2010 - HOW DID WE EVER GET HERE?

For all the years he prepared for this journey, for all the stars he had watched as a boy, nothing could have equipped him for such a heart-stopping, gut-wrenching moment. In the blink of an eye, Gordon shot through his dreams and fell into the high frontier. He was floating, and the heavens enclosed him. He was spinning in a midnight sea. He was listening, and heard only the beat of his heart, the course of his blood, and the rush of air hissing in an out of his lungs with a sound like a sigh.

Gordie, watch out! Laras voice drifted across his subconscious. One more step and youll fall over that edge!

The technaut shook himself awake and forced his eyes into focus. Ahead of him yawned the Shackleton Crater at the geographic South Pole. It was in clear sight of Sharpes Peak, so named after Burton Sharpe who once headed NASAs Lunar Experiment Operations.* This whole area of the Moon was still a mystery - relatively unchartered and unexplored. So he prayed to Selene, the ancient goddess of myth whose domain was said to be the Moon. She was why earth people called these particular spacefarers, Selenians or lunar dwellers.

Fully awake now, Gordon Delahunt stared into the chasm, his heart pounding. Sweat beaded his forehead, trickling down the hollow of his cheeks. God, I was doing it again, he whispered as he felt Laras gentle pressure on his shoulders.

Yes, you fell asleep, while I piloted the rover. But the last time I gave you a physical, I didnt notice any wings back here. Knowing fingers brushed the back of his silvery suit, somewhere in the vicinity of his well-padded shoulder blades.

Turning, he saw Laras impish grin through the clear curve of her faceplate. Beneath it, he knew there was an incorrigible mass of coppery curls that threatened to envelope her. Youve exhausted yourself trying to get this lunar base completed, his companion commented. No wonder you keep falling asleep with dreams that disturb you.

O.K., he confessed - youre the doctor up here! But these feelings, conscious or unconscious, are so real! Emotions of being transformed in an instant from an earthbound being to a creature of infinity. Its like I am somehow trapped in a moment of time that will last forever. I forget where I am, what I am doing. I imagine all sorts of scenarios. My body is here in the Malapert Range, but my mind or spirit, whatever makes the essence of us all, is out there - in the larger universe. Gordon waved his arms at the seemingly endless, sunny sky. He paused, Ill never get over this experience of wonder, Lara, if I live to be over a hundred. Not even if I come back again and again in other bodies or forms!

Maybe youll come back as a moonrock, she suggested, laughing now to break the spell, trying to ease his discomfort. Youre experiencing the overview effect - that unique offword perspective that comes as you view our home planet in relation to our solar system and beyond. Its almost incomprehensible to absorb this South Polar view, looking at the Milky Way Galaxy surrounding us!

Yeah, maybe. Gordon, a very private person, believed that to share his innermost feelings with someone, to let her into his soul - even the tiniest part of it, was to somehow irretrievably give away a piece of himself. Yet here he was trying to turn a colleague into a soulmate. Lara, the healer, already possessed more of him than he had ever given away to anyone else. He felt oddly diminished, as he shared ever more of his life space and dreams.

Lara deftly drove them around Newtons Base of the Malapert Mountains, located at the Moons Earth-facing side and 86 degrees South Latitude. With its five kilometers elevation, always in direct sight of their home planet and almost continuously bathed in sunlight, the lunar pioneers had selected this site to erect solar panels for the generation of electric energy. While most of the Moon experienced two weeks of sunlight and two of darkness, this location had been chosen for a permanent installation because of its full sunlight, 330 days a year. With only two weeks of darkness, there was plenty of light for solar energy or scientific observation. Although these mountains have aa elevation of 5000 meters above the surrounding terrain, the range sat within a 3000 meters depression. With its relative elevation of 8000 meters, the peak was higher than Earths Mount Kilimanjaro. Overall, its latitude seemed to be the best place to construct these first lunar facilities. Besides it offer a continuous line-of-site telecommunications link with Earth.

Gordon hated to pilot these tricky older rovers, preferring the totally advanced, enclosed automated vehicles driven by robots. Lara was the one who had the taste and talent for this type of lunar transport. Over 24 feet long, painted safety yellow, it tracked like a tank as its spikes imbedded into the lunar surface. With a detachable canopy, the vehicle could transport up to 12 suited riders. Today, as on most days, the back of the rover was filled with equipment - tools, space air tanks, survival tubes, extra tracks, and her ever-present medical kit. Always thinking like a physician, Lara observed, A rover is like the human body. Take good care of it, and it will take good care of you!

About a hundred kilometers out from their base camp, she pulled over to allow him to inspect the glass factory ahead. It was part of the Krafft Ehricke Lunar Industrial Park, the first stage in their development of LUNAR WORLD, a city that would eventually house up to two thousand people. While she idled the rovers engine, Gordon made perfunctory notes in the computerized log book he always carried on these assessment tours. Since they wore bulky spacesuits and gloves when driving these open convertibles, he used a wand-like pen, attached by velcro to his digital finger, to operate his computer. His report was being compiled for the Lunar Economic Development Authority. Officials from LEDA and the Global Space Trust were due onsite in three weeks.
* Schrunk, D., Sharpe, B., Cooper, B., and Thangavelu. M. The Moon: Resources, Future Development, and Colonization. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Praxis Publishing, 1999. (Refer to Science and Technology Series on Internet website: http://www.praxis-publishing).