A City Upon a Hill

Ellen?

Ellen?

Ellen?

Deke?

Ellen, you're alive. Thank God.

You've been out for almost six minutes.

I'm... I'm here.

You need to abort the burn.

I don't have much left in my OPS.

There's a puncture in my suit.

Shit.

Houston, our abort handle is non-responsive.

Houston, do you read?

I've been trying. I can't raise them.

Shit.

Harry!

Keep pressure on it.

Houston, our S-IVB's fuel is depleted. Do you copy?

Houston. Do you read, Houston?

Houston, do you read?

Do you read, Houston?

Is there hope for any sort of, uh, rescue?

That is... unclear at the moment, Mr. President.

What happened up there, Harold?

Well, sir, it's, uh--

We're going over everything leading up to Apollo 24's booster ignition

and it seems like the replacement computer

may have mistakenly thought the ship was still in its first--

rather, uh, initial orbit and booted up for the--

Could this be connected to the Soviets?

Sabotage, or...

I-- I'm not saying that necessarily, sir, I--

What in the goddamn hell are you saying, Harold?

I-It's complicated, sir.

No, it isn't! You've had three goddamn accidents in as many months!

What kind of chickenshit operation are you running down there?

I do not need this right now.

Already got Ronnie Reagan up my ass.

Him and his whole "America was better way back when" thing...

What does he even remember way back when?

Jim Crow?

The Depression? Vietnam?

It wasn't that great, let me tell you.

I don't care what you have to do.

You get those astronauts back home. You hear me, Harold?

English. I know you learn it.

You all do.

See, I know a lot about you guys. I was in Korea.

You cut off my oxygen. Really?

What were you doing in our mine, Ivan?

What were you looking for?

Nothing.

What's this for then?

What was it for, that device you left in our mine?

The one you destroyed.

Yeah, you put it in our territory.

-Your territory? -Yeah.

That's funny. Your territory, your mine.

This is the moon, mister. Belongs to everyone.

Molly Cobb and I discovered ice there over three years ago.

Yeah, if it's about who was here first,

Alexei Leonov was here before you, Edward... Baldwin.

And he said moon belonged to the whole world.

I seem to remember him saying something about "the Marxist-Leninist way of life."

Look...

you want ice.

So do we.

There is enough ice for everyone.

Why don't you tell me what you're building over there at Zvezda?

I've seen all the regolith you're kicking up.

What are you building over there?

I can't tell you.

Didn't think so.

You need to let me go. My compatriots will be looking for me soon.

Yeah, well, see, I'm not that concerned about your compatriots 'cause...

I know you've got one rover, just like us.

And it's over here.

So... if your compatriots wanted to come looking for you,

they wouldn't get very far, now, would they, Ivan?

Guess not.

Guess not.

500 feet.

300 feet.

Apollo 25 splashdown.

Roger that, 25.

Condition of the crew?

I'm good, the astro wife is smiling, and Dennis is seasick.

GUIDO, give me a situation report on Apollo 24.

Still got no communication, Flight.

No telemetry, no bio-readings. Only able to track 'em on radar.

Jesus, we don't even know if they're alive, do we?

All we know is that they're headed toward... deep space.

Wish we could talk to Houston, find out what the hell happened.

The long-range S-band must've been damaged during the burn.

We're way past short-range VHF.

I sure am glad they upgraded these goddamn comm systems last year.

Guarantee you, we were still using the old output buffer,

none of this happens, and we're back on our way to Ed.

Maybe so, but you need to calm down.

It's not good for you to get so worked up.

And I need you focused if we're gonna pull this off.

Pull what off?

With that overburn, we're miles off course

and going way too fast to enter lunar orbit.

You think you're up for another burn?

You saw.

I mean, Harry.

He got dragged into the plume. Swallowed him whole.

We'll have to ditch the cargo.

Gonna need just about all the fuel we've got left

to get our velocity down to 35,650 feet per second.

The margin's gonna be...

Well... there won't be a margin.

Well, it's either that...

or we're on our way to Jupiter and Ed stays stranded.

So what are we waiting for? You want me on the computer or the sextant?

Let's dump the dead weight first.

Be my pleasure to get rid of that fucking thing.

SMRCS-iso valves are all gray.

CSM separating.

Sayonara.

...prolonged communication failure,

likely caused by physical damage to the command-service module's antennae.

His hope is that whatever event damaged the antennae

did not also damage the fuel tanks or guidance systems.

Aleida!

...ended on an optimistic note,

saying that astronauts are "a different breed.

They train together tirelessly..."

-¿Papá? -Aleida, are you okay?

Yeah, I'm fine. Where are you?

My hearing was this morning.

They say they're gonna send me back to Mexico.

What do you mean? They can't.

I'm sorry, Aleida, I... I should have been more careful.

But don't worry, I talked to Cata,

and she said you can still stay there and keep going to school.

I will send her money.

I don't wanna stay with her.

When will you be back?

I don't know, mija.

They say if they catch me again, they can send me to prison.

But you don't worry, mija, hey.

Everything is going to be okay. I promise you.

Te quiero, mija.

Te quiero, papá.

And now, we bring you live to the press conference

at Houston's Johnson Space Center,

where head of the astronaut office, Buzz Aldrin,

and administrator Harold Weisner

are discussing the crisis in space.

Astronaut Liu is survived by his wife, Cecilia,

and their two daughters.

He was a good man. And a good father.

-Gentlemen, hey, hey! -Front row.

Mr. Aldrin, what about the status of Commander Wilson and Deke Slayton?

What we know right now

is that an unexpected firing of Apollo 24's stage-IVB engine

performed the translunar injection burn earlier than planned.

Gentlemen, gentlemen!

Mr. Weisner, Mr. Weisner!

Sources are saying there's been talk of possible Soviet sabotage in the...

Okay, no, no, no, no. Those are unfounded rumors.

Then what caused the engine to fire?

We're looking into that.

Are they headed for the moon?

We cannot comment on that at this time.

Attitude looking good. Trajectory converging.

Helium pressure holding.

Okay.

Good on trajectory, now let's put on the brakes.

Configuring DAP for braking burn.

We're a long way from 35,650.

Still over 36,000 feet per second.

We're not gonna have enough gas in the SPS to make it.

Goddamn it. We need to use the RCS.

Switching to manual.

We burn through that, we won't be able to control the vehicle.

-We'll be dead in the water. -It's better than missing the moon.

All right, firing all four RCS thrusters plus-X.

Five seconds.

Come on. Come on.

Shit. RCS depleted.

SPS at three, two, one.

We didn't make it.

By 30 fucking feet.

Yes, and thank you, sir.

Yeah, it certainly is a Christmas miracle.

We're all very happy over here.

-What's happening? -They're alive.

They've corrected their trajectory towards the moon.

Okay, I will keep you updated as the situation progresses.

All right. Thanks again.

To enter orbit, you not only have to be going exactly the right direction,

you have to be moving at exactly the right speed.

If you're even one mile per hour over,

lunar gravity won't hold onto the craft.

It's like a marble going past a drain.

It's going too fast, it'll just shoot right by.

Okay, so they just need to slow themselves down, right?