Free The Eye With Which The Universe Beholds Itself (Apollo Quartet) by Ian Sales Page B

succession since the LOX/LH2 fuel was only viable for sixty days in orbit before boil-off reduced it to levels inadequate for the mission. The crews aboard the CSMs built the Ares 9 stack and remained in orbit until its departure. Crews: Ares 5, David Scott (CDR), Gerald P Carr (pilot) and Edward Gibson (science pilot); Ares 6, Thomas P Stafford (CDR), Vance D Brand (pilot) and Donald K ‘Deke’ Slayton (science pilot); and Ares 7, Richard F Gordon (CDR), Paul J Weitz (pilot) and Don L Lind (science pilot). Launched 27 September 1979, 3 October 1979 and 14 October 1979.
     
    Ares 8 The first part of the manned portion of the Ares 9 stack, carrying the Mars Module and the heatshield needed for the MM to land on the Martian surface. The heatshield was carried to orbit folded and needed to be extended and then its adaptor bolted to the descent stage of the MM. Like Ares 5 through 7, the crew remained in orbit until Ares 9’s departure. This put fourteen astronauts in LEO at the same time, the most people in orbit at one time by the US or USSR up to that point. Crew: Fred W Haise (CDR), Stuart A Roosa (pilot) and William R Pogue (science pilot). Launched 28 October 1979.
     
    Ares 9 The first, and to date only, manned mission to Mars. It was based on the Flyby-Landing Excursion Mode mission, using upgraded spacecraft originally built for Apollo lunar landings. The Ares 9 launch put into LEO the mission’s CSM and flyby spacecraft, a modified S-IVB, improved after lessons learned operating the Ares 1 flyby simulator. Once the stack had been bolted together, it was boosted on a conjunction-class mission, with a free-return trajectory, to the Red Planet. Thirty days out from Mars, the Mars Module – an uprated Lunar Module, strengthened and provisioned, and with a crew of one – undocked and continued on alone to Mars and a landing on the surface. The Ares flyby spacecraft passed within 150 miles of the planet as it swung about it and headed back to Earth. The MM spent nine days on the surface, before launching into orbit and then catching up with the flyby spacecraft for the 537-day return flight. Crew: Bradley E Elliott (CDR) and Robert F Walker (pilot). Callsigns: Command Module Endeavour (CM-120), Mars Module Discovery (LM-12). Launched 14 November 1979, landed on Mars 23 March 1980. Duration on Martian surface 221h 38m 17s.
     
    Earth Two The name by which Gliese 876 d is officially known. The surface temperature at the equator is 325 K (125ºF) and far too hot for human habitation. The only human settlement, Phaeton Base, is in the north polar region, where temperatures are no hotter than the equatorial regions of Earth. Datum air pressure is 18.43 psi, but there is no oxygen in the atmosphere. To date, the only water discovered is deep beneath the surface, and no signs of life have been found.
     
    Element 115 A superheavy synthetic element used to power the Serpo engine. Under intense antiproton bombardment, the strong nuclear force of the Element 115 nucleus is amplified, resulting in a local distortion of the spacetime continuum.
     
    The Face on Mars The name given a rock formation in the Cydonia region on Mars. In 1976, the Viking 1 orbiter took a series of photographs of the Martian surface. In image #35A72, scientists spotted a mesa 1.2 miles long which appeared to resemble a humanoid face. Initially dismissed as a “trick of light and shadow”, a second photograph, image #70A13, with a different sun-angle, only heightened the likeness. It was considered sufficiently puzzling to choose Cydonia as the landing site for the Ares 9 mission. Many of the photographs taken by Major Bradley Elliott on the Martian surface remain classified.
     
    Fermi’s Paradox Named for the physicist Enrico Fermi, who first postulated it in an informal discussion in 1950, the Paradox hypothesises a contradiction between the probability of the existence of alien civilisations and the lack of evidence that such civilisations