First Chapter of Tube Town - Frontier

 

Chapter One: Anomaly 

The SciBots were cold and thirsty. It was 22 October 2028 and they had just spent 10 hours maneuvering through dangerously rough terrain hunting water ice. It was night on the Farside and the cryogenic cold in the permanently shadowed craters sapped the bot’s battery reserves. As their levels dropped near critical, their human handlers on Earth finally relented. The five frosted SciBots turned and crunched slowly north through the darkness, toward the pole and the warmth of the solar power plant at the Peak of Eternal Light.

RBs (RoverBots) built the solar power plant on the highest ridge of Peary Crater. Unlike Earth, the Moon is almost perpendicular to the plane on which the planets orbit our sun. The high areas near the poles are nearly always bathed in warm horizontal sunshine. Originally, this area was a leading candidate for the location of a Moon base because of the “San Diego quality weather” (always sunny and the temperature only varies by 20 degrees), but the rugged and steep terrain of the crater peak made it an unsuitable location for constructing a large base. However, it was the prime location for a solar power plant. 120-meter-tall collector towers turned half of a degree per hour, like juvenile sunflowers, to always face the horizontal sunlight. Five hundred kilowatts of electricity were stored in high-capacity batteries below the towers and were an oasis of energy for thirsty bots.

The SciBots rolled up to the station, contacted the proximity pads, powered down to sleep mode, and sucked in the electric energy. Peter Dealey, the youngest geologist, and member of the Sci Bot team at NASA Mission Control in Houston glanced at the viewer count at the bottom of his screen. The live stream number of viewers was falling from around 3 million a few minutes ago to only about a hundred thousand. “Goodnight Moon,” he typed and ended the stream.

A world record 920 million people had watched the live-streamed return of humans to the moon after over 50 years of absence. The robotic construction of the first Moon habitat attracted about 220 million views over the course of the first several Earth days, but that number had been steadily falling. After the peak of world excitement, Moon exploration was becoming mundane once again. The South pole had been mostly mapped for water ice and a small outpost was built on the surface and covered with regolith. Crews of four to six astronauts endured the cramped quarters and boredom for two-month shifts. Bots were only now beginning to slowly map the North pole for resources.

After three hours of recharging, the SciBots resumed their trek toward Moon Base Two. As the bots got closer to base, the bot handling team in Houston checked power levels and ran some simulations.

“Four hundred kilometers, I think we can kick four hundred kilometers of ASS!” exclaimed Peter Dealey. ASS was the unfortunate three-letter acronym for AutScanSwarm. This was a computer program that could be executed by the SciBots. “Aut” meant the science rovers would run autonomously. “Scan” meant all their geologic sensors were active (lunar penetrating radar, spectrometers, and relative gravimeters mounted on inertial platforms). These instruments allowed the bots to measure the density and relative gravity of the structures below them while moving quickly across the surface. “Swarm” meant the bots were networked together so that their movements were in formation – like a flock of drones. In swarm mode, the bots spread out so that the range of their sensors just overlapped, then they proceeded together toward a designated target, constantly adjusting their spacing and speed to allow individual bots to avoid large boulders or dangerous terrain. The swarm technique provided an unbroken swath of sub-surface readings over an area three kilometers wide and as long as the bots could travel, but AutScanSwarm used a lot of power. The team could only take this risk on return trips when the bots had enough power remaining to safely reach the base. Young Mr. Dealey had concluded that the bots had sufficient power to run the sub-surface scan routine for 400 km (248 miles) and still return to base.

“So, you want to push your luck Dealey? You let those bots nearly deplete their batteries on that last Farside run,” replied Dr. Martin McPhee, senior geologist of the SciBot team.

“We were just within mission parameters, boss. Hey, there’s gold under them thar hills. We just have to find it,” replied Dealey.

“Okay, Dealey, tell you what, I’ll authorize a 300-km scan. Pick your start point on the route home. I’m going to lunch,” said McPhee.

The bots were now in Mare Frigoris, skirting the west side of the crater Aristoteles, heading southeast, hitting their top speed of 80 kph (50 mph) on the pool table flat basalt of the mare. The bots would have to slow as they got closer to the ridge that separates Mare Imbrium from Mare Serenitatis, where Moon Base Two was located. A high mountain ridge called Montes Caucuses separates the two giant basins where lava from ancient volcanoes filled the low areas over a billion years ago. It was these edges between the seas that intrigued Dealey. He had a feeling that they might find something interesting in these transitional areas – places that weren’t full of meter after meter of basalt. Dealey maneuvered the bots south of Protagoras crater and executed AutScanSwarm.

Immediately, the five bots spread out and slowed their speed even further. Two red LEDs glowed on the front of each. One light indicated that its geo scan instruments were active and the other indicated that swarm mode was active. Dealey studied a wall-sized transparent screen. On it was a 3D image of the moon in gray. Suddenly, a small strip of colors began to appear in the southwestern region of Mare Frigoris where it merges with Mare Imbrium.

Different colors represented different minerals in the substrata. Orange and brown colors began to create a 3D picture on the map. Dealey hand gestured the screen to zoom in. Dense basalt, dense basalt, ahh, a little less dense as we get toward the edge and the uplift begins. A few minutes later… less dense, less dense, ahh – aluminum! A good little pocket of concentration. Mark that! Okay, okay, yes – sulfur, magnesium. Now I’m getting some iron. Suddenly a turquoise-colored structure started to take shape on the edge of the scan.

“What’s that turquoise color?” Dealey asked himself. He pointed to the color with a hand gesture and the word ‘ilmenite’ appeared on the screen. “Yeah, baby!” cried Dealey, startling colleagues in the Control Center. Only a geology geek could get excited about the discovery of a layer of titanium and iron oxide.

“What is it?” asked a team supervisor.

“That sir is a 20-meter-thick layer of ilmenite only about five meters below the surface. This layer probably crystallized out of a magma chamber from the ancient volcano!”

“Okay, so we can get at it. What can we do with it?” asked the supervisor.

“Ilmenite is the primary ore of titanium. Basically, with the other resources we’ve discovered, this means we can make spacecraft from materials on the Moon.”

“Oh,” said the supervisor. “Nice work.”

The bots had slowed their speed to a fast walk and bunched closer together. They were reaching the foothills of the Caucuses range, southwest of Aristoteles. As they were picking their route through the foothills, McPhee returned from lunch.

“What’s up, Junior?” he asked Dealey.

“Not much. We got tons of basalt, a little aluminum, a little iron, some sulfur and enough mineable titanium to build a spacecraft or three.”

McPhee’s mouth dropped. He stood staring at the 3D display. “I see it. This goes straight to the Director. Don’t talk to anyone. Write it up and send it, immediately.”

“I’m on it, boss,” replied Dealey.

McPhee stood transfixed watching the turquoise sliver continue through the foothills toward the mountain range. There must be a couple hundred metric tons of the stuff, maybe more, he marveled. Then something on the other side of the scan caught McPhee’s eye. On the northern edge of the scan the light brown color of the basalt suddenly turned gray. McPhee watched it for several minutes. Then as suddenly as it disappeared, the brown color started up again. The gray extended at an angle off the edge of the northern border of the scan.

“Dealey, what’s that on the northern edge of the scan?”

Dealey looked up and said, “Must be a glitch boss, it’s not registering on the display.”

“If it’s a glitch, why are the sides so uniform?”

“Uhh…,”

“We’ve got high mascon readings on both sides of this area,” said McPhee. Mascon is short for mass concentration. The existence of a mascon means there is a positive gravitational anomaly caused by an excess distribution of mass beneath the surface.

“We’ve got a mascon, then nothing, then a mascon. Turn ‘em. Turn the bots east!” McPhee directed.

“But we’re following the titanium vein. If we turn, we’ll lose it,” Dealey objected.

“We know where the titanium is, we can always come back and map it out. Now, turn them east and follow that void,” snapped McPhee.

“Void?” Dealey repeated as he quickly re-routed the bot swarm to a random target in the southeast quadrant of the Mare Serenitatis.

The image of Louise Matsuda, Director of Mission Control appeared in the lower right corner of the 3D display. McPhee pointed at it and the image became full screen. “Louise, you must have received our message,” said McPhee.

“Martin, this is great news. I have an internet conference in a half-hour, and I want you to be on it,” she gushed.

“Let’s make that an hour and this could be the biggest conference of the mission.”

“What do you mean, Martin”?

McPhee paused. “Finding mineable titanium is a huge discovery. It makes it possible to manufacture parts, modules, and maybe even entire ships in situ without the expense of transporting materials from Earth. But if you give me another hour, which is about how long we can continue to run the SciBots in AutScanSwarm, I may have even more important news for you.”

“You have my undivided attention, Martin.”

McPhee lowered his voice and said slowly, “Louise, I think we found a sub-surface lava tube.”

Now it was Louise’s turn to pause. She stood silently, her eyes darting from side to side. He could feel her mind racing. Finally, she gathered herself, took a deep breath, moved closer to the monitor and lowered her voice.

“Is it accessible?” she asked.

“We don’t know yet, we’re following it.”

“Applications for Moon Base duty have fallen off a cliff - even accepted applicants are withdrawing. Viewership has dropped like a rock and predictive analysis shows a 71% probability of Moon mission de-funding. We need this in the worst possible way, but you must be sure, or we lose credibility. Unless you’re sure, say nothing about a tube. You have thirty minutes,” Matsuda’s image blinked off the screen.

“Let’s go Dealey. Left turn. Line the middle bot on top of that void,” said McPhee.

The next half hour went by at hyper-speed. Every member of the Geo team poured over the data. The bots were now in formation slowly working their way east following the gray void in the basalt. In 3D it looked like a sinuous straw inside the dense basalt rock. The tube ran in a northeasterly direction toward the large crater Eudoxus.

“I’m getting an average diameter of 400 meters. Slope of three degrees,” reported Jameson.

“You’re kidding me, 400 meters? That’s nearly four football fields in diameter. And how long is it now, Jameson?” asked McPhee.

“The map so far is four kilometers, two and a half miles.”

“Damn, it’s long enough! Dealey, extrapolate the slope. Where should this thing hit the surface?”

Dealey looked up at the ceiling, calculating, and said, “Another 4.2 kilometers, boss.”

“That would put it right at the Eudoxus crater,” said McPhee.

“The bots won’t make it back, they’ll run out of power,” said Jameson.

“We don’t need all five to map the tube. Kill AutScanSwarm. Send four of them back to the base. Instruct the middle one to continue the scan and follow the tube.”

“How far, boss?”

“As far as it takes,” said McPhee.

One of the two red LEDs on SciBot3 blinked off as its companions pulled away toward Moon Base. The colors on the screen narrowed by 4/5ths to a small sliver of brown and gray. SciBot3 continued northeasterly alone.

“Ten minutes to internet conference, boss,” said Dealey.

“Got it,” replied McPhee. “Alright everybody, listen up. This is going to go down to the wire. I’m going to the conference. Dealey, you are in charge until my return. I will stay in constant voice communication with Dealey during the conference. I want video and instrument confirmation of an intact lava tube. You either have it or you don’t – no guesswork.”

After McPhee left, Dealey said “Com1, video on SciBot3.” The screen changed from the 3D mineralogical map to the view from SciBot3’s forward camera. The SciBot was slowly making its way down a vast gray slope at an angle to its right.

“Jameson, give me a visual target on Eudoxus.” A small green chevron appeared ahead and to the right on the visual display. “I can’t see the crater yet, what’s our ETA.?”

“Eight minutes to crater rim.”

“That’s cutting it way too close. We know this tube comes up at the crater – let’s get there. Kill the ASS and top speed to Eudoxus.”

“But if we stop mapping, we won’t know if the tube has collapsed just ahead,” protested Jameson.

“Yeah, but when we find the opening, we can map it from the inside.”

“If there is an opening,” replied Jameson.

The last red LED blinked off on SciBot3 and its speed increased to 32 kph (20 mph) as it continued downslope. As the terrain leveled out, the speed rose to 48 kph (30 mph) as it dodged boulders and small craters. The bot’s navigation computer and sensors were getting a workout trying to keep the bot upright at the highest possible speed.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” said Dealey as the green chevron grew bigger and bigger on the display. “Okay, we’re getting a visual on the crater rim. Where is that tube, Jameson?”

“It should be right at the crater.”

“I don’t see anything. Let’s go infra-red.” The camera changed to infra-red, giving the picture a night-vision effect. “I don’t see any depressions.”

Louise Matsuda approached McPhee in the web conference and whispered in his ear, “Do you have confirmation?”

“No, not yet, but I have my team in the other ear and we’re close.”

“Great,” said Matsuda with her best fake smile. “So, we are literally playing this one by ear.”

“Okay, so the tube is not at the crater. It must be in the crater,” said Dealey. The team stared at Eudoxus. It is a large impact crater – 67 km wide and three km deep. Like many impact craters on the moon, Eudoxus had a protruding lip around the rim of the steep crater. The height varied from three to six meters and was slightly concave.

“Man, even if we can get it in there, there’s no way we’re going to get it out,” said Jameson.

Dealey looked at the time display on the video. The web conference is starting. “Well, it’s been a brilliant, short career,” said Dealey as he grabbed the game console remote control. “We’re going manual.”

In autonomous mode, the bot would never have tried to scale the lip of the crater. Its navigational algorithms would not let it get so close to upending the multi-million-dollar machine. Dealey circled the crater looking for the shortest section of the lip he could find. Finally, he chose a spot and approached it slowly. The bot dutifully started to climb the incline. The internal gyros sensed the predicament and collapsed the suspension to provide the lowest center of gravity possible. As the bot got over 40 degrees, the open-banded wheels began to lose traction on the regolith. The bot began to slip backward in a gray cloud of powder.

“Damn,” said Dealey. In his left ear, he heard McPhee whisper, “Got something?”

“No, sir,” said Dealey. “I’ll say ‘green light’ when we get it.”

“Alright, I’m being introduced now,” said McPhee.

Dealey backed the bot away from the crater. “Jameson, what do you think? Will 15 mph clear the lip?”

“I think you need to hit at least 20 mph. If we’re going to upend it, it should be inside the crater rather than outside it.”

“Jameson, you wild man!” Dealey laughed as he backed the bot further away from the crater. “Here goes nothing.” The bot kicked up a rooster plume of dust as it accelerated toward the crater.

“10, 15, 20 mph,” called Jameson. “Hold it there.”

As the bot hit the crater lip, the video camera pointed to space. The Earth came into frame, out of frame, and into frame again as the bot somersaulted in the lunar gravity. Finally, the picture was all gray.

“Status everybody,” called Dealey.

“We’re inverted, but we have power,” said Jameson.

“We’ve lost a solar collector, don’t know about the scanning instruments,” said Hernandez.

“Okay, that doesn’t matter unless we can get upright. Switch to holographic imaging.”

A hologram of the up-ended bot appeared on the screen. It was upside down and tilted to the right.

“I’m going to deploy the left sample arm and reverse thrust on the wheels.” Dealey extended the sample arm that was ordinarily used to obtain mineral samples. The holographic picture of the bot began to tilt farther to the right and Dealey gunned the wheels in reverse. The bot started to flip but then stopped and fell back to its previous position. Dealey moved the sample arm closer to the center of the bot and then extended it as fast as it would go. As it reached the end of its extension, he gunned the power to the wheels. The bot raised, hesitated at the top, and flipped over upright. More dust flew and obscured the view from the video cameras.

“Dr. McPhee? Dr. McPhee?”

“Ah, yes,” said McPhee as he turned the sound down in his left ear to a barely audible level and turned his attention to the web camera.

“We have had a fantastic day of discovery from the SciBot team on the lunar surface. As you know, our SciBot team has begun surveying the North Polar region and has documented significant deposits of water ice. On the return trip from this successful mission, the team was able to do some mineralogical prospecting. We are very excited to announce that we have found a mineable pocket of aluminum, some mineable iron deposits, and most importantly, a large quantity of titanium ore. Once refined, titanium can be used to create parts, modules, and perhaps substantial parts of the superstructure of space vehicles.”

“Great news! Is that all, Dr. McPhee?” Matsuda asked with a note of disappointment sneaking into her voice.

“Yes, I’d be happy to take questions from the audience.”

“Dr. McPhee, this is Juanita Lopez of the New York Times, it’s great that you have discovered these minerals close to the surface on the Moon, but doesn’t that mean that we will need more humans on the Moon to refine, manufacture and build sophisticated equipment to make a spaceship?”

“Ms. Lopez, that is correct. Although the Construction Bots can do some of the simpler assembly work, more humans will be needed for the finer manufacturing and assembly.”

“Dr. McPhee, this is Ri Pang from the China National Space Administration. How is building a spaceship on the surface of the Moon practical with the assembly of sensitive equipment in the open, extreme temperature swings, and contamination from lunar dust? And given the toll that solar winds, cosmic radiation, and micrometeorites have taken on the robotic workers of Moon Base, how can you justify putting human workers into such danger?

“Green light, green light, green light!”

McPhee shook his head as the tiny sound in his left ear finally sunk in. A look of relief poured over his face. “Director Pang, I think we may have some answers for you. Just a moment.”

McPhee turned aside from the camera and raised the volume on his earpiece.

“Dealey, do we have video?”

“Yes.”

“Can you go live?”

“Yes.”

“This better be good.”

“Understood.”

McPhee turned back to the web camera. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce a young scientist on our team, Mr. Peter Dealey. Peter will be sharing a live feed from the lunar surface with some more information for you. Peter?”

“Hello everyone. What you are seeing is the camera view from one of our scientific robots, SciBot3. SciBot3 is currently in Eudoxus crater, which is in the northwest corner of Mare Serenitatis, about 50 kilometers west of Moon Base Two.”

SciBot3 panned the crater. It looked like a steep gray bowl. It was so big you couldn’t see the other side. The bot was at the bottom of the bowl. There was nothing in the bowl except fine gray regolith on the sides and a darker black dust at the bottom of the crater. Above the rim of the crater was only the blackness of space. As SciBot3 continued to pan the empty crater, McPhee could feel unrest in the room. Members of Mission Control began to shoot him quizzical looks with furrowed brows and palms turned upward. Slowly, a large black spot, darker than the natural shadow of the crater, began to reveal itself in the far crater wall. The spot grew and grew as the camera panned in until it nearly filled the frame.

“This is a lava tube. It was created by an ancient volcano over 100 million years ago. This shape was formed during a basaltic lava flow, when very hot and viscous lava was forced up from the mantle and out a vent that used to be where this impact crater is now. The lava carved its way through the subsurface. Once the supply of lava ran out, the tube drained down the slope to the lower mare below and a void remains. We have lava tubes on Earth and there are also tubes on Mars, but the ones here on the Moon can be much larger because of the low gravity and lack of atmosphere. The opening of this tube is approximately 400 meters in width and 160 meters high. It is a cross-section of the tube because the asteroid that created this impact crater just a few million years ago, struck the vent and the very beginning of this ancient lava tube creating the opening. Let’s go in.”

Dealey advanced the SciBot. It climbed over some dark-colored basaltic debris outside the opening. Soon the SciBot was dwarfed by the black void. McPhee could hear murmurs of awe from the audience. He shot a quick look at the traffic meter of the internet conference. The views were skyrocketing! Dealey maneuvered the SciBot into the tube. At the entrance, there was a drift of gray dust on the floor of the tube but that gradually diminished about twenty meters in. Soon the blackness became complete.

“Let’s turn on some lights,” said Dealey. The SciBot’s arc lights flashed on. Beams of light reflected in curves across the ceiling and sides. The inside of the huge tube undulated slightly like the belly of a giant black snake.

“The tube slopes downward at three degrees and extends for approximately eight kilometers – that’s five miles.” Dealey paused to let that sink in as the SciBot rolled down the tube. “Let’s take a closer look at the walls.” The SciBot turned right. At first, there was just blackness beyond the range of the floodlights. But in a few minutes, the light began to reflect up and down displaying the concave, polished sides of the tube.

“You can see some curbs here on the sides where the lava flowed at different levels at different times. Aah, and this is not all basalt. Look down here and you can see some green streaks in the wall and some orange over there. A thorough survey of the tube will have to be done. There could be some valuable mineral deposits nearby.”

Dealey directed SciBot farther into the tube but within sight of the side wall.

“A good portion of the tube is about 40 meters below the lunar surface – 130 feet, so it will have a stable temperature, lunar day or night. The temperature now is around eight degrees Fahrenheit or minus 13 degrees Celsius. If we seal portions of the tube, it should be possible to create an atmosphere and, if so, we could heat the atmosphere. You’d probably still have to wear a thinsuit for warmth, but you may not need helmets. This would be a lot safer than a surface base. At this depth, people would be shielded from solar winds, galactic cosmic rays, micrometeorites, and even decent-sized asteroids. This tube has been here for millions of years so it must be sturdy, the curved shape of the roof has probably helped keep it intact. You could build a flat floor in here and compensate for the slope. Then you could build whatever you want – a spacecraft factory, laboratories, work areas, living quarters, mess halls, recreation areas – it’s big enough to hold a town with a five-mile-long main street. A tube town.”

“Damn, he’s good,” whispered Matsuda in McPhee’s ear. “I didn’t know you have a realtor on your staff.”

McPhee smiled, but his brow furrowed as he checked the time and hurriedly addressed the microphone. “Thanks Peter, that is fantastic news and historic video. Director Pang, does this news address your concerns?”

“Uh…yes Dr. McPhee, this looks very promising, very promising. I’m surprised that this news wasn’t your first announcement,” he said with a thin smile.

McPhee ignored the rebuke and said, “With the resources available to us, we have only been able to explore a tiny portion of the substrata of the moon. Since we have now found one intact lava tube, that means there are probably more. That’s all of our time for now. Thank you for joining.”

Matsuda shook McPhee’s hand beaming, “A world-class realtor and a politician – you rockhounds have got game!”

As soon as Matsuda was out of hearing, McPhee tapped his left ear and brought the sound up on Dealey.

“Dealey, you were lucky you didn’t destroy that SciBot. Next time you violate protocol I’m going to kick you to the curb. I’ll make sure you never work in the space industry again.”

A shiver went down Dealey’s spine. He didn’t expect this reaction. He could feel venom in McPhee’s voice. “Yes, boss.”

“Shut SciBot3 down, it’s got to be low on power,” snarled McPhee.

“That won’t be necessary,” said Dealey quietly as the image from SciBot 3 flickered and went dark.