Orphans of Apollo - S2 E8
September 2056
New to the series: start here
From the ashes of forgotten space dreams, a new era of exploration begins.
Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss any future episodes.
Previously: William Ashworth addresses a True Genesis outreach event and notices a young man in the audience who seems particularly engaged in what he is saying. He approaches him later and finds out his tragic story.
12:17
The gentle shaking of her shoulder gradually roused Lana from a deep sleep. She forced her eyes to open and instantly regretted it. The overhead lights were now flooding the cargo hold of the C-17 with bright white light.
“Lana, it’s time,” came the voice of Aiden Woods. The figure in front of her was gradually coming into focus.
She groaned and mentally shook herself. Around her, people were busying themselves with their own preparations. Organising, packing things into bags, generally setting things straight. Someone in a green flight suit came past handing Lana and Aiden - who had now sat down next to her - a tray of airline food.
They sat facing across the cavernous cargo hold of the C-17, towards the other members of the lunar analogue crew. At the rear, ready to be deployed from the back of the aircraft, was the lander. Around them, members of the aircraft crew and support staff from FASS busied themselves with final preparations for the drop. Before the large cargo door at the rear of the aircraft could be opened, anything not supposed to go out the back would need to be secured. The crew then had to get ready and suit up.
“So, how did you sleep? Commander,” said Aiden, taking care to pronounce every syllable of commander.
Lana forced her eyes wide open, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.
“I still can’t get used to that, you know, being called Commander. I don’t know why Christian picked me.”
“I don’t know how many times we have been through this. Deep down, I think you do. You have just got to learn to shake off your modesty and have a bit more confidence in your convictions. That’s exactly the reason Larsson chose you. You have the potential to be a great commander, and he wants you to cut your teeth here.” He squeezed her knee gently. “I know I would follow you to the ends of the earth and beyond.”
She smiled. “But what about the others?”
“Give it time. You have to earn their respect. Just be yourself Lana, and they will soon see.”
“This is exactly why you should be the one in my shoes. You are the one giving me the pep talk.”
“I’m sure it will come in time. I’m just happy to be doing what we are doing,” said Aiden, shoving a piece of hash brown into his mouth.
Lana looked across at the other four members of the six-person crew. All selected from the first cohort of twenty FASS students and all were born within a year. They had grown up together through the program. Like any group, there were friendships and rivalries, but the experience of growing up through the program had brought them together, probably more so than a normal group of classmates.
Pieter Van Der Watt - deputy commander, it was him who worried Lana the most. The South African could be brash and arrogant at times. Lana did not particularly like him and did not really interact with him outside of what was required. Now they had made him her deputy commander. Why not someone like Aiden, or any of the other crew? Maybe that was part of the test.
Lana was confident that she would have no problems with the other three crew members. Brant Adams, the Canadian, was so laid back you had to light a fire under him to get him to do anything quickly. But he always seemed to get there in the end, and just in time.
Joanna Medley from the UK, she was extremely intelligent and very strong academically, especially in the sciences. She could be a little ditzy in the way very intelligent people often are. Joanna was the science lead, so would be in charge of running the various experiments they would do once they got to the base.
Finally, Zawadi Mwangi from Kenya, quiet but confident. She often kept her opinions to herself and was very proud of her heritage. She was also an excellent long-distance runner.
Pieter strode across the cargo hold to where Lana and Aiden were sitting. At just under two metres tall, his lean but muscular frame towered over Lana, even when she was standing.
“It’s time to start suiting up, boss,” he said.
Lana looked at her watch. “Ok, tell the suit techs we are ready,” she said, trying to sound authoritative.
The suits were very similar to those they would wear on the lunar surface. Once they landed, the crew would have to leave the lander and walk to the waiting rover. This required a suit that could withstand walking on the surface and to save weight, they would wear the same one for descent in the lander. For the lunar analogue, along with adding fidelity to the simulation, the suits also served a number of other purposes. The Antarctic Plateau where they would land sat at over 10,000ft above sea level. The high altitude would reduce the normal twenty-one per cent oxygen at sea level to an effective fourteen per cent. Of course, acclimatisation would overcome the effects, but this would take at least a few days, plus the habitat’s atmosphere was maintained at standard sea level pressure.
A little bulkier than the tight fitting suits astronauts wore for launch and entry, the suits were also orange, to help with visibility against the vast white of the Antarctic desert. They also provided protection against the harsh cold with enough power and oxygen supplies to spend a whole working day outside.
“Ok people, last chance for a proper bathroom stop for a while,” called out Pieter.
Lana was stiff when she stood up. It felt like she had been sitting down forever. From California, they had flown directly to Christchurch, New Zealand. A twelve hour flight. After landing, the jet had taxied straight to the Antarctic Apron at Christchurch Airport. This was a corner of the airport where all the US flights to Antarctica left from. Sitting on the apron waiting for them was a C-17. A fifty-year-old aircraft, but still the stalwart of US Air Force airlift capability. The Air Force was more than happy to help FASS with their logistics, for a fee, of course.
From Larsson’s private jet, Lana and her crew made their way across the apron toward the open ramp at the back of the huge transport aircraft. Ideally, they would have had a rest day before heading to the Antarctic, but now the program was so compressed there was no time for this.
It was just after dawn and in the distance to the west Lana could make out the Southern Alps, the mountain range running down the spine of the South Island of New Zealand. Christchurch was actually the home town of Lucas Williams, one of the other FASS students. Lana had heard Lucas talk about how beautiful New Zealand was. Too bad she would not have time to explore it. She might get to see Lucas on her way back. He would be commanding the crew replacing them at the end of their stay in Antarctica.
Lana climbed through the back of her suit and put her legs into the bottom half, then wormed her head up through the solid neck ring where the helmet would attach. She stood looking at the lander in the back of the cargo hold as suit techs fussed around her, closing up the back of the suit, fitting her gloves, and checking her suit over.
The lander looked ungainly, the same way any vehicle not designed to fly in an atmosphere does. There were no smooth faceted aerodynamic surfaces. The basic concept had not changed since the Apollo LEM, except the cabin of this lander was large enough for six rather than just two. This was also somewhat of a Frankenstein lander. The real thing was too big to fit in the cargo hold of the C-17, so it was essentially just the top crew compartment on some legs. The descent would be under parachute and there was a small rocket engine on the bottom to give the crew some control over the descent rate. There were also small thrusters clustered on the exterior for manoeuvring, the same as the real lander. Once it was established in the descent, the computer would fire the thrusters to keep the lander as stable as possible, simulating a descent to the lunar surface undisturbed by an atmosphere.
The suit techs were nearly done. Just the helmet remained. As they lowered it over her head, Lana felt a calm wash over her. Things were happening now. The anticipation was over. It snapped into place on the neck ring. She felt her ears pop as the techs raised the pressure in the suit to check for leaks. Once satisfied, they released the pressure and lifted the helmet visor. Lana looked across to the others. They were ready too.
If you know someone you think would enjoy “Orphans of Apollo” or any of the other writing in “Explorations” please share this publication with them.
I hope you enjoyed the latest episode of Orphans of Apollo.
Some of you may (or may not) have noticed I started to include my own narration of these episodes a few weeks ago, but have not included this recently. The main reason I have not included this recently has been down to time. This still being the school holidays in New Zealand, and also the busiest time of year for my day job.
However, I’ve also been experimenting with ElevenLabs and been quite impressed. I tried to record my own audio firstly because I didn’t like the built-in AI narration in Substack and also because I thought people want the human connection, they want to hear the authentic human voice. I agree with this, but the human product has to be good enough and I think my own narration is marginal at best.
It would be interesting to see what people think. Would you rather hear an amateurish human narration or a pretty good AI one? Personally, I think a suitable compromise would be a human introduction from the author and then an AI narration of the piece, followed by a human close to the piece. Obviously, I could pay for a voice actor, but this is not realistic. The AI is almost there, but not quite. I think this is something I’ll revisit later this year.
What somewhat blew my mind when I was playing with ElevenLabs was the voice clones of well know people. One of these is Richard Feynman. I have to be honest, I’m not sure where I sit with this ethically. It is one thing for someone living to “licence” their voice, but Feynman has been dead for many years and so could not have consented to the creation of an AI clone of his voice. I’m assuming someone with the rights to his work did. This being said, hearing Feynman read my own work was surreal.
On the subject of Feynman, if you want a fun video to watch for a few minutes, this is worth a watch:
Thanks for reading,
Alex