The Dark of the Moon

By JT Riley

The Vision Problem:

To solve the great problems of the 21st century we need vision. Science fiction has historically provided this exact type of vision and thereby supported most of the great technological advances of the 20th century, perhaps most clearly, Apollo to the Moon. Now to address the great problems of the 21st century, like global warming, we will need such vision again. Science fiction stories can provide that vision, but they most powerfully show this effect if they are written for this purpose.

“The Dark of the Moon” is a collection of five hard science fiction short stories and three supporting science essays. It is volume one in a series of e-books called “Hard Squared Science Fiction” that intentionally set out to provide the vision people need to solve the great problems of the 21st century.

The Stories:

The stories in the first volume, “The Dark of the Moon”, are in two series; one supporting space exploration and the other exploring the symbiotic relationship between man and his machines.

The Andromeda Series has two stories in this volume, the title story “The Dark of the Moon” in which a cosmonaut, having worked himself to a state of exhaustion, has an epiphany on why human beings must explore space. The second story in this series, “I Want to Know” is a road trip in which two artificial intelligences, a mother and daughter, must drive an emergency vehicle across Mars to save their human crewmates. Along the way they explore what it means to do space exploration in the 21st century where the physical world action is supported by millions of people back on Earth in a parallel virtual world.

The Silver Series has three stories in this volume starting with “They are Not Coming”. This is a detective story set in the dark film noir style. This series makes the assumption that faster than light travel is not possible but that other civilizations have existed in our galaxy for a very long time and that they now know how to use deep time to overcome the vast distances between the stars. They have time on their side.

The alien cultures in these stories understand that after the human race achieves a sustainable Earth in the 21st century, we will then have the time to talk to the stars. Although a first contact story, this story is mostly about human beings first evolving a symbiotic relationship with their own machines.

The Science:

All these stories are support by technical discussions at the end of each story describing the hard science featured in the story and by three science essays covering: generating buy-in for space exploration, the symbiosis of man and machine, and why we are writing these volumes.

Apollo to the Moon was one of the greatest examples in history of a country buying into a visionary idea and then achieving it. We now know a lot more about the process of buy-in and how it operates in the human mind. Can we use this new information to address the great problems of the 21st century?

Men and machines have much too often been portrayed in a deadly competition, particularly in Sci-Fi movie blockbusters. This seems to come from a deep seated human fear and is the direct consequence of having a master/slave relationship with our machines. If you hold slaves, you fear slave rebellion. This has been true throughout history. The solution fortunately is very simple: Do Not keep slaves!

There is a powerful alternative to the maser/slave relationship that solves this problem it is simply to have a symbiotic relationship. Such relationships are common in nature but have rarely been explored for humans in science fiction. The symbiotic path is clearly a key path for a sustainable Earth and we need to now explore that path with vision.

Please join us in envisioning a great and exciting 21st century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JT Riley
• Release date: Jun 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301350025

JT Riley

The author has more than 25 years experience as a aerospace engineer having worked several Space Shuttle payloads and one Hubble repair mission. He is a designer who works hard to stay up with the many advances and problems of the 21st century. In addition to science fiction short stories, He has published two technical books and a number of articles. His hobbies include woodworking and walking.

Book preview

The Dark of the Moon

Hard Squared Science Fiction

Volume 01

E-published by Tom Riley at Woodware Designs

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Tom Riley

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for you use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All inquiries should be made to:

mailto:[e-mail]

~~~***~~~

The Dark of the Moon

Hard Squared Science Fiction, Vol. 01

Linked Table of Contents

Why– Introductory essay

Andromeda Series:

2. The Dark of the Moon -- Short story

3. Generating Buy-in for Space Exploration -- Essay

4. I Want to Know -- Short story

5. The Symbiosis of Man and Machine – Essay

Silver Series:

6. They are Not Coming-- Short story

7. Mr. Silver -- Short story

8. Free Rider -- Short story

9. NASA, Unions, and Vision -- Essay

10. Authors

11. Credits, Disclaimer & Acknowledgements

12. What’s Next

13. In Conclusion -- Essay

~~~~ First Short Story ~~~~

~~~ Go to Top ~~~

Why

Introductory Essay

We believe:

~~~ The 21st century is a century of change

~~~ There will be good changes

~~~ There will be bad changes

~~~ High-technology is our best way to push the balance to the good side

~~~ If we apply everything we know then,

~~~ We can do this.

We; the writers, artists and editors of Hard Squared Science Fiction, Vol. 01; feel that manned space exploration will be a key element in human history in our lifetimes. It will play a major part in both addressing the many problems that the human race will face and in taking advantage of the breathtaking possibilities in the 21st century. Our time is a time of great change, for both good and bad, but on balance we feel will be for the good.

A key element of the good part in all this change will be the establishment of the human race as a space faring species.

~~~***~~

By the phrase, Hard Squared, in our title, we mean science fiction stories that comply strictly with the laws of physics as we currently know them. These are select stories about what could happen in our universe in the near future. Elsewhere there may be fine stories with faster-than-light drives and lizard monsters from outer space; they do belong somewhere, just not here.

We here strive to provide believable images about what could happen and could happen soon.

Please join us in envisioning manned space exploration in our life time.

~~~ Go to Top ~~~

The Andromeda Series:

The Dark of the Moon

Tom Riley

Sometimes you do meet demons in the depths of space; but sometimes that’s not such a bad thing, especially if they are your own.

~~~ Short Story ~~~

Oh, God, how tired I am. He spoke out loud but not to anyone and not to himself. He sat on the narrow bench in the airlock and slouched against his pack. Every time he stirred, the tracked-in lunar dust ground between his boots and the metal floor, grating on his nerves. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ozerov was a tired man.

He had handed the damaged cable through to the tech robot as soon as the inner lock door opened. The repair should not take long; the remote robot operator, the American James McKay, was competent. And so Ozerov just sat: his close-cropped hair slick with sweat, his hands hanging down between his legs. He sat waiting.

It was the last task of the last job of Cosmonaut Ozerov's long career. Outside was the hard vac; and the dust; and the heat; and the cold; and the job, his job; and the loneliness, his loneliness. It was the very end-of-the-line. It was the west limb of the Moon where you really could hide from the noise of Earth behind any little roll of the terrain or shadow of a rim-mountain.

Outside, a dozen remotely controlled radio telescopes rested on the floor of Crater Grimaldi. The Earth hung well below the western rim of the crater, the rim blocking out the noise of all mankind. Radio noise, light noise, every noise -- all of it. For the approaching 14-Earth-day-long lunar night, the noise of the sun was blocked out too.

Like metallic gossamer, the radio dishes floated above their cold superconducting bases. Their commands came in and their data went out over a shoestring of fiber-optics cable. He had helped the robots plow that line into the lunar regolith. The line ran up eight kilometers through a pass in the eastern crater rim to a high point where the Earth could just be seen at all times. No radio transmitters were allowed here to disturb the silence. Even the local robots stood motionless when there was science to be done.

No one lived here of course; people are noisy. When it was needed, new equipment would be shipped to Grimaldi direct from Earth; then a single spacer would fire up a Lunar Hopper and join it. With one short burn he would enter a suborbital ballistic trajectory that carried him one quarter of the way around the Moon. The Armstrongville to Science Station Grimaldi express, one quick burn to start, one skillful burn to stop. The half hour between was all free-fall.

Found it, McKay called out, his head just visible on the small monitor. There is a fiber glass needle run up under the cable sheath. It nicked the cladding on a data line.

How long to repair? Nikolai barely moved his head. He was beyond caring what must be done; now he cared only how long it would take.

I can swap in a spare line in a few minutes, but I have to take data for a failure report first. Oh, one hour total.

That was par for this course. Give me a ten-minute-to-completion heads-up, replied Nikolai slowly.

~~~***~~~

Somewhere that cable had rubbed hard against its shipping crate. Perhaps it had happened in the flight from Goddard to the heavy lift spaceport at Plesetsk, perhaps in the Energia II ride up Earth's deep gravity well, perhaps in the trans-lunar insertion burn, perhaps while landing on the Moon. Somewhere a stray needle of glass fibers from the shipping container had lanced the cable and then slowly worked its way to a nerve. Just as Luna's cold loneliness had lanced Nikolai's once thick hide and now chilled him to the bone.

It was a simple job, this last job. Jump to the west limb science station and roll out one new instrument. Connect up a few cables and wait in the maintenance shack while the remote tech and the science team initiated the new system. He could leave the clean-up to the local robots and their controllers back on Earth.

He had taken charge of this simple little job so he would not have to think about the inevitable. He was overdue to be rotated back home and then retired. He had exceeded his lifetime hard radiation limit for a cosmonaut. There could be no exceptions. He was overdue to be turned out. And now he was overdue to complete. The simple little job had gone south.

Problems with the new equipment arrival check out had bumped him from the hopper schedule — not his fault. When the hopper was available, fuel was not — not his fault. When the fuel shipment arrived, other equipment broke down and the tech was tied up with that — not his fault. When they arrived at Grimaldi, the delivery vehicle for the new disk was sitting with one leg in a small crater. It took six hours to do the 20-minute unloading task. Now a data cable was lanced. There was no joy to be had anywhere. He was in the second week of a two-day job.

It was late afternoon at Grimaldi. The quiet night observing time was worth fifty thousand dollars an hour, but not with a clumsy clown stinking up the place. He could hear the tension in the controller's voice over the long link; the tension and the dissatisfaction with the job he was doing. The controller could shove it. Thank