Eagle Station

HELIUM-3 MINING ON THE LUNAR SURFACE, European Space Agency, 2007—…Unlike Earth, which is protected by its magnetic field, the Moon has been bombarded with large quantities of Helium-3 by the solar wind. It is thought that this isotope could provide safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor, since it is not radioactive and would not produce dangerous waste products….

CHINA THREATENS TO FURTHER FORTIFY ITS MAN-MADE ISLANDS IN DISPUTED REGION AS TENSIONS WITH US ESCALATE—The Independent, 9 January 2019—China may seek to further build up its man-made islands in the South China Sea if it feels the outposts are under threat, one of the country’s senior naval officers has said.

The country reserved the right to do as it pleased on the islands it has created in the strategically vital waterway, which it claims virtually in its entirety, according to Senior Captain Zhang Junshe, a naval academy researcher.

“If our on-island personnel and installations come under threat in future, then we necessarily will take measures to boost our defensive capabilities,” he said during a briefing with journalists….

UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE — Military.com, 2018—On June 18, 2018, President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to begin planning for Space Force: a 6th independent military service branch to undertake missions and operations in the rapidly evolving space domain. The U.S. Space Force would be the first new military service in more than 70 years, following the establishment of the U.S. Air Force in 1947.

Vice President Mike Pence and the Department of Defense released more details about the planned space force on August 9, 2018, citing plans to create a separate combatant command, U.S. Space Command, in addition to an independent service overseen by a civilian secretary….

Prologue

Taurus-Littrow Valley, the Moon

December 14, 1972

For more than three and a half billion years after lava flows and fire fountains marked its birth, the Taurus-Littrow Valley, surrounded by gray hills and massifs, slumbered in airless silence. But over the course of seventy-five hectic hours, two men from Earth, Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, broke in on its age-old isolation. On foot and aboard a four-wheeled rover, they explored the mountain valley’s slopes, impact craters, and boulder fields, carrying out experiments and collecting more than two hundred and fifty pounds of priceless geological samples.

A remotely programmed television camera mounted aboard the abandoned rover vehicle showed their four-legged Lunar Module, Challenger, starkly outlined against the smooth, rounded peaks rising along the western edge of the Taurus-Littrow. For long minutes, radio channels to Earth and to the Command-and-Service Module, America, high overhead in orbit, were full of chatter as the two NASA astronauts ran through their final pre-liftoff checklists. Then, abruptly, it was time to go.

“Ten seconds.”

“Abort Stage pushed. Engine arm is Ascent.”

“Okay, I’m going to get the Pro… 99. Proceeded. 3… 2… 1—”