Interest in the previous telecasts from this mission — save for the original “handshake” — had been minimal. None of the major channels had carried live coverage, and the astronauts’ families had been forced to come into JSC to follow what was happening up there.

But all that changed as soon as the NERVA blew, and people grew morbidly fascinated anew by the spectacle of humans risking their fragile lives out there in space. It’s our biggest TV audience since Apollo 13, Josephson thought. Don’t foul it up, Joe.

…We’re a long way from home, and it’s hard not to be aware of it. If the Earth was the size of a basketball, say, then the Skylabs would be little toys orbiting an inch or two from the surface. But the Moon would be the size of a baseball, all of twenty feet away, and that’s where we are right now.

Our purpose is to do science out here. You may know we’re on an inclined orbit, so we’re seeing a lot more of the Moon than was possible during the old Apollo landing days. We’re carrying a whole range of cameras, both high-resolution and synoptic, and we have a laser altimeter and other nonimaging sensors, all of which has allowed us to map the whole surface of the Moon at a variety of scales.

And we’ve made some neat discoveries. For instance we’ve found a huge new impact crater on the far side of the Moon, fifteen hundred miles across — that’s nearly a quarter of the Moon’s circumference. I’m told that the Moon is turning out to be a much more interesting place than it was thought to be, even when Neil and I first walked on the surface.

In fact, just at the moment we’re sailing over the Sea of Tranquillity itself. If you look at the disk of the Moon from the Earth, that’s just to the right of center. So you can look up at us and see where we are, right now. And in our big telescopes, I can sometimes make out the glint of our abandoned LM descent stage.

Now, for all the people back on Earth at this difficult time, the crew of Moonlab has a message we would like to send to you.

Oh, Christ, Josephson thought. That sounds bad. What now?

Adam Bleeker drifted out of his seat toward the camera. He took the camera, his outstretched hand foreshortened to grotesque proportions, and swiveled it so that it was pointing out of the wardroom’s window. The image settled down; it was low quality and a little blurred, but Josephson could clearly see the blue crescent Earth, rising above the unraveling, monochrome desolation of the Moon.

The next voice was Phil Stone’s.

“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

“The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

“When other helpers fail and comforts fee,