Story set on the Moon

 Here is an assignment from a few weeks ago for science class. I went pretty far above the minimum word count. I don't have a title for it. Here it is:

Max Nadeau

12/3/13

Science 7

Otto Harson bounced up in his seatbelt as the buggy ran over a small stone. The year was 2067, and Otto was on his second Exploration and Discovery excursion. Sitting beside him was fellow astronaut Henry Lofenger, a more experienced driver and explorer. The reason the pair was on the lunar surface was to search for deposits of platinum group metals (which only come from meteors) and other possibly useful resources. They were cruising in the moon buggy across the barren wastelands of our Earth’s only moon. The car they were sitting in was state-of-the-art. It had insulation against the brutal heat from the outside, and the car was was made out of super-light material. It had the latest photosynthetic technology; enabling the CO2 they exhaled to be turned back into oxygen using only sunlight. “Can’t you slow down a bit?” Otto complained, “You’re going to flip the buggy over.”

“It’s fine,” Henry said offhandedly, “You worry too much.”

They continued, both a little tired from the flight in. The GPS was leading them to  a few sights that had been identified from Earth as possibly containing resources. They had just left one of the sights, in which the had scanned the ground and found nothing. The next one was close, only 20 minutes away or so.

They were both bored and tired, so Otto tried a joke.

“What was the astronaut’s favorite candy bar?” Otto asked.

“Huh?”

“A Milky Way.” Otto said, smiling a little.

They both laughed a little. Henry groaned.

“How did the spaceman stay attached during a spacewalk?” Henry asked back.

“How?”

“He tied on with a astro-knot!”

They both cracked up.

“When is the moon not hungry?” Otto said seriously.

“Uh… I don’t know.”

“When it’s full!”

Otto and Henry laughed hysterically. While he was laughing, Henry accidentally pressed the gas pedal. The car zoomed forward. Right as Henry regained focus, the car bumped off a rock, and jumped into a small crater, landing on its side.

“Are you okay?!?” Otto blurted, his heart beating rapidly.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks to these seatbelts,” Henry grumbled.

“What happened?” Otto asked

“I think I just hit a rock and we fell into this crater,” Henry answered, “We’ll be fine, though.” Otto looked around. Both the car and the photosynthesizing panels seemed to be intact. They tried rocking the car up, but could not. Henry reached behind him and opened up a little drawer. He pulled out a radio transmitter and tuned it to the ISS’s frequency.

“Come in, International Space Station, can you hear us?” Henry declared.

After a little pause, a response came back.

“Yes, we can hear you. This is the ISS. Who is speaking?”

“Otto Harson and Henry Lofenger, of the US Exploration Team. Could you transfer us to Sara Gornel?”

“One second, I’ll transfer you…”

“Sara Gornel speaking.”

“Hi Sara, it’s Henry. The mission isn’t going perfectly. Our car has flipped. Otto and I are both fine, but we’d like it if someone could come and pick us up, as we are far from our ship and I’m not sure if we have enough food and water, and I don’t think we could get it through our suits anyway.”

“That isn’t good. I would try to send someone, but we are on the other side of Earth, and dusk is coming soon. You could try … FZZTBZZT” The communications suddenly disappeared.

“Whoa!” said Otto, “What happened?”

“I think that was the Earth getting between us and them.”

Otto turned to Henry.

“Also, why is dusk a problem?” he asked.

“The only reason we’re breathing right now is that our car is using our CO2 and the sun’s light to photosynthesize oxygen for us. We get about two weeks of sunlight followed by two weeks of darkness, If there is no sun…”

“Then there’s no oxygen,” Otto finished solemnly.

For a little bit, the only sound was the panels humming.

“What now?” Otto asked.

“Now we do everything we can to survive.”

There was enough space in the back of the car for them to sit on the wall of the car and talk. The space in the back also doubled as an airlock so they could put on their spacesuits and go outside. The first thing they did was inventory anything of use. They had enough food and water to last them a few days, communications systems, and not much else. Then they went out side the car (in the space suits) and tried everything to right the buggy. They could lift it a little bit off the ground, but couldn’t get it vertical again. They walked to the top of the crater and looked around, seeing nothing but a tan, rocky wasteland. A little while off they could see a pile of something. When they walked over to it, they saw that it looked like pieces from sort sort of spacecraft. Some of the pieces had writing in what looked like Chinese. While they were looked through it, Otto suddenly had an idea.

“Wait!” he blurted enthusiastically, “You see that lander leg over there, and that big fuel canister right there! We could use them as a lever and fulcrum!”

“Hmm,” murmured Henry, thinking, “You’re right. I bet with the decreased gravity we could. Here, you carry the lander leg and I’ll carry the canister and we’ll see if we can do it.”

When they got back, they put the container on the ground and shoved one end of the leg under the car while one of them held it up. Then Otto went over to the other side of the pole while Henry prepared to help lift the car.

“Ready, set, push!” barked Henry.

The car leaned, and wobbled, and Otto and Henry pushed as hard as they could. Finally, thanks to the decreased gravity, Thunk!  the car landed back on its wheels.

“Whoo!” Otto hooted, “Yeah! We did it!”

“Yup,” said Henry, acting as if he rescued himself from sure death every day.

They got back in the car. Henry started it up and they cruised right back to their ship.

As they were going, Otto took out the transmitter and spoke, “ISS, ISS. You will be pleased to know that Otto Harson and Henry Lofenger have returned from our trip to the Moon completely alive and uninjured.”