Chapter 46

The entire earth seemed to be watching these pictures, because they were shown live. First I had to get many commentators educated on what they were going to say without sounding like fools when future generations looked at the records. For the most part, I just wanted to minimize confusion and give the people the straight dope.

This was the first spacecraft to leave earth and land on another body and the first to photograph the backside of the moon, never seen before.

The world was ecstatic with joy at this achievement. I used this to talk of all the international cooperation I had got to pull this feat off. Some people wanted to keep the cold war as warm as possible, while I wanted to keep the people of the world alive.

I spoke in different languages and the various recordings were sent through satellite to the countries behind the iron curtain. I knew that all the hype about war and a need for defence had raised people's anxieties. From my research after the broadcast it was obvious that most of the earth felt better when we all worked together for a common goal.

Another double launch with our Apollo units brought two large capsules into orbit. Over worldwide television we linked these two craft. Massive sails unfurled. They would provide electrical power for the craft, with a safety margin for portions being destroyed by debris and micrometeorites.

Many of my favours had been used up but I thought it was in a good cause. The West and the East had agreed previously to the cooperative projects like our moon probe. Hopefully, if this worked, the money and effort I put into this project would be worthwhile. Newspapers now talked of new cooperative efforts being planned. Old die-hard communist haters were again frothing at the mouth but my name seemed to help. It was explained that this was a safer way of continuing the cold war by bleeding them of money that otherwise could go to armies.

After the successful mating everybody was slapping each other on the back. I listed all the companies and countries that had a hand in building this. Even enemies didn't seem to mind much when the other side extolled their accomplishments while depreciating what others had done. These were basically put up with just my money. This was going to be a marriage of convenience between the government and the private sector.

I wanted to get the common person more involved in this than just watching from the distance. Remotely controlled cameras were steered into position from a dozen points on earth. Each happened to be at an elementary or high school. Every country with some stake in this new experiment was allowed to try their hand. When the trucks carrying the telemetry gear were in transit, the scientists were able to monitor insects, small animals and seeds growing in weightless conditions from their labs.

The United States launched one of their own capsules and the world saw how this new facet was integrated to the dual units already in orbit. From my original two it was fascinating to have some external cameras see the slowly moving mass of aluminum alloy, with a large American flag, dock. I hoped this symbolic mating would mean that the others would pull as hard as I was doing.

In following weeks, the Russian contribution came, then the British and the French. The latter two made their own units but paid me, or the United States, to launch them. I had been very shocked to find three years ago that Canada wanted to contribute. Its capsule was the largest, mainly because I had installed many extra tools on it; especially the long arm for the bay that would be used to service spacecraft. Canadian schools now went wild, cheering on our Union Jack, because our maple leaf flag had not been even thought of, yet.

I had cajoled Japan and West Germany to make their contribution, along with three others that were cooperative efforts of many smaller countries.

From children to adults, everybody from many countries were now very proud to see their nations' flags and symbols as they were added to a whole much greater than its parts. I tried to make it affordable to even the smallest countries but many still refused. Money was still available to purchase weapons to take on an equally poor neighbour, though.

Some in the West were angry at accepting the Russian contributions as well as those of their old Axis enemies. Some of it was cold war paranoia along with the wish to bleed Russia till it finally capitulated. Another part was that they saw their old enemies up to the same level of prosperity that they were, even if it was a sham.

In a way I was really bleeding Russia, too, for they were not making much money from this endeavour but it cost them a lot. I thought it a much better way to eventually bring the East back into the fold. They would come in with their heads held high and with the respect of the rest of the world.

There were only seventeen GPS satellites in orbit but now the military and everybody else could use our hand units. When the remainder were launched, then more areas would be covered.

Many companies sold GPS ground units but the parts all came from plants I had a share in.

The old colonies, like Vietnam, were growing restless and they were agitating for independence. It seemed to be just a movement, because it was good to get assistance from a large mother country in time of need. Like children, though, many needed to fledge. Some countries must have been monitoring Vietnam, for they did not jump on the independence bandwagon like they had before. Most of the colonies of the major nations, in that other time, had gained independence at this time.

France was watching Vietnam very closely and at the moment Vietnam was prospering under its preferred trade status and the lack of major corruption. It seemed that even some French nationals had met a gristly end and the Vietnamese found that nobody was above the law. The French, though, had to be pushed into this action, because the people involved had some influence with the French government.

France exploded its first atomic bomb and joined the atomic club, as I had predicted. The U-2s that had been shot down in the previous time had now been avoided. The spy satellites and my twisting of military ears as to the capabilities of some of the Russian missiles prevented the loss. My warning was not completely unheeded and the missile in question had missed the plane because it was at its maximum altitude.

Nikita Khrushchev was still pissed off, especially since his country was cooperating with the US and other countries on this project. The falsehoods and outright deceit still propagated by western and Soviet powers had always made me laugh, even up to the time I had been sent back to this time. Every country claimed that their planes were outside the other's territory when attacked. The truth was that a small-scale open war was always happening, with planes shot down and ships sunk or captured. Many times, commercial planes were used as pawns in this international game of prestige.

All that the average citizen ever heard was that some soldiers died or some bad country hurt another country. Usually, this was while they were going into a quiet field to pick wildflowers for their mothers. The hypocrisy was just too much to talk about. Then again, voters regularly reelected the very thieves and liars who had been in the news only a while before. When a plane full of vacationers was shot down it made the killer's country look bad but it also tested the boundaries that a country was ready to defend.

Russia was still cooperating, though, especially with me. The late April launch of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin did not take place. They were busily doing some work on construction for the multinational habitat high above the earth. This was part of the deal, so that they would give the other countries a chance to participate.

Laura gave me a daughter and six months later Seiko did the same. Sonia was eight months pregnant and arguing with me about my latest exploit.

"You can't do this, Alex. It is much too dangerous. Even if you don't think of your family, think of all the people that are depending on you."

I tried to hold the woman but she was having none of this. I said, "This is what I was aiming for the last decade."

"You have been the first in so many things. Why must you do this? Send somebody else. There are more than enough volunteers."

"I know that, love. The trip has some element of risk but it is being very strenuously tested. I don't want to take a chance with my own life. My purpose, as I said many times before, is to lead and to keep a major war from breaking out. My way will make many countries cooperate for the first time since the Second World War. If I do not go, they will not follow. If they do not follow, then the human race will have an even less chance of survival."

My other wives sided with Sonia in this but I stuck to my guns. It was hard to fight them when three were carrying my children in their arms and one in her womb.

In May I worked between my wife's legs and brought my fourth child into the world. My newest son had a very good set of lungs. Joseph even looked a bit like his maternal grandfather. It was nice to have four adults who were not afraid to baby-sit and help the mothers out.

On June 20 1961 I was strapped down in my seat on top of the largest rocket yet built. The fabrication had taken years and much of it was done on my say-so alone. I didn't want to wait decades till the math, experimental flights and conditions could be proven. Earlier launches with unmanned loads indicated that it was fairly safe. I hoped it so safe that I did not even wear a heavy, cumbersome spacesuit. I was dressed in casual-looking clothes that happened to be the uniform used by my company. Nobody knew it but I had stolen shamelessly from the future Star Trek series for uniform ideas.

We did not have the height, weight or thrust of the one in my old time but we had enough to do this a piece at a time: send three separate modules into orbit and combine them into the spaceship to fly to he moon. We were just shy of three hundred feet high and only weighed in a four and a half million pounds.

Part of the improvements was accomplished by lightweight alloy and carbon fibre matrix around otherwise weak tanks. Its size, though, was just a brute force method to get this much mass into orbit. The hydraulics used the kerosene fuel itself to reduce weight. Hatches were made as large as possible to facilitate movement with our large suits.

The leaders of many countries wanted me to send another in my place. I was truthful in what I said to my wives but I also wanted to get into space. I had never done so before and this was really breaking new ground. I just hoped my ego did not weigh me down or lead to my death.

The Service Module was 5.3 metres in diameter, 7.9 metres long and containing the propulsion system for mid-course corrections, retrofire to achieve lunar orbit and thrust to return from lunar orbit into Earth trajectory. It was also our main transmitter for communicating with earth. This time, there would be many colour cameras giving the viewers scenes that even my old time had never seen. Its weight in my case was the heaviest of the three at 42,000 pounds. If I was going to go some place, I wanted to go in style and comfort.

It was the heavy Service Module that I was attempting to ride to orbit with. My idea was to be the first man into orbit and used the need to be a backup to the computer to justify this.

The Command Module was the spacecraft's control centre and housed the crew of possibly five astronauts. It was conical in shape, 4.9 metres high and 5.3 metres in diameter and weighed more than 17,000 pounds. This was much larger than the Apollo missions in weight and size. It would be launched independently and arrive with astronauts and more supplies.

The landing module was 6.9 metres high and 5.3 metres in diameter and weighed in at 45,000 pounds. This included our lunar excursion vehicle. It would arrive on a third launch vehicle and bring with it supplies for the international habitat. The weight was much greater than the first because we had many more experiments to run and planned to stay long enough to carry them out.

The world was now watching me with one eye, while the other was watching the other two rockets that would launch in as little as one day. My family was near the launch site reserved for guests.

Yuri bitched a bit about being so far away from the launch pad the same as Aron had previously. I just smiled when I told him to wait. Mom and dad were very proud and had known about this for years. Grandma and grandpa were the same but seemed to be more conservative and wanted to know why anybody needed to go into space.

The day before I was hustled off and went through some tests I thought appropriate. I had kissed my wives and children one more time. I just hoped it would not be the last.

The launch was hard and stressful. For a while, I had four and a half gravities on me and then it went to one more before cutting back. There were many cameras on me and many times more information was transmitted to our control than had happened in my time. When the rocket went through an area of the atmosphere that didn't allow transmission, the data was stored for later transmission.

Long minutes later I saw the blackness of night through the porthole. It was like being in a high altitude spy plane. This time though, I knew I had just started the voyage.

After a very brief moment of weightlessness I was propelled back into my seat by more acceleration. My mind was not able to keep too much track of my sensations for I was following the programmed course waiting to take over if needed. I just hoped that it wasn't.

The third stage fired for just a few minutes and shut off exactly as it was supposed to do. I now had to coast till it was time to fire the rockets one more time to straighten my orbit out.

The messages started to pour in and I knew that the television cameras must have been feeding the monitors on earth, again. I acknowledged the messages and gave my own opinion on my status. It was not likely at this point that I would quit even if I had a broken leg.

Heads of state called me to give their own congratulations. This must have been a problem, for I was given the calls one after the other and everybody was polite. It was a sure bet that the leaders voice was heard in his home country along with his picture superimposed on one corner of the screen. Politicians could usually score points, no matter what was happening.

The family came on after we made the course manoeuvre to stabilise the orbit. I held the firing button in my left hand ready to engage if it did not come in time. Again, the rocket and the computer performed faultlessly and shut off.

Dad talked first and after half of the small speech in English he lapsed into Polish, which I replied to in the same language, then told the people in English what had been said. A prompter would translate the words into other languages anyway.

Mom, then Grandpa then Grandma came on and said a few words. Before the wives came on, Aron, Mineko and Yuri talked to me individually. This time, for the foreign listeners, I spoke in Russian or Japanese. Part of this had been rehearsed and in a way I tried to bind East and West just a bit more.

The wives finally used the mic and joked a bit and said they loved me. The whole world knew that they were my wives but the term had never been used. 'Mates' was the term I preferred and what was most used. Various religious groups were always angry with me, especially when I started to have children.

Ingrid Bergman's illegitimate child had angered many in 1950 but my four children in 1961 were even more controversial. Nobody, except a deluded one, would think that I would not watch out for my family. They had seen how I worked hard to bring about some social changes and strengthened the family as much as I could.

I didn't get to finish talking before the retrofire started and I lined up the sights and did what I could while still talking. As the two large masses came closer a small probe with some Styrofoam on the end touched first. A spark was not seen but I knew that all ships had shared the surplus electrons. Finally the ships clanged and then again as they locked. I said to Helen, "There, it looks like I am docked." Even though everybody could see better than me because of the multitude of cameras, I said, "It is so beautiful here. The stars are bright, just like your eyes but they do not even twinkle like yours do." Helen said nothing with the entire world looking on. I continued, "I can see deep shadows and bright surfaces with no in-between."

I had an evil thought and called openly to Fidel Castro who had not talked to me yet. "Hello, Fidel, are you there?"

He came on quickly enough and said, "I am here, Alex. Are you looking for that bottle of rum I promised you?"

"No, no, Fidel, I want your legal opinion."

"What is it you would like?"

"What would the nationality of my next children be, if my mates came up here with me and stayed for a bit over nine months?"

I heard gasps from the other lines and Fidel said, after he stopped chuckling, "I will have to work on that. You are now part of an international space station with the flags of many nations. At a guess I think they would have to have the nationality of all those nations. Quite a passport they would have to have, unless the United Nations starts issuing their own. I suppose that Hugh Hefner will want to interview you again to find out the mechanics."

"Quite possible but I will draw the line in this case. People will have to come up here to find out for themselves."

This more than anything else shocked the world. Many children still were not given any information about procreation. Some of my books had covered the subject but were only geared for certain ages. The Moslems felt it was ok to have four wives but I had not officially married mine. They were also very strict and kept the dark secret of sex away from their young as strongly as the Christians did.

This would stir up some major controversy on earth but they would still listen to me because I relayed information that nobody had known about or seen before.

When everything was in safe mode, I checked the conditions on the other side of the double hatch. I was not running off my batteries, for the solar panels on the station were supplying more than enough power. I broke open the hatch after bleeding a small amount of air between the station and the Service Module hatches. From independent sensors I knew what I was going to find on the other side.

I opened a small valve and equalized the pressure and soon I climbed into the central hub of the station. The first two portions had been first launched almost a year ago. The air was good, with the scent of living things and a comfortable amount of humidity. There had been no space walks to admit fungus but a small experiment that took samples like a sea anemone did something similar. The digestion, though, showed that some things were now growing from a sterile environment. Some fundamentalists thought this was just a mistake and discounted it out of hand. Others concurred with me that fungus might be in every gravity well.

I checked the fuel cell I was very proud of. It was even better than what I had used in our satellites launched in 2004. This is what was actually going to power our experiments in welding components in zero g and a vacuum. The vacuum had been tried on earth and now we wanted to use it to construct a future home for humanity.

One large experiment should have stunk but had been kept sealed. Mice had been put into a secured area and allowed to multiply without hindrance. Food was grown in the large bottle and more was introduced from time to time. The mouse population grew so large that they ate all the food and then reverted to cannibalism. This experiment had been done on earth but this way a billion people might see what had happened and draw parallels to humanity's growth.

One lone mouse lived on sprouts that had not all been eaten by his now dead brethren. I would be very surprised if this one were able to make it through the difficult times facing it. In a way I was proud of it for being such a survivor. When this one died, there would be no progeny to continue. China, in my old life, passed a law limiting one child to a family. India had no such backbone to pass a similar law. In this life I wanted the laws passed but I might already have done things that would make the population crisis come much sooner.

Mineko talked to me about the experiment now and I gave the world what I had said to her many times. She was in charge of this and she not only kept good notes but also made her own observations. Her explanation was three minutes long and I worried if the people actually picked up on these important facts.