Analog SFF, January-February 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Yep. Even allowin’ for a little exaggeration on the part of the journalists who go over there, that seems to be the size of it. They haven't been able to squash the spirit out of people, though. Look at the Hungarians in ‘56, the Czechs last year, those Germans that try to get into West Berlin any which way they can. The Russians build a wall around the place, but they tunnel under it, climb over it, or swim around it. Won't be long before they decide to make pole vaultin’ the national sport so they can all defect to the West. I can't see how the Soviets think they can keep people in line forever, much less why they think it'd be a good idea. I guess they've got propaganda tellin’ people it's for their own good."

  "Well, it looks like tomorrow they'll have one more piece, because their guys will be on TV singing ‘Happy birthday, dear Vladimir,’ from the Moon."

  "And if they need our help to get back home, everybody will remember that they couldn't do it themselves. It ain't all bad. We'll get a good look at their equipment as soon as it hits our turf, a fact that probably hasn't escaped the folks back there in Washington. Won't surprise me if there's a slight shipping delay in getting’ it back to them due to unexpected circumstances. I'll bet they're roundin’ up every expert on Soviet technology they can find and getting ready to go over that capsule with a fine-tooth comb."

  "You're not going to get any takers on that bet either."

  "Shucks, if everybody keeps declinin’ my bets, I'm gonna have to give up gamblin'."

  "You win all the time, so people stop playing.” He yawned, then glanced at his watch. “Almost one A.M., and another half hour before we get to watch their dog and pony show. Think I'll walk around a bit."

  * * * *

  The big mission control center was even more crowded now, since new people had come on shift and the old ones hadn't left. A few of the specialists and technicians who were assigned to other areas looked at Mc Cauley with concern, but he waved his hand dismissively. “Relax, I understand. I'd want to be here too. Anything urgent that needs to be done at your station?"

  Most of the men shook heads no, but one thought for a moment and started walking quickly toward the door. Mc Cauley had a sudden idea and pointed at a weather forecasting team.

  "You! Who in your unit makes the best coffee?” When three people pointed at the same man, Mc Cauley addressed him. “Go make as much as you can and bring it here. Just make sure one cup of it stops at my desk.” He glared at Conley. “We have an excess of engineering talent and a shortage of culinary skill around this place."

  Conley smiled back at him, unfazed. “Wasn't hired for my looks or my cookin',” he said mildly. “Not that either one is my strongest point, I'll grant you."

  Mc Cauley didn't answer, as something had caught his eye. In the midst of the crowded, noisy room, Butler was writing in a notebook, the spacing of the lines making it clear that it was a poem. He paused in mid-line to glance at a clock and flip a pair of switches, then went back to his writing. Mc Cauley walked silently to his side.

  "What do you have there?"

  "Oh, just an idea that came to me."

  "May I see?” He picked up the notebook and read out loud:

  * * * *

  "Ours was the time when dreams were spun

  In sculpted shapes of shining steel

  And trips to distant worlds begun

  Where strange configured starfields wheel

  So when our lives are long forgot

  Remember we in pride did say

  We visualized the ships you fly

  As first we launched ours on their way."

  * * * *

  There was a long moment of silence, and then Mc Cauley asked, “Is there more to it?"

  Butler shrugged. “Is there more that needs to be said?"

  "No, I think that about covers it.” He contemplated the room full of people who awaited a landing on the Moon and then gave the notebook back. “The important stuff is all there."

  The cup of hot coffee arrived at the console just as a phone rang. The engineer at that desk picked it up and gestured to Mc Cauley. “Call transferred from the switchboard, sir. It's Washington."

  Mc Cauley took the receiver and listened for a moment. “Yes, sir, we'll watch for the feed.” He listened for a moment, looked at some papers that a mathematician had just given him, then spoke into the phone again. “We have the numbers, sir. If he only stays down for one full orbit and then fires the lander's engines for rendezvous with the Soyuz, they'll rendezvous about four hours from now. If they're low on oxygen, that's probably what they'll do. If their problem is fuel, he could stay there for another orbit, so call it six hours. After that, two and a half days to touchdown. Yes, sir, thank you."

  He hung up the phone and glanced at Yeager. “Channel eight, large screen, all non-critical stations. It's a news feed.” The tech nodded and started flipping switches on his console. About half of the flickering screens that lined the huge room went momentarily blank, then lit up with pictures of a huge parade float traveling a snowy street. On the front was a huge statue of Lenin on a red carpet emblazoned with the dates 1870-1970. Thousands of people in overcoats and hats clapped obediently and cheered, and the tinny sound filled the Mission Control room. Over the faint music of a military band they could hear the voice of the translator, obviously from the Radio Moscow English language service.

  "Here, the Soviet people show their solidarity with the workers of this world, at the same time as they explore a new world, inspired by the glorious thought and irrefutable logic of Comrade Vladimir Lenin...."

  "Turn that down, please,” Mc Cauley requested, his voice flat. At Conley's questioning look, he explained, “Administrator Low said that there's going to be a live broadcast from the Moon in a few minutes. We might as well watch it."

  At a nearby console, Butler jerked in his seat and adjusted his headphones, then turned to Mc Cauley. “Sir, message received from the Soyuz orbiter."

  "For us?"

  "In English, two words. ‘Please record.’”

  "Reply, ‘Affirmative, Luna.'” He swallowed hard. “And tell them congratulations."

  "Sir."

  "They've been having communications problems with their own station, probably want to make sure the moment gets preserved,” observed Conley. “Well, the day will come when it's our turn. When our guys are up there, we'll want a nice clean signal relayed via Moscow."

  "Not Moscow, Baikonur,” corrected Mc Cauley. “That's where they launched this bird from...."

  "Well, knowin’ the Russians, if sending the message through bacon-ear is the right thing to do, they'll send it through Moscow."

  Everyone in earshot laughed at the joke, even as the screens showed high-stepping soldiers with the Kremlin in the background. “An early lead ain't everything,” continued Conley. “The South won all the early battles in the War Between the States, and look how that turned out."

  "With the United States’ centers of space operations in Florida and right here in Texas, both loyal states of the Confederacy,” added a nearby man whose accent proclaimed him a local. “Next time we feel like leavin', we'll have the high ground."

  "Let's not start that again,” intervened Mc Cauley. He was interrupted by a blare of trumpets from the tinny speakers, and the screens showed a solemn group of elderly men in dark suits sitting next to a podium. A jowly man with thinning silver hair walked ponderously to the microphone while everyone else applauded stiffly.

  "Workers of the glorious Soviet Union, oppressed peoples of the world...” the translator began.

  "Turn the sound off,” ordered Mc Cauley. “It's bad enough to watch this, but listening to Brezhnev is too much. It makes about as much sense with or without the translation."

  The camera cut to a picture of Lenin's tomb in Red Square, then of the embalmed corpse in its glass case, then back to Brezhnev.

  "That last one looks deader'n the one that came before it,” observed Conley.

  Mc Cauley was about to fire back wit
h a smart remark, but the action on the screen caught his attention. Brezhnev made a gesture toward a huge projection screen, which suddenly came to life. There was a gasp throughout the control room as a barren landscape of small craters and distant mountains came into view.

  "Turn up the sound,” yelped several voices immediately, and Yeager twisted the volume control.

  "...this live broadcast from the surface of the moon, from a camera mounted on the Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl, the jewel of Soviet technology and proof of superiority over the efforts of the decadent capitalists of the United States."

  "Turn the sound back down,” complained a couple of voices, but more people shushed them.

  Butler jerked in his seat again. “Message incoming from the orbiter, sir. I am recording."

  Mc Cauley nodded, still transfixed by the image on the screen. A suited figure came into view from the left side, moving slowly down a ladder while carrying something under his arm. The image seemed to blur, and Mc Cauley reached for a handkerchief to wipe the tears from his eyes.

  "Oh ... my ... God,” he heard Butler gasp. He heard the sound of other men sobbing, muttering curses, or praying. Even the pompous English translator had shut up in that majestic moment.

  The suited figure paused on the last rung of the ladder and unfurled a Soviet flag, the hammer and sickle bright even in the foggy TV picture from the moon. He announced something in Russian, held the flag outward in salute, then dropped it. It took a moment to fall to the ground in the feeble lunar gravity. The cosmonaut stepped on it, then took another step onto the surface of the moon.

  The picture suddenly cut away to a view of the communist party functionaries, one of whom had fallen over and was receiving medical attention. Brezhnev's mouth was moving, but either he wasn't actually saying anything or the translator wasn't translating. Butler flipped a switch, and though the picture stayed the same, the Mission Control room was filled with a different voice, intelligible despite the speaker's accent and the distortion from the great distance.

  "...have decided we cannot celebrate the lies of Lenin, who promised prosperity, while fifty years after the revolution of 1917, the only ones who are well fed are the apparatchiki and the generals. Lenin promised peace between all communists, but on the border with the Chinese we await a war. Lenin promised freedom, but the walls and barbed wires keep our people in cages."

  "That video feed is still coming from the moon. Get it for me,” Mc Cauley demanded. While Butler flipped channels, the speech from the orbiter went on.

  "We therefore will do what other Soviet citizens can not, which is to make our own choice of where we will travel."

  "Got it!” shouted Butler, and the screens around the room showed the lunar surface again. A piece of paper with a hand-drawn American flag was on a short pole, and a man in a pressure suit was saluting it.

  "We have decided that we will not be landing in the Soviet Union,” the accented voice continued while shouts and cheers rang out in mission control. “We will try life in a new country."

  "You got your wish, Mac,” marveled Conley from somewhere just behind him. “The first man on the Moon is an American. Unless you think that the State Department will refuse his citizenship request."

  "That paperwork is going to be processed faster than any other application in history,” exulted Mc Cauley.

  "Meanwhile, you have any friends in Southern California? I think you might want to call and tell them you'll be visitin’ real soon, and they should stock up on charcoal, beef, and liquor. Our friends expressed a wish for a really good steak, and I think you have about three days to develop a taste for vodka."

  Over the noise in the room, Mc Cauley could hear the line from Washington ringing. He ran to answer it.

  Copyright © 2008 Richard Foss

  Author's note: The poem “Apollo” was written by NASA Mission Control technician Robert E. Butler in 1969, and was previously unpublished. Thanks are due to Chris Butler and the late Robert E. Butler for technical assistance with this story.

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  Reader's Department: THE ALTERNATE VIEW: ENERGY CRISIS *REDUX:* A POLEMIC by Jeffery D. Kooistra

  I got so angry when I drove into the service station and saw the price on the pump. I needed gas so I couldn't just drive away, but this was ridiculous! Gasoline should not cost this much! As I was pumping fuel, I groused about the cost some more, and wondered if I should fill up or hope the price would go down in a few days and only fill the tank half way. I was very frustrated with “our leaders"—those people in business who run energy companies, and in government those whom we elect to anticipate and solve problems before they occur.

  They'd all failed me. They'd failed us all. It had been obvious to everyone for at least 25 years, I thought, that oil would one day run out, that gasoline could not always be cheap, that we could not forever rely on other countries to supply our energy needs. And yet not one damn thing had been done in all that time to guarantee that our energy future would be secure.

  I resolved immediately to walk more often to the places I wanted to go. However, living in the Midwest, a place laid out in just such a way as to make driving an absolute necessity for getting around in ordinary life, this was not much of a resolution. In practice, it was impossible to stick with it. I think I walked from home to my friend's apartment twice. I lived too far away from work to walk there even once.

  By the way, did I mention this happened 30 years ago?

  * * * *

  What had so incensed me at the pump that day was that gasoline had shot up to the unheard of price of, I think, 77 cents a gallon. To fill my 20-gallon tank it was going to cost me about what I made in five hours, before taxes. Although it costs me less, measured in hours worked, to fill up today, my minivan tank doesn't hold 20 gallons. I also make a lot more per hour now than I did then with my barely-over-minimum-wage job and I didn't have the expenses of a mortgage, utility bills, and children. What has not changed is that, as I thought 30 years ago and never would have thought would still hold true today (if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes), not one damn thing has been done in all that time to guarantee that our energy future would be secure.

  I don't know if it's tragic or just funny that many of the same “fixes” from back then are being suggested for dealing with the current energy crisis. It was true back in the ‘70s and it is still true today that we don't have an actual energy crisis. We're awash in energy and the world is not running out of oil anytime soon. The crisis is in our wallets in that we don't want to (or for many of us, cannot for much longer) spend as much for gasoline (or heating oil, or natural gas, or diesel fuel, or electricity) as we are spending now.

  This financial crisis is a serious problem for everyone. Though it is easy to pick on people who are driving big SUVs that they suddenly can no longer afford to keep on the road (gas prices went up between 25 and 30% in one year), and laugh at their supposed vanity for owning them in the first place, their money problems propagate through the entire economy. Many can't sell that SUV because the car shoppers who can still afford to own one don't buy used cars, especially when dealerships are trying to unload new ones at bargain prices. Everyone else out car shopping is also looking for something small and energy efficient, which means there is also a shortage of small, energy efficient cars, at least for a while. This means most current SUV drivers are stuck with their big vehicles. This means that money will be spent on gasoline that otherwise would have been spent on clothes, or computers, or refrigerators, or TVs, or on trips to the restaurant, or on subscriptions to Analog, or dues to SFWA....

  And this means that even a Green waitress—who would never own an SUV, who takes the bus to work, who recycles, who supports saving the rain forests, and who just bought her first little energy-efficient house a year ago—will default on her mortgage when she gets laid off at the restaurant because SUV owners can't afford to eat out as often.

  The national economy will continue to weaken one falli
ng liberal and conservative, red and blue state, Green and non-Green, domino at a time.

  As I write this in the summer of ‘08, there is talk about reinstating the 55-mph speed limit, a less than perfect idea from 30 years ago. I have myself voluntarily started driving to work with my cruise control set at 60, just to save gasoline. I don't need any more incentive than the high price to give it a try, and I only lose a few minutes both ways by going slower. However, having lived in New Mexico for a few years back in the ‘80s ... well, I would never want to try to force someone who has to drive 150 miles to and from work each day to spend an extra half-hour or more on the road. If he's willing to pay for the gasoline so he can continue to spend that half-hour at home, I think that is his right. It is true that if everyone drove 55 on the highways instead of 70 or 75, it would conserve gasoline. But that would only put off the inevitable day of reckoning a short while. And the simple fact is that, if history is any guide, most people will not keep their speed down to 55, and the nation cannot conserve itself into either prosperity or energy independence.

  * * * *

  Just as we heard back in the ‘70s, once again we are being preached the virtues of clean renewable energy—solar power, wind power, and geothermal power (hydropower, not so much this time around, since no one wants to dam anything anymore). But it is also just as true today that there isn't enough solar, wind, or geothermal power around to meet our energy needs, nor is there likely to be.

  No one disputes that a solar power station big enough to supply the energy we get from a typical coal or oil-fired power plant would have to be huge. The back-of-the-envelope calculation is simple. Assume about one kilowatt per square meter as the energy flux for sunlight at the Earth's surface. But at 10% efficiency, ten square meters of solar cells are needed to obtain one kilowatt. To get one gigawatt of power, you need one million times that area. That's a square about two miles on a side. The sun doesn't shine at night, so figure eight hours a day of useful sunshine—now you're up to twelve square miles of solar collector to average one gigawatt of continuous power. Even the desert gets clouds, so we'd better double the size again (and that's being optimistic) to make up for losses we can expect from less than perfect weather. We're now up to 24 square miles of solar collector for that one gigawatt. A typical power plant supplies about five gigawatts. That means we need 120 square miles of solar collector to equal one typical fossil-fuel power plant, a square eleven miles on a side.