Mission of the Lunar Sparrow Episode 5

17 August 2021

When Commander Field steps outside her spacecraft there is a presence there that neither she nor Mission Control can explain.

By now it’s clear that Mission Control does the bidding of admin, another name for the US Government agency in charge of space flight, and Commander Field is beginning to see the cracks in the moral universe that Mission Control works hard to support. Admin is running hundreds of missions all over the solar system, many to mine precious metals on Mars, large asteroids, and the Moon, which of course is the Lunar Sparrow’s mission. Commander Field calls this out as colonialism, but Mission Control maintains that the nations mining the solar system do not own the celestial bodies they are exploring — only the materials they plunder.

It’s a fine point in their debate, and it’s interrupted by a strange presence that Commander Field senses on the surface and which Mission Control cannot detect at all. Soon, because of a glitch, Commander Field is left to fend for herself on the lunar surface.

This episode begins a new chapter or section in the podcast. I’m writing with an eye toward the story of the original H.G. Wells novel. Wells had a vision for space flight and exploration that was realistic for his time and simultaneously ahead of his time. He meant what happened on the Moon to stand as a metaphor, since it is strange and he would have known a lot of it was impossible. Still, it gives us something to think about and that’s what I’m going for as well.

Thanks for listening,

Lee

Find Episode 5 at FutureX, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Mission of the Lunar Sparrow was produced for the FutureX network. Production by Red Cup Agency.