15 for 15 Contest --- Closed

My name is Goddard, and his name is Tsiolkovsky, so it wasn’t surprising when we both made the trials.

The circumference of the Moon is something like 11,000 km, but the track wasn’t along a Great Circle route – it twisted and turned through the southern hemisphere, winding around craters and mountains, and shooting straight across the maria – and, of course, across Tsiolkovskiy Crater on the side away from Earth.

The accident happened there, in yet another example of a long chain of cosmic irony. We were far ahead after several days, Andre and I. He was ahead of me; my car was faster on the straightaways, but his handled the curves better. It’s tough keeping a vehicle on the road on the Moon – the low gravity tends to send them rolling, or spinning off into a parabolic trajectory. Spoilers, of course, only work in air, so making the cars aerodynamic only added unnecessary weight. Hence, big wheels; low, flat cars; and the ugliest frames in the solar system.

My team radioed me about what was ahead, in a burst of exuberant static. “You’re all clear, kid!” Johnson enthused. “This race is yours!”

I signaled acknowledgement and slowed down as I approached the crater wall. There, the track zigzagged up the steep, rocky cliffs; anyone taking that first turn at speed would risk careening off a wall and bouncing back into the valley.

And this is what happened to Andre Tsiolkovsky – I saw it in the skid marks, in the scrapes on the gray rock.

I stopped. “Where’s his team?” I radioed in.

“They’re having launch difficulties,” said Johnson. “Just go. They’ll resolve it soon.”

I gripped the steering gear and sighed.

“Soon” might not be good enough.

I switched frequencies. “Andre,” I said. “You okay in there?”

No answer.

Securing my helmet, I got out, hooked up a line, and slid down the rough escarpment, trusting my suit’s tough fabric to protect against any scrapes. There, at the bottom, was the broken frame of the Russian race car.

The door, bent out of shape, hung from its hinges; below it, lying on the rock-strewn floor of the crater, lay my rival.

“Andre?”

Still no answer. I checked his suit: systems nominal, except… no. Low pressure. He was leaking air into the vacuum.

I picked him up – he was light in the lunar gravity, and started the winch that would bring us back up.

That was when it happened: my foot got caught in the escarpment, I felt a stab of pain and the sickening crunch of bone. By the time I could stop the winch, it was too late.

I freed myself and let the winch carry us the rest of the way up.

He revived in my cramped cabin, and we talked.

That’s how the race car from the United States ended up crossing the finish line first, with me, Alex Goddard, strapped to the frame in his spacesuit, and the Russian Andre Tsiolkovsky behind the wheel.

The judges didn’t know who to award, so we both got the trophy. We smiled at each other, helmets open in the cavernous space, and celebrated as the crowds cheered around us.

After more than a century, the Space Race was finally over, and we were both winners.