burst and the stuff was squirted up into the sky through a specially shaped nozzle. It would be shot off soon after nightfall, and when the cloud of sodium rose out of the moon’s shadow into direct sunlight it would start to glow with tremendous brilliance.
Nightfall, on the moon, is one of the most awe-inspiring sights in the whole of nature, made doubly so because as you watch the sun’s flaming disc creep so slowly below the mountains you know that it will be fourteen days before you see it again. But it does not bring darkness—at least, not on this side of the moon. There is always the Earth, hanging motionless in the sky, the one heavenly body that neither rises nor sets. The light pouring back from her clouds and seas floods the lunar landscape with a soft, blue-green radiance, so that it is often easier to find your way around at night than under the fierce glare of the sun.
Even those who were not supposed to be on duty had come out to watch the experiment. The sodium bomb had been placed at the middle of the big triangle formed by the three ships, and stood upright with its nozzle pointing at the stars. Dr Anderson, the astronomer of the American team, was testing the firing circuits, but everyone else was at a respectful distance. The bomb looked perfectly capable of living up to its name, though it was really about as dangerous as a soda-water siphon.
All the optical equipment of the three expeditions seemed to have been gathered together to record the performance. Telescopes, spectroscopes, motion-picture cameras, and everything else one could think of were lined up ready for action. And this, I knew, was nothing compared with the battery that must be zeroed on us from Earth. Every amateur astronomer who could see the moon tonight would be standing by in his back garden, listening to the radio commentary that told him of the progress of the experiment. I glanced up at the gleaming planet that dominated the sky above me; the land areas seemed to be fairly free from cloud, so the folks at home should have a good view. That seemed only fair; after all, they were footing the bill.
There were still fifteen minutes to go. Not for the first time, I wished there was a reliable way of smoking a cigarette inside a space suit without getting the helmet so badly fogged that you couldn’t see. Our scientists had solved so many much more difficult problems; it seemed a pity that they couldn’t do something about that one.
To pass the time—for this was an experiment where I had nothing to do—I switched on my suit radio and listened to Dave Bolton, who was making a very good job of the commentary. Dave was our chief navigator, and a brilliant mathematician. He also had a glib tongue and a picturesque turn of speech, and sometimes his recordings had to be censored by the BBC. There was nothing they could do about this one, however, for it was going out live from the relay stations on Earth.
Dave had finished a brief and lucid explanation of the purpose of the experiment, describing how the cloud of glowing sodium would enable us to analyse the lunar atmosphere as it rose through it at approximately a thousand miles an hour. ‘However,’ he went on tell the waiting millions on Earth, ‘let’s make one point clear. Even when the bomb has gone off, you won’t see a darn thing for ten minutes—and neither will we. The sodium cloud will be completely invisible while it’s rising up through the darkness of the moon’s shadows. Then, quite suddenly, it will flash into brilliance as it enters the sun’s rays, which are streaming past over our heads right now as we stare up into space. No one is quite sure how bright it will be, but it’s a pretty safe guess that you’ll be able to see it in any telescope bigger than a two-inch. So it should just be within the range of a good pair of binoculars.’
He had to keep this sort of thing up for another ten minutes, and it was a marvel to me how he managed to do it.
Nightfall, on the moon, is one of the most awe-inspiring sights in the whole of nature, made doubly so because as you watch the sun’s flaming disc creep so slowly below the mountains you know that it will be fourteen days before you see it again. But it does not bring darkness—at least, not on this side of the moon. There is always the Earth, hanging motionless in the sky, the one heavenly body that neither rises nor sets. The light pouring back from her clouds and seas floods the lunar landscape with a soft, blue-green radiance, so that it is often easier to find your way around at night than under the fierce glare of the sun.
Even those who were not supposed to be on duty had come out to watch the experiment. The sodium bomb had been placed at the middle of the big triangle formed by the three ships, and stood upright with its nozzle pointing at the stars. Dr Anderson, the astronomer of the American team, was testing the firing circuits, but everyone else was at a respectful distance. The bomb looked perfectly capable of living up to its name, though it was really about as dangerous as a soda-water siphon.
All the optical equipment of the three expeditions seemed to have been gathered together to record the performance. Telescopes, spectroscopes, motion-picture cameras, and everything else one could think of were lined up ready for action. And this, I knew, was nothing compared with the battery that must be zeroed on us from Earth. Every amateur astronomer who could see the moon tonight would be standing by in his back garden, listening to the radio commentary that told him of the progress of the experiment. I glanced up at the gleaming planet that dominated the sky above me; the land areas seemed to be fairly free from cloud, so the folks at home should have a good view. That seemed only fair; after all, they were footing the bill.
There were still fifteen minutes to go. Not for the first time, I wished there was a reliable way of smoking a cigarette inside a space suit without getting the helmet so badly fogged that you couldn’t see. Our scientists had solved so many much more difficult problems; it seemed a pity that they couldn’t do something about that one.
To pass the time—for this was an experiment where I had nothing to do—I switched on my suit radio and listened to Dave Bolton, who was making a very good job of the commentary. Dave was our chief navigator, and a brilliant mathematician. He also had a glib tongue and a picturesque turn of speech, and sometimes his recordings had to be censored by the BBC. There was nothing they could do about this one, however, for it was going out live from the relay stations on Earth.
Dave had finished a brief and lucid explanation of the purpose of the experiment, describing how the cloud of glowing sodium would enable us to analyse the lunar atmosphere as it rose through it at approximately a thousand miles an hour. ‘However,’ he went on tell the waiting millions on Earth, ‘let’s make one point clear. Even when the bomb has gone off, you won’t see a darn thing for ten minutes—and neither will we. The sodium cloud will be completely invisible while it’s rising up through the darkness of the moon’s shadows. Then, quite suddenly, it will flash into brilliance as it enters the sun’s rays, which are streaming past over our heads right now as we stare up into space. No one is quite sure how bright it will be, but it’s a pretty safe guess that you’ll be able to see it in any telescope bigger than a two-inch. So it should just be within the range of a good pair of binoculars.’
He had to keep this sort of thing up for another ten minutes, and it was a marvel to me how he managed to do it.
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