Free Pilgrimage (The New World) by Kurt Winans Page B

questions whose answers dictated political correctness, and somehow tried to explain to the media how they couldn’t possibly know how it would feel to walk on the Moon until they were actually there. In time a NASA administrator stepped in to field the ever increasing level of ridiculous questions, while Ross and Dennis were swept away into a secure location.
    Later that day the two of them arrived on the Florida coastline for a few final days of training away from the eyes and ears of the media, and during that time they had a special visitor. President Ronald Reagan had come down from Washington D.C. in as quiet a manner as was possible for the leader of the free world, so that he could meet with the two astronauts privately. Ross and Dennis were both still active members of the military, so they snapped to attention as their Commander and Chief entered the room. A senior NASA administrator then introduced the two men who would be going on the historic flight by saying, “Mr. President may I present Commander Ross Martin of the United States Navy and Lieutenant Dennis Strickland of the United States Navy.” There were no members of the media in attendance, and only a handful of secret service and high ranking NASA administrators were present as he motioned for Ross and Dennis to sit down before conversing with them for roughly thirty minutes.
    When he rose to leave the room the two astronauts snapped to attention once again, and received the greatest gift of all as the President of the United States said “I should be the one saluting the two of you for what you are about to do for this country and mankind!” With that, the President shook their hands and left the room with the secret service in tow.
    As had become his customary habit, on the morning of this long anticipated launch Ross rubbed the emblem on his necklace with his bare fingers one more time before being helped into his spacesuit. The crowds at the launch viewing points were larger than during some of the more recent missions, because some of those were perceived as routine by the public. Ross, and everyone at NASA for that matter, knew that all of those previous missions served as an important cog in the grand plan of space exploration, but this mission had the added significance of returning to the Moon.
    The giant digital clock on the grounds near mission control that signified the countdown sequence moved within minutes of the launch, and the excitement level of the crowd began to rise. As if cheering on their favorite team in the closing seconds of a closely fought game, the crowd joined in unison with the voice over the loudspeaker and counted backwards from ten to one.
    The mighty rockets came to life with a blast of smoke and fire, and the shuttle Discovery began to slowly pull away from the launch platform. Patty and Jessica, now witnessing their third launch, comforted Aurora and Rachel who were a bit scared by all the loud noise and commotion. Thousands of other spectators who had lined various viewing points on or near the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center tipped their heads backwards as the shuttle began to pick up speed and move skyward.
    Ross and Dennis had a slightly bumpier ride than either had experienced on previous flights, but they thought that was probably due to the different configuration of the payload. The external main fuel tank and twin reusable rocket boosters that would soon be jettisoned had the same specifications as previous flights, but the shuttle itself had been reconfigured for this mission. Within the large cargo bay at the back end of the shuttle was the added weight of fuel tanks for the extended flight to the Moon, along with some minor building materials and machinery such as the rover vehicle for use on the surface. The plan was for much of this cargo, including the rover, to be left near the landing site on the Moon for use during future missions. If all went well with this three week mission, the next wave