Breathing deeply now, Stetson could clearly see his objective. The gimbal at the base of the array boom was the most likely culprit. Putting hand over hand, Stetson moved closer until he was finally able to reach out and touch the malfunctioning piece of hardware.
“Tony, I don’t see any sign of damage. It looks just like it did in the mockup and on the drawings.” He inspected the gimbal motor so closely that he nearly touched it with his visor.
“Roger that, Bill,” Chow responded from within the confines of the Orion. “Move your head to the right so I can get a better look.” Chow was referring to the helmet camera built into each astronaut’s spacesuit.
Stetson tilted his head, altering his vantage point so that the gimbal would no longer be quite as shadowed, giving his comrade a better view.
“Thanks. I can see it now. I’ve got the image on-screen next to the as-built image, and they look the same. No damage that I can tell, either.”
“Roger that. I guess I’ll see if I can kick it loose.” Stetson was speaking figuratively. He had no intention of actually kicking the array. Instead, he looked for a convenient place to grab on to it, and then he began slowly twisting the boom, searching for a way to get it moving again. He encountered resistance. The boom didn’t move.
Twisting harder in the clockwise direction, Stetson’s entire body began to pivot counterclockwise, causing Stetson to momentarily lose his sense of balance just like before when he had pounded his fist against the console. He laughed to himself and said, “Newton got me. Hold on.”
With that, he readjusted himself so as to get better footing on the handrail, wedging his boots to better anchor himself into position. Once he was satisfied that he wouldn’t torque himself instead of the boom, he grasped the boom and tried again. Still nothing. This time he didn’t slip, nor did he laugh.
After about ten minutes of twisting and turning without any success, he paused.
“Bill? May I make a suggestion?” Tony asked.
“Sure, go ahead,” Stetson replied.
“Why don’t I do another reboot while you are trying to work it loose? Maybe while the control system is not actively applying power to the gimbal’s motor, you can get it to move. It might be locked in place electromechanically. If so, you’d be pushing against not only the gimbal, but the motor driving it.”
“Great idea, Tony. Let’s give it a try.”
“On it.”
Since Chow had never done the reboot, not even in training, it took him a little longer than it had taken Stetson.
While he was waiting, Stetson had time to contemplate the mission and where he was. He decided that no one, other than another astronaut, could even come close to understanding the emotions and feelings that one experienced in a spacesuit traveling through space. God, I was meant for this. Stetson said this to himself, not really to God. My whole life led to this trip, and I love it.
He was shaken from his reverie by Chow’s voice on the speaker. “Bill, I’m ready. Are you?”
“Yes. I’ll start flexing as soon as you cut the power and start the reboot sequence,” Stetson replied.
“Okay. Here we go.”
A few seconds passed, and then Chow’s voice returned. “Now. The power is cycled down and getting ready to restart.”
Stetson didn’t hesitate. With boots still firmly wedged, he used both hands to grasp and twist the stuck array. Trying to move it first clockwise and then counterclockwise, Stetson jimmied the stubborn piece of hardware. He didn’t believe he was getting anywhere, and then, abruptly, he felt a jolt and the whole gimbal began to move. Looking up at the array fan, he could see that it was starting to move under its own power. Moving his hands back from the boom and the gimbal so as to not interfere with its motion, Stetson watched as the array rotated and began again to track the sun.
“Bill, you did it. The board says the array is working, and I think I can see it moving in your helmet camera. Does it look okay to you?” Chow sounded ecstatic.
“Tony, it’s moving. I’m coming back in.” With those words, Stetson began his climb back toward the hatch.
After Stetson reentered the Orion, he repressurized the cabin, and then he and Chow removed their spacesuits. Even though the thermometer showed that the temperature of the cabin was where it should be, Stetson felt cold. He always felt cold after an EVA, and he attributed it to the psychology of having been floating in the endless frigid void of space. He knew he would warm up; it was just a matter of time. Of course, there was also a checklist to be completed after an EVA—it took them close to thirty minutes to complete it.
“Tony, we need to see what we can off-load from Altair. Have you got the latest list from mission control?” Stetson was referring to the fact that the range safety experts would not allow them to remove any items from the Altair or the Orion while the vehicle was on the pad in the days before launch. Having engineers mucking around with the cargo, messing up the mass distribution and balancing, not to mention being around during the final checkout, was just too much for the safety guys. Instead, the engineers in Texas and Alabama had come up with a list of items that could be thrown overboard to reduce the mass of the Altair’s ascent stage so as to allow all six people to get off the surface of the Moon.
Chow, looking at the list as it scrolled across his personal view screen, replied, “Bill, they met the target with about ten kilograms of margin. We can get most of this off the Altair once we land. There’s not much we can do until then. We don’t want to mess with much of it until then—we don’t want some of this to get loose until we’re under gravity.”
“I knew they’d come up with a plan. I’ll look it over myself in a few minutes.”
With that, Stetson and Chow were able to sit back and, for a few hours at least, enjoy their ride.
Chapter 23
The four-person crew of the Chinese ship Harmony huddled together in the near-complete darkness of their ship’s crew cabin. The only light penetrating the blackness came from the LEDs on the instrument panel, showing which of the pitifully few systems were still powered on. Since the crash, the taikonauts had powered down virtually everything except the thermal-control system and, sometimes, the radio, in order to conserve power. The situation had been scary and uncomfortable, but not critical when the sun was in the sky, but now that the fourteen-day night had begun, every milliwatt of power translated directly into a few minutes of life. Power was heat, and in the unbelievably cold lunar night, heat was in short supply.
Harmony’s captain, Hui Tian, surveyed the status of her crew by turning her head to look at each directly. Spacesuit helmets didn’t allow for any peripheral vision, and in order to see something, she had to look at it directly.
To her immediate right was the ship’s physician, Dr. Xu Guan. The relatively tall and gray-haired Xu had weathered the crash fairly well and was fully engaged in keeping everyone functioning. Though his dry sense of humor was greatly appreciated during the flight out, it didn’t do much to boost morale after the crash. But that didn’t stop him from trying. No matter what the situation, Xu seemed to have some pithy comment at the ready. When they last spoke privately, Xu admitted that as a youth he had wanted to be a comedian but his father had disapproved. No doubt his patients back on Earth appreciated his humor more than the crew of the Harmony—at least at the present moment. Xu had propped himself against the wall with Harmony’s pilot, Ming Feng, leaning against him.