Author: Diana Vega

Liftoff! Actually, I’ve forgotten how many tankers we’ve launched already, but it always looks and feels like the first. Not as spectacular as an Earth launch, since the gravity is low. But you hear and feel it through your feet, the dust flies, and the huge thing hovers up and ignites its main engines. This…

Behind the crater wall, always in shadow, sits the cracking station, where dump trucks bring raw ice and regolith and drop it into machines that crush and heat the material. The water evaporates, and it is captured in a condenser. The leftover regolith gets pushed over the cliff and builds up like a giant landfill,…

Every week we launch a full DTVL-91 Mustang tanker with a capacity of 91 tons. It burns about 27 tons to get to Gateway, delivers 36 tons, and burns the remaining 27 tons to get back safely. So over our 6-month tour, we’ll need to fit in two extra deliveries. Al came along because he…

So this time the customer wants 1,000 tons of propellant delivered to Gateway over the next six months. Problem is, the first crew used up all the good nearby ice. We get to clean up what’s left and go farther out onto the crater floor. Half of our equipment needs maintenance, which the first crew says…