by Jeff Pollard
The Shenzhou itself is based on the Russian Soyuz design. It is a three-module ship, with a service module for equipment and propulsion, a re-entry module to carry space-travelers back to Earth, and an orbital module which is a non-heat-shielded extension of the spacecraft's usable volume. However, the Shenzhou is more different than the Soyuz than it might appear. It's quite a bit larger, encompassing 14 cubic meters of volume, compared the Soyuz's 8.5 cubic meters. The standard Shenzhou has even more volume than the combined Apollo CSM and Lunar Module (12.8 cubic meters). All this and the Shenzhou weighs in at less than 8 tonnes, while the Soyuz is just over 7 tonnes. In addition, the Shenzhou orbital module is a fully capable independent spacecraft (unlike Soyuz, where the orbital module is depressurized when it is decoupled). Some Shenzhous have left their orbital modules docked to the ever-growing space station when they depart to head back to Earth, and these remaining modules can fly independently of the larger station to carry out experiments on their own.
But Shenzhou 18 is different from any Shenzhou that has come before or will come after. This Shenzhou features a larger service module than the regular Shenzhou, bringing the total mass of the spacecraft up from about 7-8 tonnes on a typical mission to 12 tonnes. This increase comes mostly in the form of added propellant, which will be capable of sending the Shenzhou capsule from lunar orbit back to Earth.
This Shenzhou is destined to orbit the Moon.
The plan for the future lunar exploration is for a Long March 9C to launch 50 metric tonnes to a Lunar Transfer Orbit. This consists of the 12 tonne lunar version of the Shenzhou and a 38 tonne lunar lander. After the second stage of the CZ-9 sends the spacecraft toward the Moon, the Taikonauts will dock the Shenzhou with the lunar module and extract it from the spent upper stage. The lunar module will then perform lunar orbital insertion, settling the twin spacecraft into lunar orbit. Then all three Taikonauts will take the lunar lander down to the surface of the Moon, leaving the Shenzhou spacecraft unmanned in orbit. This lander is quite a bit larger at 38 tonnes than the Apollo lunar module that weighed in under 15 tonnes. Most of that mass is propellant, but because of the increased payload from 45 to 50 tonnes of the Long March 9, coupled with improved technology since the Apollo era, the Chinese lander's ascent stage will have a dry mass nearly double that of the Apollo lunar module. This increased mass allows three Taikonauts rather than two Astronauts, to spend more than a week on the lunar surface rather than just three days.
In later lunar missions, they can launch the Shenzhou spacecraft separately on a smaller rocket and have it meet up in Earth orbit with the Long March 9 payload, which could enable them to have a larger lander or more payload, increasing mission flexibility.
However, Shenzhou 18 is not a mission to land on the Moon, and it doesn't have all the hardware that is planned for the lunar program. Beneath the service module of the Shenzhou capsule is a lunar module simulator. Essentially it's a stripped down lunar module without a crew cabin. There is a descent stage with an engine and fuel tanks, but lacking the landing gear and much of the equipment that will be needed. Mounted above the descent stage is the ascent stage's propulsion module, but no cabin. There is a docking mechanism on the top of the ascent stage, but this is simply a means of connecting the spacecraft.
The crew of three Taikonauts orbit the Earth twice while they ensure all the systems are running correctly in their space ship, including the solar panels. Then the second stage of the Long March 9 is re-lit and they are sent toward the Moon. The payload atop this rocket is only 43 tonnes, not the nearly 50 tonnes of the complete spacecraft with full lunar module. This discrepancy gives the Long March 9 rocket some margin in case it under-performs on only its third flight. However the rocket performs roughly as expected and the second stage cuts out before it runs out of propellant.
The Shenzhou 18 crew dock and extract their lunar module simulator, and then perform a very slight burn to separate them from the spent upper stage. The lunar descent stage is tasked with performing lunar orbit insertion. It does this burn and another burn an hour later to circularize into a 100 km circular orbit. The descent stage still has more than 15 tonnes of propellant onboard. For the next four days, the descent stage propulsion system is used to make a series of plane-changes to the orbit of Shenzhou 18, each time making the orbit more polar, deviating farther and farther from an equatorial orbit, allowing them to document more of the lunar surface. After these four days, they simulate the liftoff of the ascent stage from the landed descent stage. The ascent stage propulsion system ignites at the same instant it is explosively decoupled from the descent stage, launching the descent stage away from the spacecraft along with bits of glittering debris.
The ascent stage is then used to lower the orbit of the spacecraft down to a circular 50 km orbit to enable them to closely reconnoiter the lunar surface, including Copernicus Crater, their prime landing target for the first landing. After a total of six days in lunar orbit, the ascent stage is then used to raise them up to a 50 by 200 km elliptical orbit before it is discarded. Then the Shenzhou service module fires up and sends the Shenzhou on its way for a three day trip back to the Earth followed by a fiery re-entry, a retro-rocket cushioned landing on Chinese soil, and the safe return of the first humans to leave Earth orbit since Apollo 17 came back in 1972, ending a period of nearly 50 years of stagnation in space.
The goals of Shenzhou 18 were practical: to test the descent and ascent propulsion systems in space, to test the Shenzhou spacecraft in cis-lunar space, to image potential landing sites, to demonstrate ability to orbit the Moon and manipulate that orbit. But the results of the mission had little to do with orbital mechanics or propulsion systems. The release of high definition images and video of two Taikonauts on a space-walk outside the Shenzhou spacecraft with the illuminated lunar surface beneath them and the Earth rising behind them while they inspected the spent ascent stage floating alongside their spacecraft had an immediate impact world-wide on imaginations, inspiring both awe and fear.
In America, an embattled presidential administration is less than eight months away from election day, while the opposition party is busy trying to figure out who should replace the current president. This administration had announced a plan to build a Moon base all the way back in 2016, and yet no Americans had left Earth orbit. After twelve years of Democrats holding the White House, a period that included the retirement of the aging shuttle fleet and the cancellation of not one but two NASA spaceflight programs, the pendulum was swinging in the other party's direction. Now with China seemingly poised to begin trampling metaphorically on America's now relatively ancient lunar footsteps, it sent many into a fearful, cold-war like mode. Kingsley often bemoans the fact that space exploration is tied up in nationalistic competitions. “Why a race? Why does it have to be a conflict we're trying to win? Can't we do it because it's worth doing, not because it's a glamor competition,” he would ask. But now in January 2020, he can't help but appreciate the funding increases that the new race has initiated.
Only a few hours after the safe return of the taikonauts of Shenzhou 18, the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) announces that in June they will launch Shenzhou 19, which will include a complete lunar module. However, the crew of Shenzhou 19 will not be landing on the Moon. Instead, the lunar module will be landing unmanned, demonstrating its capabilities, delivering a pair of small rovers that will explore the landing site, collect samples of lunar material and deliver those samples back to the lander which will tuck the lunar material into an external port on the ascent stage. The ascent stage will then return to lunar orbit, and the Taikonauts will then return to Earth with lunar material in hand. Shenzhou 20 will follow in October and will land 3 taikonauts on the surface of the Moon, with Copernicus Crater as their prime destination, making it the Chinese equivalent to Apollo 11 setting down in the Sea of Tranquility.
This announcement sends shock-waves through the United States, and the waves wash ashore in a conferenc
e room in Houston, Texas, where the teams from SpacEx, ULA, Bigelow Aerospace, Sierra Nevada, and Orbital Sciences are meeting.
“The last goddamn thing we need is the fucking Chinese landing on the Moon three weeks before election day,” NASA Administrator Mark Simon declares dramatically. Kingsley rolls his eyes. Simon is prone to these “motivational speeches” in which he yells and curses and tries to “light a fire under their asses.” Kingsley thinks of him like an incompetent football coach who yells and screams at players, working under the erroneous assumption that the difference between winning and losing will come down to his allegedly motivational scolding and not his fundamental misunderstanding of tactics and/or strategy. As a sports fan, Kingsley is annoyed by these kinds of coaches, instead admiring those who innovate with new strategies and an ability to think analytically about their choices, rather than following their guts. As a CEO with the chief of NASA trying to yell him into making rockets faster, K is not merely annoyed.
“I don't see why this changes anything,” Kingsley says.
“This changes everything,” Simon replies. “What the fuck do you think we're doing this for?”
“Not to beat the Chinese. You know the Moon will still be there after they land on it right?” K asks. “Honestly, what's the big deal? The Russians could have landed on the Moon in the '80s. Would we have thrown a hissy fit and tried to do it again to reclaim it? Is this capture the flag or something?”
“It's the symbolism you idiot, some fucking genius you are,” Simon mutters. “It's America on its ass, bunch of jerk-offs that can't get anything done.”
“While fucking Ping and Ling and Ding-Dong are putting small, slanty footprints on the Moon,” ULA President Parks adds.
“It makes us look like a bunch of morons.”
“We're about to start a Moon base,” K says. “So what if China recreates Apollo six months before we start the Moon base? We already did Apollo fifty years ago. They're not beating us. In fact, I'm excited about their mission. I wanna see what they find in Copernicus Crater. I'm excited about what Wang might find, I don't care that his name is Wang. I don't care what flag he plants in the soil. I'm excited about anyone going into space. Why do we have to turn this into a cold war pissing contest?”
“What do you, hate America, huh Kingsley?” Parks asks. “You don't care if we're the leaders. You're fine with China passing us?”
“What passing us? There are literally dozens of countries that could be landing people on the Moon right now if they had decided in 2000 that they wanted to do it. So China happened to decide that was important to them. So what?”
“It's the symbolism!” Simon insists.
“All I see are people, scientists, heroes, exploring new frontiers, expanding human consciousness, revealing ancient truths,” K says.
“All I see are fucking wing-dings pissing on the American flag and trampling Neil Armstrong's foot prints,” Simon replies.
“I didn't realize Manifest Destiny extended to the Moon,” K adds.
“Yeah, well, you wouldn't, you African dickhead,” Parks says.
“Hey Parks,” K says, “do you ever sit and think?”
“What the shit does that mean?”
“Do you ever just sit and imagine?” K asks. “Picture what it would look like out the window of your home on the Moon? Do you ever imagine what it would look like to have a full-Earth in the sky? Do you ever close your eyes and just let your mind play?”
“I'm not some fucking stoner, hippie, whatever the fuck you are.”
“Oh sorry,” K says, “for a minute I forgot we live in a world where mind-numbing things like alcohol are celebrated, but mind-expanding things are just for stoner hippies. Can you use what's left of your imagination to picture a world without people being imaginative? Imagine if everyone was just worried about the bottom line, the stock price, pretending like they had the biggest dick in the room. What a sad world that would be. And probably not a world where we had space travel. It's the people like me, the ones who sit and think, who imagine, we create things. Then people like you come along and turn them into weapons of war.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Parks asks. “Like I said, stoner-hippie. Fucking communist.”
“Some people see humans as being on different competing teams, and there can be only one winner. Other people see all humans as belonging to the same team. I'm in the latter group.”
“So you don't care if China beats us. You don't care if Russia beats us to Mars or if America becomes just another country, with just as much clout in the world as Canada. You wouldn't mind that?” Parks asks.
“I wouldn't mind America becoming just another country. American exceptionalism is not a good thing. If we use our place in the world to do great things, to inspire, to cure diseases, to actually foster freedom, I'm all for it. But to think that's what it's primarily used for requires a monumental lack of honesty in evaluating recent history.”
“Alright,” Vice President Walken says dismissively as he enters and all the people in the conference room stand up at once. “That's enough on the ethics of hegemony. Sit down.”
“He doesn't know what that word means,” K says, motioning to Parks.
“I know what it means,” Parks replies as the men retake their seats.
“Like it or not, the announcement from Beijing changes things,” Walken says.
“It shouldn't,” K adds.
“You're right, it shouldn't, we shouldn't care, but the American people care, and if they expect their leaders to be short-sighted, jingoistic xenophobes, then by-George that's what we'll be!” Walken declares sarcastically.
“So what's changing?” K asks.
“Well for starters, this eleven launch manifest you gave me,” Walken says. “That's not happening. We don't have time for ten incremental missions. We'll listen to your long term ideas, but for now, what we want is a manned landing.”
“That eleven launch manifest gives us redundancies. An extra lander in orbit, a lunar station that can be used as refuge. Without the whole plan, we open some pretty big black zones in the flight plan,” K says ominously.
“Be safe, be diligent. If you think you need redundant landers, then do that,” Walken says, skirting around directly telling SpacEx to take a risk, making it their decision rather than his.
“Or you could go for quality over quantity and just build one good lander,” Parks says to K.
“Cute,” K replies.
“First one to do it wins the Moon base contract?” Parks asks hopefully.
“Absolutely not,” Walken declares. “This isn't a race. But obviously we'd like to see one of you succeed before the Chinese. However, we're not going to make one company a sole-source. Got it? However the program shakes out, you'll all be included, or at least kept in the loop in case one of your competitors suddenly jacks up their prices by 300%. No more monopolies. That's the whole point of this exercise. Which is why we want you to demonstrate an actual landing, show us your spacecraft can do it, show us exactly how much it costs, and then we'll think about buying them.”
“You know it would be a lot easier to beat China if you divvied up the jobs and just assigned us each to a section,” the new Orbital Sciences CEO says. “Then we wouldn't have all this redundant development.”
“But if we did that,” Franken says, annoyed.
“Then we'd each have a monopoly on our little section of the program,” K finishes his thought.
“Exactly. So no fudging of the numbers, no sweeping things under the rug. Be safe, be cheap, and do it before the Chinese. We all got that?” Franken asks.
“They said October,” Parks says. “So we're shooting for September, is that right?”
“It would certainly help this administration if we had Americans on the Moon during the debates,” Walken says.
“But a South African on the Moon probably doesn't help you too much,” Parks says.
“We'll see,” Franken says before abruptly leaving the meeting.
Kingsley's eyes trace the words on a tablet, oblivious to the scenery rapidly passing him by. Caroline, in the passenger seat, watches the trees, the grass, the sky, flying past so quickly with no concern. She peers into other electric cars in their fixed matrix of vehicles. One of the consequences of driver-less cars is that highways become oddly stagnant, cars remain fixed relative to each other for long periods of time as if they were in a traffic jam. The car beside them hasn't seemed to move an inch in fifteen minutes. Caroline locks eyes with a girl, perhaps eight years old.
“Would you quit staring, you're gonna creep out our road-neighbors,” K says without looking up from his tablet.
“She's reading one of my books,” Caroline says.
“Really?” K asks, looking over. The girl turns away, but the book cover is still visible. Caroline had been writing kids books for the past few years. The books address scientific concepts and ideas but presents them with illustrations and descriptions that young children can understand.
“I beat your time,” a small voice comes from the back seat. It's Griffin. He's wearing an Oculus head-set that gives him a fully encompassing 3-d view of his game.
“Which one?” K asks from the driver's seat, a term that became anachronistic so rapidly that it stayed in use as a joke.
“Valles Marineris,” Griffin replies. “Beat you by half a second.”
“Damn,” K says. Kingsley had funded the development of a racing game with accurate physics that could be manipulated and scaled so that you could accurately drive a car on the Moon or Mars. The lower gravity and thin atmosphere on Mars provided a unique set of challenges. The sandbox style game allowed you to simply plop down start and finish points on a globe, and using accurate data on the surface of Mars, voila, you had a unique track.