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 they’re working on now. Their quota was 750 tons and they exceeded it by 400 with that second ice pocket. Well, we can beat that. Hello, bonus!
Solar Maximum starts to become acute in three months, half-way through our tour at Whipple Crater. Stepan’s had us do several space weather drills: storm shelters, getting caught in the open, radiation first aid. Part of the job.
Al and Yukito are seeing the lunar north pole up close for the first time. Yukito’s been hogging the viewport since we left Gateway. Everyone else has been this far north for one reason or another. I’ve hauled geologists, hydrologists, astronomers, rock samples, communications equipment, spy equipment!, engineers, even holiday dinners. Never gets old to me.