With the first mission, EcoMoon 1, we first of all want to study human resistance in prolonged stays on lunar soil, with the lowest energy consumption. Yes, it will be an ecological stay, based on energy saving and experimental plant cultivation. It is an important mission, Victor, perhaps the most important and delicate of the new lunar program.
Breaking away from the planet and reaching unexpected goals - even if he was aware that he could never go beyond the Moon or Mars. But for him it was enough to leave the earth's atmosphere, penetrate the darkness of the cosmos, navigate the spatial nothingness. Many of his colleagues had confessed to feeling a certain claustrophobia in the Special Data spacecraft, but Victor felt at ease in the narrow compartments of the capsules. Seven months before his departure Corbin had summoned him to his office, a large room full of NASA publications , from whose walls the smiling and motionless faces of high-ranking personalities of the agency stood out. On a shelf, the long history of space exploration was told in miniature by a series of metal models, starting from the old Apollo missions up to the Columbia shuttle and the first missions to Mars.
Behind Corbin, right next to the large window, Victor had noticed the poster for the new EcoMoon space program. It had already been talked about for some years and the first tests of the Eris launch vehicle, which would have sent man back to the Moon, had proved more than satisfactory. “Are we ready to live on the Moon?” Victor asked that day with a mixture of enthusiasm and apprehension. “Not really,” Donald replied. «For now it will just be an outpost. A sort of temporary base, if you want to call it that. With the first mission, EcoMoon 1, we first of all want to study human resistance in prolonged stays on lunar soil, with the lowest energy consumption. Yes, it will be an ecological stay, based on energy saving and experimental plant cultivation. It is an important mission, Victor, perhaps the most important and delicate of the new lunar program.