Arthur Clarke's novel " A Fall of Moondust": Very good shipwreck & rescue story on moon.Makers of this movie also put together this slide show that explains the essentials of the story with pictures. Not very good quality, but not bad either. I saw this version the version at YouTube appears identical but I haven't played it. A 3-minute movie showing the launch, its going wrong, & realization that things have gone wrong, but not the most interesting rescue routine.He is advised to don the space suite, & at the moment Launch Control will advice, to manually jump off the ship into space with all the force he can muster! This advice will be given when his capsule is at its highest point in orbit, & airlock is facing away from moon hopefully, this will put him in a non-crash orbit - & give rescue ship, Callisto, time to finally fetch him. While a ship will eventually pick him up, it cannot get to him in time before impending crash. Ground staff have worked out a totally crazy & frightening way to save him. Part way through his elliptic crash orbit, he gets a call from Van Kessel, Chief of Maintenance, Space Vehicles Division. A lot of space is devoted to his ruminations on this. I could not follow how the accident destroyed them.Īnyway, now he is awaiting certain death. There are small steering jets on capsule, but they are also destroyed. It will go to a certain height then moon's gravitation will pull it back, & there will be a mighty crash! Result is - his capsule doesn't get moon escape velocity. Only there is a launch fault because of a 1 second electric supply failure on launch rail. He buys a return ticket on an unusual flyer to save some money - a freight capsule launched by an electric catapult he is the sole passenger on board. "II" comes from looking at the plot as a space age variant or sequel of a very similar survival story at the sea - Edger Allen Poe's " A Descent into the Maelstrom".Ĭliff Leyland is an African farmer trying his luck in a lunar colony, & is now returning back to earth. An outstanding shipwreck & rescue story in space.Īs far as I know, there is no other Clarke story called "Maelstrom" or "Maelstrom I". This would easily class as among Clarke's best.
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