They Reached For The Moon
By William Oberfield
The major problem in achieving space flight lay in
overcoming gravity. That had been done and men had
reached the Moon. But strangely, they never returned!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
November 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They took a thousand days to build the great, gleaming monster, andanother two hundred to groom it for its trip around the moon. All thisthey did with an air that made a trip to the moon seem quite naturaland sure, even though three other rockets had gone before and not onehad returned.
"This one will," they said, as though convincing themselves.
But they were not sure. They were stubborn, perhaps proud, but not sureat all. All the world had watched three other such rockets, with menin them, go screaming off moonward. All had waited for them to return.And all had seen nothing come back down from the sky. Not even a smallscrap of metal. This one might return, and, if it did, the men in itjust might be alive to tell. But that was not being sure.
"A military base on the moon!" the leaders had cried. And that had beenthat. Robot rockets had gone first. They had landed on the moon. Theycould do that, but they could not establish the desired base. So menhad started on a round trip, around the moon, first to prove that mencould do it. The only thing they proved was that whatever goes up neednot come down.
Now the fourth rocket waited, leaning over against its heavy launchingrack, ready to face whatever unknown danger lay out there beyond.
On a certain night, a night long appointed, one overshadowed withheavy clouds that brought a threat of rain, there were lights about therocket and in the low, concrete buildings that cowered back a ways fromthe upright metal giant. Around the base of the rocket men scurriedlike ants, making last minute preparations and seeing that everythingwas just so and not being satisfied with "good enough".
In one building, a little nearer the rocket than the others, two menlounged, talking of the coming trip and other things that concernedlast night's women, and smoking endlessly, the last smokes they wouldhave for four days. These men would soon climb into a long, metal thingand try to do what others had failed to do.
In other buildings were men with great ideas held firmly in theirminds, doing things with pencils and paper and adding machines. Thesechecked back over figures and charts, knowing all the time thateverything was flawless, but checking just the same. Some were Army menand some were not.
The feeling that seemed to grow over everything was one of waiting andsuspense, and one might know without asking, without seeing the manyglances at watches and clocks, that it would soon be time.
Strangely, the two men waiting and speaking mostly of wine, women andgeneral good times, knew very little of the import of what they wereabout to do. In fact, they had no real concept of even the size of theearth, let alone the magnitude of space, the moon and the stars. This,however, was as intended.
The men who had gone in the other rockets had been scientists, greatlyskilled men, men of high I.Q.'s. So the brass and the brains had gottentogether and reasoned, and pooled data, and considered statistics,and finally decided that the strain of being completely out of one'snatural element, exposed to the terrible, thought-twisting blankness ofspace, might be greater than had been supposed. And the high-strung,sensitive, sometimes slightly neurotic minds o