First on the Moon

One of the rockets was silver; three were ashen gray. Each nested in a different spot on the great Western Desert. All were long, tapered, sisters except for color. In a way they represented the first, and last, of an era, with exotic propellants, a high mass ratio and three-stage design. Yet they were not quite alike. One of the sisters had within her the artifacts the human kind needed for life—a space cabin high in the nose. The remaining sisters were drones, beasts of burden, but beasts...