Mission of the Lunar Sparrow

When your moon mission goes wrong, you must be resourceful or you will perish.  Commander Rae Field is resourceful, with thousands of flight hours on her resume.  But when her mission on the Moon meets with resistance from unknown forces, she is changed forever.The journey unfolds over nine short-form episodes.  Mission of the Lunar Sparrow is based on a novel written by H.G. Wells in 1901.  Podcast written, produced, edited, and directed by Lee Schneider. Starring Andia Winslow. 

Commander Rae Field is on her way to the Moon to fulfill a landmark mission. The United States government has pre-dropped mining equipment on the lunar surface and Command Field will check out the equipment drop and press start on the first mining facility on the Moon. Starring Andia Winslow as Commander Rae Field. Written, produced, directed, and edited by Lee Schneider. Produced for the FutureX network. Production by Red Cup Agency.

While still in flight to the Moon, Commander Field and Mission Control make a troubling discovery. All of the mining equipment that was supposed to be pre-dropped on the Moon seems to be missing. Mission Control's scans of the lunar surface turn up nothing. Commander Field orders system checks to verify the disappearance. That will alert other, competing nations that the American mission may be having critical problems. 

As Commander Field closes the distance to the Moon aboard the Lunar Sparrow, Mission Control’s sensors show no human life on the South Polar Lunar Base. Mission Control has no explanation for why the equipment and personnel are missing. Commander Field has an intuition about it, however, drawn from a troubling dream she had during a micro sleep. She shares this with Mission Control, but chooses to keep it a secret from admin. They would remove her from her command if they knew she had such a dream.  She receives orders to land on the Moon and investigate and also to “scrub the socials” — to conceal what she thinks is really going on down on the surface. 

In Episode 4 of Mission of the Lunar Sparrow, Commander Field touches down on the Moon to discover she is in a crisis. The ship’s solar array failed to deploy, so her chance to inspect the mining equipment drop point may fade away. She decides to venture outside the Lunar Sparrow, repair the array, and venture forth using the Lunar Rover. 

By now it's clear that Mission Control does the bidding of admin, another name for the US Government agency in charge of space flight, and Commander Field is starting to see some cracks in the moral universe that Mission Control works so hard to support. Admin is running hundreds of missions all over the solar system, many to mine on Mars, large asteroids, the Moon, which of course is the Lunar Sparrow's mission. Commander Field calls this out as colonialism, but Mission Control maintains that the nations flying the solar system do not own the celestial bodies they are exploring -- only the materials they take. Their debate is interrupted by a strange presence that Commander Field senses on the surface but which Mission Control cannot detect. 

Mission Control saves Commander Field's life after she blacks out on the lunar surface. Once inside the Lunar Sparrow again, they clash. Commander Field insists that she has felt and experienced signs of life on the Moon. There is opposition to their mining mission. Mission Control believes that Commander Field is under excessive stress. The mission hangs in jeopardy as Commander Field goes public with the evidence she has gathered. 

Conflict escalates between Mission Control and Commander Field in Episode 7. Mission Control believes that the solitude of space flight has warped the Commander's mind, but Command Field sticks by her story of discovering life on the Moon. Since Mission Control has the final word on the ship's systems, it is able to take drastic action to stop her from acting on her convictions. 

In this episode before the final episode of this season, Commander Field has sent Mission Control off on a computational errand, keeping the machine busy  and giving her a chance to record a secret diary entry. She speaks from the heart about what she has seen on the lunar surface and how it has changed her.

In Episode 9 of this short-flight audio drama, Mission Control is flying the Lunar Sparrow on autopilot, returning Commander Field to Earth. A mysterious decision has been made, at a high level, to end the mission. Commander Field, as is often the case in situations like this, is the last to know what has happened. But before the fade out, she takes one last act of defiance. It’s been rare if not impossible, in our complicated times, to see live theater. As a writer, it can be a long walk to come up with an idea, pursue it in notebooks and pixels, commit to a script, hand it off to an actor, and hear it come to life. Audio drama, as a format, allows that creation, and pretty fast, even in our complicated times.That’s why posting this last episode is bittersweet. The adventure is over. I am working on a sequel, or followup, I’m not sure what to call it. Mission Control and Commander Field will return to try to resolve the conflicts between them. There will be other characters who get involved with no clue about what role they play in the drama until it is too late for them. Thank you all for listening and commenting. Your support means a lot to me.- Lee Schneider 

After nine episodes, Mission of the Lunar Sparrow is complete. Perhaps feeling a little nostalgic after the run of the show, the series creator took some time out from casting his next project to interview one of the series leads about what it was like to make the podcast. They cover the casting process, discuss what's coming next for both of them, and reveal a bit about their working relationship. d7kXtDwBj8Zg4IvhbS82