by Sue Nelson
Together with Commander Eugene ‘Gene’ Cernan, they drove a lunar rover vehicle in the Taurus-Litrrow valley region of the Moon a total of 19 miles (30.5 kilometres), the longest distance of any rover, and also collected and returned back to Earth the largest amount of lunar material: 110 kilograms (243 pounds). Along with the material from the previous sample-return missions, this lunar material had proved crucial for future plans involving longer-term stays and habitation on the Moon.
Transporting all the parts of a potential lunar base from the Earth to the Moon will be expensive and time-consuming, which is why a solution might be found by making whatever is required to shelter on the Moon from the available resources. So, in the same way as someone would build a shelter from palm trees and vegetation if stranded on a desert island, scientists and engineers are figuring out how to build the components of a Moon base out of the materials that are already plentiful there.
Fortunately, as a result of the Apollo missions, we know that the Moon’s surface is covered by a fine powdery layer of dust, known as lunar regolith. Once scientists on Earth analyse its composition and grain size, they could then accurately simulate it to an almost perfect match. By using 3d printers and fusing this simulated moondust together, a process known as sintering, scientists at the European Space Agency can literally print lunar bricks. The key then is to get the right size and shape so that they can interlock and produce the most stable and protective habitat for astronauts, since they will need shielding from radiation during longer stays.
Cowley brought out a big container of grey lunar regolith for Wally. It reminded me of a huge pile of iron filings. Wally put her hand into it and allowed the grains to slip through her fingers. ‘It’s very fine,’ she observed. ‘Like salt.’
The fusing, or sintering, can be done using microwave radiation, solar rays or directed laser light. ‘Part of our job here at ESA and also DLR,’ said Cowley, ‘is to understand what’s the best approach to do this, and what kind of parameters do we have to take into account to actually produce a usable material at the end.’
DLR referred to the German Aerospace Center, often known as the German Space Agency. One of its buildings was across the road from the Astronaut Training Centre. How odd that two space agencies in Europe differed on the spelling of the same word – the American center versus the English centre – but agreed on how to make lunar bricks. Scientists from both centres were collaborating on the project.
At DLR, Professor Matthias Sperl showed Wally a piece of rock. ‘This lunar simulant material is mixed out of volcanic ashes to reproduce the physical and chemical properties of lunar dust,’ said Sperl. ‘Then we put that material inside a solar oven, and then concentrated solar light basically melts part of the grains and glues them together to make a brick.’
The fist-sized piece had taken two hours to make.
‘Okaaay,’ said Wally, underwhelmed. ‘I was expecting a square brick, but this is a piece.’
Sperl opened a glass-cased cupboard and brought out a small black-grey house brick. Its cross-section resembled layers of dark volcanic rock with an almost crumbly but hard texture. ‘You can see this brick was produced layer by layer, but this [brick] can produce more complex structures on the Moon. It took us about five hours with current technology to produce that,’ he said. ‘That may seem awfully slow, but compare that to the funds that would be needed to transfer it to the Moon. Here’s a more refined version. It’s still a little dusty …’
He wiped his hands together, and then held a different brick up so we could see that it wasn’t a rectangular block. ‘It’s shaped like a door handle.’
The idea was to stack and interlock these door-handle-shaped bricks together. The team was currently experimenting with different shapes and 3d printing them to see if they would produce a stable wall or half-dome shape. Once the most efficient brick design is identified, a robotic mission could take a 3d printer to the Moon and begin building structures before the astronauts even arrive. The structures would also help protect astronauts from radiation. Sperl offered to accompany us to a room where a box-shaped 3d printer was in action.
‘That’ll be terrific. Let’s do it.’
The printer whirred back and forth, constructing what would eventually be a simulated moondust brick, a single layer at a time. Wally was an enthusiastic interviewer. She delighted in seeing a 3d printer in action, meeting new people and witnessing the realities of making this future happen. At heart, Wally was an adventurer, but she also had an engineer’s brain. She wanted to take things apart, find out how they work, and put them back together again. She started off doing this with balsa wood planes as a child, before moving on to tractors, and the inside of cars, and then real aircraft. Wally often wished out-loud that she had the brainpower to understand more of the technicalities of space travel, but Wally underestimated the amount of effort she put in. Often she surprised me with her understanding of the science and engineering involved, particularly if it was engine-related.
After we had returned to the Astronaut Training Centre, Cowley took us to the site of the lunar dome. It was just a huge expanse of cordoned-off grass at this point but it was going to be transformed into the largest lunar analogue facility in Europe. A lunar analogue was simply a scientist’s way of saying that they were building a replica of the Moon inside, about half the size of a football pitch, for future lunar astronauts to practise on. To do this would require 600 tonnes of simulated lunar regolith. ‘Like the dust you saw and touched earlier on,’ said Cowley. Wally gasped.
‘We’ll work out what kind of technologies we’ll need for surface EVAs, to prepare our astronauts for walking on the Moon, to test astronaut rover interactions, and also we hope to have a small habitat dome attached to it as well where astronauts can spend some time and then transition outside taking samples. There will be a control centre too, so it will be mimicking a full mission on the surface of the Moon.’
Wally responded: ‘That is so outstanding.’ And she was right. Here was a future both new and familiar from the beginnings of spaceflight through to the Moon landings and beyond. Rather like Wally’s ambition to get into space after her achievements in the early 1960s, it was as if history had come full-circle.
Before a taxi arrived to take us to Cologne station for our train to Paris, I decided to try another impromptu recording outside. Wally’s unscripted commentary outside the cathedral first thing in the morning had been great.
‘Wally, could you say where we were and why we are here. As if we were going to meet Samantha.’
‘Sure. Where are we again – the European astronaut centre?
‘The Astronaut Training Centre’.
‘Can I say European Astronaut Training Centre?
‘Yes.’
‘Right now,’ she began, ‘we are at the European space training centre.’
‘Astronaut Training Centre.’
‘Right now we are at the European astronaut training centre, and we’re going to meet …’ There was a long pause; ‘… someone who could be the first lady on the Moon.’
‘Can you not say lady, and say first woman on the Moon?’
‘I’ve got to say the whole thing again?’
‘Yes … but say the first woman on the Moon.’
She began again. ‘Right now we are at the European space training centre—’
‘Astronaut.’
Wally got frustrated. ‘I need it on paper.’
I got out my notebook and she wrote down the exact title of the centre. ‘Right now we are at the European astronaut training centre, and we’re going to meet …’ There was another long pause. ‘… someone who could possibly be the first lady on the Moon.’
‘One more time. Woman not lady.’
‘Right now we are at the European astronaut training centre, which is a fabulous training centre from all the things I’ve seen, and then we’re going to meet a young lady …’ Another pause; ‘… somebody who hopes to be the first woman on t
he Moon.’
‘Perfect,’ I said. At least it would be once it was edited.
5
An American in Paris
When Wally was last in Paris in the mid-1960s, she parked her camper van beneath the Eiffel Tower. ‘I drove around it first, went up in the elevator – and what a sight that was.’
She gazed up around her. ‘The trees weren’t there and I don’t remember these buildings. But it’s incredible to walk right up to it again and take pictures.’
It was a glorious spring day. Not many of the trees around the Eiffel Tower had budded yet, but the Sun was out and the sky was almost free of clouds. The colour matched her blue cotton shirt. It was the one with an embroidered Wally and ‘Safety Judge’ on the right and a ‘Women Pilots’ Wings of Distinction’ patch on the left breast pocket. Just around the corner from the Tower, outside the European Space Agency (ESA) headquarters, a line of colourful flags fluttered in the breeze from the rooftops. The flags represented the twenty-two member states that made up this international organisation. ESA has facilities all over Europe, including the one that Wally and I had visited in Cologne the day before, but the one in Paris was where all the big decisions were made about policy and which space missions would get funded.
Inside ESA Director General Jan Woerner’s office, the planets slowly revolved above his desk in the form of a hanging mobile. It reminded me of the number of European missions that had explored our Solar System, from Venus Express, ExoMars and the successful ESA-NASA Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its ring system, to Rosetta’s extraordinary orbit and landing on a comet. Then there were the ESA missions yet to come, such as BepiColombo to Mercury and JUICE, which will head to Jupiter and its icy moons. None of these involved people. They were all robotic spacecraft – a cheaper and safer way to explore our astronomical neighbourhood than crewed missions. Woerner wanted to expand the space agency’s vision.
On the table where we were going to sit for our interview was a revolving Moon lamp. This was where Woerner’s vision lay, in a ‘Moon Village’. To my surprise, there was also a book on the Mercury 13. Unfortunately, it was that book. Wally’s face distorted momentarily, as if she’d sniffed something nasty. But what Woerner said next conquered her reservations.
When Woerner arrived at ESA in 2015, he had been chairman of the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) executive board since 2007 and chairman of the ESA Council from 2012 to 2014. Yet, when applying for the DLR position in 2006, he was concerned that his background in civil engineering wasn’t spacey enough for them, despite having worked within aerospace. During the interview he therefore felt the need to convince the committee that he was the right person for the job. ‘I took a risk,’ Woerner said, ‘and suggested I could tell them something about space that they didn’t know.’
That something was the story of the Mercury 13. Since no one on the panel had known about these women and that particular part of space history, it must have been a compelling listen. No wonder he succeeded in becoming DLR chairman and, not surprisingly, he was delighted to meet one of the women he had spoken about in the flesh. It also explained why my interview request, which had provided Wally’s background as well as the aim of The First Woman on the Moon programme to cover current government and commercial returns to the Moon, had been so readily accepted by the ESA director general. ‘You helped me get that job,’ he told Wally, ‘and probably where I am today.’
He nodded towards the Mercury 13 book on his desk. ‘I still use that book in my presentations frequently.’
Wally’s aversion to some of the book’s content caused her to mutter, ‘Maybe you should try the other one,’ but fortunately it was lost beneath the banter. Wally never went into detail about why the book irked her so much, other than mentioning that it repeated a few often-told but incorrect stories, but I suspected – from my brief glimpse – that it might have been because it contradicted a couple of Wally’s statements. I initiated a deflection manoeuvre, mentioning to Woerner that I’d made a radio documentary on the Mercury 13 in 1997.
‘As a child?’
Both Wally and I laughed. The man was on form. Any differences over the book were forgotten. I needed him to sit nearer to me and Wally, otherwise my arm, which held the microphone, wasn’t long enough to reach him. ‘It’s not possible,’ said Woerner jokily, shuffling his chair towards us. ‘I don’t think we can get any closer. Our knees are touching!’
Radio is an intimate business.
Wally prepared to read her introduction. We would also record it outside afterwards, in view of the Eiffel Tower, to give me several takes to choose from.
‘I’m in Paris at the headquarters of E-S-A, the European Space Agency.’
‘No,’ I interrupted. Wally had spelt out each letter individually. ‘It’s Eesa.’
Mispronouncing the European Space Agency’s shortened ESA was a common mistake. Although I had specifically spelt out Jan Woerner’s name phonetically on her script as Yan Verner to ensure the correct pronunciation, I’d forgotten to do the same for ESA. Wally got out her propelling pencil, made some amendments and started again.
‘I’m in Paris at the headquarters of the European Space Agency. The head of ESA, Man Verner …’
‘Yan Verner,’ I said.
‘Can’t I call him Mr Verner?’
‘No,’ said Woerner. ‘You can call me Jan.’
She took a deep breath and went back to the beginning. ‘I’m in Paris …’
The new start was way too loud in my headphones and the recording display on my equipment peaked into the red. It would be distorted. ‘Hold on, Wally, I’m going to have to turn the level down.’
Woerner was good-natured about the false starts. ‘For me, it was fine.’ Sides had been drawn. It was definitely them against me.
‘I’m used to talking in an airplane,’ Wally confided. ‘That’s why my voice is so loud.’
‘Of course.’ They giggled together as if in a great conspiracy.
Wally began her link again, but this time she mimicked the much quieter sing-song voice of a small child. ‘I’m in Paris …’
Woerner’s laughter nearly burst my eardrum.
Finally, Wally read her introduction and got it spot on. ‘I’m in Paris at the headquarters of ESA, the European Space Agency, which is within walking distance of the Eiffel Tower. The head of ESA is Jan Woerner who is at the forefront of plans to build an international community on the Moon. He calls it a Moon Village.’
Phew. The interview finally got underway, with Woerner explaining how a Moon Village would consist of public and private entities, astronauts and robots, to be an open environment for the world. He wanted an ‘open concept’, and believed that the Moon should become a place where countries around the world could gather, once the International Space Station was finally retired, for science, technology development and outreach. The Moon would become ‘the next outpost of humans on Earth’.
Woerner agreed that Samantha Cristoforetti would be the perfect person to go to the Moon, and maybe even become the first woman on the Moon. ‘She’s skilled, really smart and I like the fact that she has emotions. She feels we need to take care of the Earth. She is a very strong astronaut.’
‘I loved her,’ said Wally.
Woerner also confirmed that all ESA astronauts, not just Cristoforetti, were learning Mandarin ‘in order to be global players’. A more diverse future lay ahead within space, and women, thankfully, were considered an automatic part of it. Wally signed one of the postcards she kept with her for fans. She was in a blue flight suit covered in space patches, standing in front of an American flag. It resembled an astronaut’s pose before the Stars and Stripes. It said: ‘Wally Funk, Mercury 13 Astronaut Candidate’ and ‘Aviation Pioneer’. She signed it for Woerner. The head of the European Space Agency was absolutely delighted.
On the way out, while being escorted by a press officer, a woman crossed our path by chance and was introduced to us before we left the buil
ding. It was Claudie Haigneré, a medical doctor with a PhD in neuroscience who had developed experiments for the human body in space while working at the French space agency CNES. She was now Woerner’s special advisor but was perhaps best known in France as its first female astronaut. On 21 October 2001, she became the first European woman to visit the International Space Station on the Andromède mission.
Even though I had a specific interest in space and women’s history, I had heard little about Haigneré’s achievements. In July 1999, for instance, she became the first woman to qualify as a Soyuz Return Commander. This was the Russian spacecraft that could bring up to three astronauts back to Earth from the International Space Station. Since 2011, when the Space Shuttle had been retired, it was their only route home. She later went on to become the Minister of Research and New Technologies in the French government.
It reminded me of the fight women often have with visibility, no matter where they are from or which country is reporting their achievements. Helen Sharman, who became Britain’s first astronaut in 1991, is a case in point.
A scientist from Mars – the chocolate company not the planet – Sharman learned Russian and trained for eighteen months before heading to the Russian space station Mir on the Soviet Soyuz tm-12 space capsule. It was the twelfth expedition to Mir, and her eight-day mission was part of Project Juno, a privately funded collaboration between a British company and Russia. While on board, Sharman performed a variety of Soviet-designed experiments on seeds, materials and superconductors, and how the body adapted to weightlessness. She took up a miniature lemon tree (which stayed alive for three years) and also made radio contact with a UK school as part of her outreach activities.