They Reached For The Moon

By William Oberfield

The major problem in achieving space flight lay in overcoming gravity. That had been done and men had reached the Moon. But strangely, they never returned!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy November 1951 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

They took a thousand days to build the great, gleaming monster, and another two hundred to groom it for its trip around the moon. All this they did with an air that made a trip to the moon seem quite natural and sure, even though three other rockets had gone before and not one had returned.

"This one will," they said, as though convincing themselves.

But they were not sure. They were stubborn, perhaps proud, but not sure at all. All the world had watched three other such rockets, with men in them, go screaming off moonward. All had waited for them to return. And all had seen nothing come back down from the sky. Not even a small scrap of metal. This one might return, and, if it did, the men in it just might be alive to tell. But that was not being sure.

"A military base on the moon!" the leaders had cried. And that had been that. Robot rockets had gone first. They had landed on the moon. They could do that, but they could not establish the desired base. So men had started on a round trip, around the moon, first to prove that men could do it. The only thing they proved was that whatever goes up need not come down.

Now the fourth rocket waited, leaning over against its heavy launching rack, ready to face whatever unknown danger lay out there beyond.

On a certain night, a night long appointed, one overshadowed with heavy clouds that brought a threat of rain, there were lights about the rocket and in the low, concrete buildings that cowered back a ways from the upright metal giant. Around the base of the rocket men scurried like ants, making last minute preparations and seeing that everything was just so and not being satisfied with "good enough".

In one building, a little nearer the rocket than the others, two men lounged, talking of the coming trip and other things that concerned last night's women, and smoking endlessly, the last smokes they would have for four days. These men would soon climb into a long, metal thing and try to do what others had failed to do.

In other buildings were men with great ideas held firmly in their minds, doing things with pencils and paper and adding machines. These checked back over figures and charts, knowing all the time that everything was flawless, but checking just the same. Some were Army men and some were not.

The feeling that seemed to grow over everything was one of waiting and suspense, and one might know without asking, without seeing the many glances at watches and clocks, that it would soon be time.

Strangely, the two men waiting and speaking mostly of wine, women and general good times, knew very little of the import of what they were about to do. In fact, they had no real concept of even the size of the earth, let alone the magnitude of space, the moon and the stars. This, however, was as intended.

The men who had gone in the other rockets had been scientists, greatly skilled men, men of high I.Q.'s. So the brass and the brains had gotten together and reasoned, and pooled data, and considered statistics, and finally decided that the strain of being completely out of one's natural element, exposed to the terrible, thought-twisting blankness of space, might be greater than had been supposed. And the high-strung, sensitive, sometimes slightly neurotic minds of the highly intelligent might well be expected to crack under the strain.

This, of course, was at most a poor explanation. But it served, at least, as an excuse for retaining the great minds and sending those more expendable. These, not knowing, would probably consider the whole thing nothing more than a slightly unusual adventure.

So when the Army officers came, very stiff and orderly, and opened the door to the little building, the two men came out laughing and pushing at one another playfully. They followed the little group of officers toward the gleaming rocket, not at all worried, like men going off for a happy spree at some local bar.

The rocket seemed to loom higher as they neared it. It was now bathed in the light of many spotlights, reflecting back the light in such a way that one might think he would go blind if he looked too long. Only when they stepped on to a platform, with two of the higher officers, and were lifted swiftly upward, did they give a thought to what was going on.

The platform halted its climb just below a round hole near the nose of the rocket.

"You men should know exactly what you are to do," said the higher officer, "and that is not much. You are not, under any circumstances, to touch anything until you near the moon. Up to that time, the rocket will be guided by at least one control station here on Earth." The officer paused and tried to see understanding in the eyes of the two. He was one of those who did not agree with sending such dense fellows.

"You have been trained for months," he continued, "to read a few instruments and to perform the fairly simple tasks required to take you around the moon and start you back. Do only what you have been taught. Do nothing more. You must remember that certain conditions near the moon, which interfere with radio reception, and which we have been unable to overcome, will put you entirely on your own until you start back."

One of the men, a little uncertain, acted as if he wished to speak.

"Yes?" said the officer.

"Didn't they send rockets once without no men in 'em at all?" he asked. "Then, how come they can't do like we wasn't even there?"

"My dear fellow," said the officer, perplexed, "to aim and fire a rocket at so near and so large a target as the moon is a simple matter. To guide one around the moon in a precise orbit is a matter entirely different." He paused. "Any more questions?"

"No sir," said the men.

"Very good." The officer seemed glad there would be no further conversation. "In you go now."

The men went into the opening, helped by the officers, like olives being put into a bottle. In a moment the officers had gone and a cover had been placed into the opening and screwed firmly into place.

There was lead-glass, very heavy, in the windows of all the buildings. The thick cement walls and doors were covered with sheets of lead.

Inside the most distant buildings, at the small windows, men stood with black looking glasses over their eyes, watching. Each time a rocket went into space it was exactly thus. The atomic drive was new and not completely perfect. Always there was a chance that something might go wrong. The radiation grids could go haywire, there could be an explosion, or the ship could falter and slip on the way up.