To moon or not to moon.......continued

There was uproar as the whole of India rose in celebration as the communication from Hanuman indicated that they had indeed pushed themselves out of earth’s atmosphere. The glitch they encountered was a minor one and Dr. Grewal was quick to fix it. They were set and plunged forward through the nothingness of space to a distant object which was growing bigger and bigger as if it was coming towards them to embrace the first child of India.

          The longest time taken to reach the moon is 5 days and the minimum is 8 hours and 35 minutes. Hanuman was slated to encompass this distance in 12 hours. Now the legs, torso and the neck of the spacecraft was left behind on earth which were slowly making a descent in a direction opposite to that of hanuman but in a much slower pace. Hanuman was headed towards the moon and there was nothing that could stop it.

          Its thrusters were shut down as there is no resistance in space and an initial acceleration would continue to grow without disturbance. Communications were full-on as the various equipments were cross checked with the aid of instructions from the control center. It was 9.00 pm in India and everyone went off to slumber to get up to the news of Hanuman over the moon.

          Hanuman was equipped with a dummy probe that was a small scaled model of a lunar landing vehicle. It was to be operated remotely by Shravan and his crew to test its feasibility on a manned moon descent. If successful a full size model would be designed and used in the next moon mission. The Indians were cost effective. The whole cost of the program which includes the two missions would be less than half compared to a one time mission to the moon. Although, the time taken would be doubled but the chances of failure were reduced considerably.

          The nation awoke to the news of Hanuman closing in on its target. The dummy probe was launched and in exactly 6 min, 45 seconds was reported as a failure as the probe hit a crater, lost balance and fell into the chasm. The intent Indians were disheartened, but their heart leapt when the news came that, although a failure enough data was collected to not hinder the next mission. All was well. The next step was to catapult around the moon back to Earth.

          This phenomenon is governed by a force called centrifugal force. Due to the interaction between two bodies of different masses, there is an invisible force that binds them together. You experience this when you are in a vehicle and it swerves sideways and you are pushed out of your seat. Hanuman was to take advantage of this phenomenon and catapult itself towards Earth. The return journey was estimated to be around 9 hours.

          Hanuman was heading towards the dark side of the moon. Communications would black out during their period behind the moon. Shravan in an exhilarated voice said; “See you on the other side of the moon and the other side of Indian history.” He did not have the slightest inkling that, that statement was just a euphemism for what was going to happen.

          There was radio silence for around 2 minutes. Every Indian’s senses were tuned to receive only one stimulation, the first communication after the blackout. The control center was nervous as this was a crucial period. At exactly 2 min and 32 seconds the communication should have resumed. 3 minutes were past and there was no reply. Hanuman never appeared on the other side of the moon………. 
(will be continued again for the last time....)