Eagle Station

In her view, today’s briefing for the international media was simply a somewhat more modern version of an age-old ruse. Time and again throughout history, emperors, kings, and generals had dispatched heralds of peace to their enemies, buying time with meaningless talk while secretly massing their armies for war.

Putting on a warm and gracious smile, Titeneva followed her older, male Chinese counterpart, Peng Xia, out into the Foreign Ministry’s press briefing room. The two other human props in this little piece of diplomatic theater trailed behind her. Bearlike, with a shock of thick white hair, Anatoly Polikarpov was the head of Russia’s state-owned civilian space corporation, Roscosmos. He dwarfed Shan Min, the director of China’s National Space Administration.

Peng led them all to a lectern facing the assembled journalists and TV news crews. They lined up together, flanked by the red-, blue-, and white-striped Russian flag and China’s gold-starred red banner. Huge projector screens covered the wall behind them. Titeneva and the others stood quietly for a few moments, giving the assembled journalists and camera crews time to take in this unexpected exhibition of high-level Sino-Russian diplomatic and scientific unity.

Murmurs and whispers tinged with sudden interest rippled through the crowded room. What had originally been billed as a relatively routine press conference after a meeting between the two foreign ministers now seemed more likely to produce real news.

With exquisite timing, Foreign Minister Peng moved forward to the lectern. “Honored comrades of the international press corps, thank for your presence here this afternoon.” He offered them a slight smile. “I promise you that your diligence will be rewarded with more than the usual dull diplomatic platitudes.” That earned him laughs from some of the Western journalists present. “As you may have guessed, this is no ordinary briefing,” Peng continued.

To her amusement, Titeneva saw the array of reporters suddenly sit up even straighter. They reminded her of a pack of hungry dogs slavering at the sight and smell of a treat in their master’s hand.

Peng paused briefly, allowing their anticipation to build. Then he went on, speaking calmly and precisely. “Earlier today, three rockets were launched into outer space — one from the territory of the Russian Federation and two from the People’s Republic of China. The timing of these launches was not an accident. It was deliberate, the result of careful planning and many months of closely coordinated effort between our two countries.” If anything, the assembled journalists grew even more eagerly attentive, straining at the leash, as they waited for more details.

Still smiling, Peng half turned and beckoned Titeneva to join him at the lectern. “I now invite my esteemed colleague, Foreign Minister Titeneva, to provide you with more details of this historic and unprecedented event.”

She stepped forward, squaring her shoulders to present an image of resolute confidence. “Thank you for your gracious invitation, Minister Peng,” she said with a quick nod. Then she turned back to the waiting journalists. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to inform you that the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation have today embarked on the first of a new series of peaceful voyages of discovery to the moon. Our first unmanned mission together is called Pilgrim 1—Cháoshèng in the language of our hosts or Palomnik in my own native tongue. This symbolizes the sense of awe and wonder with which we approach the moon, Earth’s closest neighbor.”

Left unspoken but perfectly clear, Titeneva knew, was the vivid contrast between this seemingly peaceful Sino-Russian scientific mission and the greed and crass commercialism at the heart of America’s own revived lunar program. Behind her, the briefing room’s two large projector screens lit up.

Each showed full-color video imagery from the Yuanzheng-2 boosters heading toward the moon. Bright sparks flared on both screens as the boosters separated from their payloads and drifted off into the infinite blackness of space. There were more flashes as new explosive bolts detonated. Slowly, fairing panels detached and spun away, tumbling end over end — revealing the payloads flying toward Earth’s moon for the first time.

Titeneva waited for a few seconds, allowing the first, sudden buzz of excitement and curiosity to fade a little. “What you see are the two halves of China’s most advanced lunar lander, Chang’e-Ten,” she explained. “One is its descent stage. The other is its ascent stage. If all goes well, these two spacecraft, controlled by their own onboard computers, will rendezvous in lunar orbit and dock. The goal of this first test of circumlunar vehicle assembly is to produce a single, mated lander… a spacecraft capable of carrying taikonauts and cosmonauts safely to the surface of the moon and then returning them to orbit.”