Ice (Johnson novel)
1st edition paperback cover
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| Author | Lora Johnson |
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| Cover artist | Alan Bean |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Christian fiction |
| Publisher | Waterbrook Press |
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Publication date
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July, 2002 |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 396 (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | (paperback edition) |
| OCLC | 49875086 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3560.O38638 I28 2002 |
Ice is a Christian science fiction novel by author Lora Johnson, known as Shane Johnson at the time of publication.
A fictional Apollo 19 mission suffers a major system failure, forcing its crew to strike out on their own.
The characters discover a vast quantity of ice on the Moon—ice that is impossibly flat, and in a formation they cannot possibly explain until they make a much more momentous discovery.
In February 1975, Apollo 19 lands near the Aitken Basin near the lunar south pole (called "Marlow" in the novel) following a discovery of a vast quantity of water ice at that location. (Observation data from the 1994 unmanned spacecraft Clementine has indicated the existence of subsurface water ice mixed with lunar soil, as confirmed by Lunar Prospector and subsequent missions, but exposed water ice on the moon's surface has not been recognized by the scientific community.) There the crew tests an experimental heavy Lunar rover, launched to their location earlier by a Saturn 1B and delivered to the Moon using a stand-alone LM descent stage called the "LM Truck." (Both of these vehicles might have been actually used on the Moon, according to Johnson, had not Project Apollo been cut short.)
All goes well until the astronauts are ready to lift off to return to the orbiting Apollo CSM. Unfortunately, their LM ascent engine fails to fire. Repeated attempts to restart that engine—the only part of the LM system without a backup—all end in failure. Finding themselves stranded, the mission commander and LM pilot say goodbye to their wives. The commander peremptorily orders his CM pilot, in orbit around the Moon, to return home. He and the LM pilot then abandon the LM and strike out on their own, driving their rover to the limit of its remaining driving range "to see what we can see." In their last message to Earth, they ask their colleague and Capsule Communicator to help their returning crewmate understand that he must not blame himself for their deaths.
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