Project Moon Base

(Project Moon Base)

"In 1948, the Secreatry of Defense proposed that the United States build a space station as a military guardian of the sky. By 1954 atom bombs and inter-continental rockets made it a necessity. In 1966, the first orbital flight was made by Colonel Breiteis. By 1970 the space station had been built and free men were reaching for the moon to consolidate the safety of the free world. But while this was going on, the enemies of freedom were not idle, they were working to destroy the space station."

In Spacom, the space center of the United States, a mission of the highest importance is on the point to be realized. At the beginning entrusted to Major Bill Moore, it is quickly transferred under the command from Colonel Briteis by the White House, which causes some tensions between the two astronauts who know each other well. Colonel Briteis is a woman whose beauty has equal only her experience of the space flights; and experiment, it is necessary to get some to carry out this mission.

This one consists in archieving a revolution around the moon in order to locate possible landing sites for the next space flights which will have the responsibility to establish the first moonbase. Briteis and Moore will be accompanied by Doctor Wernher, a scientist of the highest importance who will be charged to take pictures of the dark side of the moon. But Major Moore and Colonel Briteis do not know that Wernher is not Wernher. In fact, he is an enemy agent who took the identity of the true scientist kidnapped for the occasion. His orders are clear: to sabotage the mission and to make explode the space station.

After the briefing, the crew takes seat aboard the Mexico rocket which archieve a short flight before mooring at the space station in orbit around the Earth. Thanks to magnetic shoes, the personnel of the station compensates for the lack of weightlessness. It is thus not surprising to see people walking on the walls and on the ceils. The crew composed with Colonel Briteis, Major Moore and Doctor Wernher takes seat on board a spacecraft baptizes Magellan. This one disunites the station and is propelled in direction of the moon.

But on the way, Moore starts being suspicious concerning their host. Indeed, for a specialist this one seems not knowing some elementary scientific concepts. The enemy agent is uncovered and a keen fight follows. In the brawl, the engines of Magellan are lit and project it towards the surface of the moon, thus spending most of the fuel necessary for the return of the spacecraft. Attracted by the gravitation of the moon, Briteis and Moore, which finally were right of their attacker, are obliged to land on the small planet.

The lunar landing proceeds without particular problem but it occurs right in the middle of a crater, making unfertile any radio operator contact with the station. The only possible option is to place transmitters radio operator relay on the heights of the crater. Wernher, not having any other choice, accepts the situation and wears a spacesuit in order to help the Major to install the relays. The astronauts are the first to walk on the quiet and dusty lunar ground...

 Spoiler ! the end of the story is revealed below…

After several hours of walk, they arrive at the node of the crater and install the transmitters relay. But on the dangerous ground, Wernher falls and finds death. To the limit of his oxygen reserves, Bill manages to regain in extremis Magellan. After five hours of unfruitful attempts to contact the space station, an emission arrives finally. The crew immediately explains his hierarchy about the recent events. Spacom then modifies the mission and the couple receives new directives; since they have finally lands, Magellan is officially declared "first moonbase" and as nobody sees disadvantage, everyone accomodates with joy the celebration of the first marriage on the moon.