Christmas 1974: Apollo 24 finally lifts off, but a faulty circuit board in its Saturn V rocket prevents it from executing an engine burn to put it on course for the moon. Apollo 25, whose crew was already preparing for a satellite repair mission in low Earth orbit, is given a new mission: repair Apollo 24’s booster in orbit. While it may sound simple on paper, the repair procedure involves extensive spacewalks and previously untried procedures. Worse yet, the moment that the new component of Apollo 24’s booster is installed, the rocket fires, dragging the Apollo 25 command/service module along with it; Apollo 24 astronaut Harrison Liu is killed. Molly Cobb, still tethered to the Apollo 24 booster, untethers the Apollo 25 command module and then herself, necessitating an unplanned rescue mission with razor-thin fuel margins. Apollo 24 is out of contact with Houston, and according the best estimates of its trajectory, will miss the moon completely, continuing on into deep space and dooming its crew. On the moon, now more than seven months into his stay, Ed Baldwin comes face-to-face with a Soviet cosmonaut who has been making unauthorized use of Jamestown Station’s ice extraction equipment. When that cosmonaut knocks at Jamestown’s base, short on oxygen and in need of refuge, Baldwin could make the obvious choice to help his fellow man…but doesn’t.
written by David Weddle & Bradley Thompson
directed by John Dahl
music by Jeff RussoCast: Joel Kinnaman (Edward Baldwin), Michael Dorman (Gordo Stevens), Sarah Jones (Tracy Stevens), Shantel VanSanten (Karen Baldwin), Jodi Balfour (Ellen Waverly), Wrenn Schmidt (Margo Madison), Chris Bauer (Deke Slayton), Sonya Walger (Molly Cobb), Wallace Langham (Harold Weisner), Arturo Del Puerto (Octavio Rosales), Olivia Trujillo (Aleida Rosales), Krys Marshall (Danielle Poole), Mark Ivanir (Mikhail Mikailovic), Meghan Leathers (Pam Horton), Rebecca Wisocky (Marge Slayton), Lenny Jacobson (Wayne Cobb), Stephen Oyoung (Harrison Liu), Charlie Hofheimer (Dennis Lambert), Chris Agos (Buzz Aldrin), Noah Harpster (Bill Strausser), Nick Toren (Tim “Bird Dog” McKiernan), James Urbaniak (Agent Gavin Donahue), Megan Dodds (Andrea Walters), Mason Thames (Daniel Stevens), Tracy Mulholland (Gloria Sedgewick), Aria Song (Cecelia Liu), Carin Chea (Penny Chen), Theo Iyer (Carl Reid), Brian McGrath (Sam), Ben Solenberger (LMSYS)
LogBook entry by Earl Green