LB-01 · interactive route board

Lunar Traverse Planner

The shortest line is not always the safest. Read the contours, place waypoints and build a route Jack could walk.

Fictional educational model. The map, distances and suit limits are invented for this interaction. This is not mission-planning software and does not describe Apollo, Artemis or real EVA hardware.
FIG. LB-01A

Shackleton traverse sector

CONTOUR INTERVAL 10 M
Interactive fictional lunar contour mapArtemis Base, the Relay Site and the LM Site are marked over contour lines. A black crater interior fills the west of the sheet behind a marked shadow line. Hachured bowls are small craters, a boulder field lies south-east of centre, and the selected route is coloured by grade.RELAY SITESECONDARY RELAYARTEMIS BASESURFACE HABITATLM SITEASCENT VEHICLE
Gentle, under 6% Demanding, 6–12% Steep, over 12% Cold shadow

Plan on the map: click or tap to add a waypoint, then drag it to reshape the route. Waypoints can also be moved with the arrow keys. Hachured bowls are craters; crowded contours are steep ground.

Route summary: Artemis Base direct to Relay Site.

DAY PLAN · SOL 143

Relay check

WINDOW 00:35

EVA conditions nominal, particle flux quiet. You are go for the 1000 window — relay check on the day plan. Suit O2 stands at 34% of an eight-hour charge. Walk a line the checklist would sign.

Pace

Mission checks

  • Arrive within 00:35
  • No section above 12%
  • Keep 9% O2 for the walk back
  • Land with 25% suit battery

Waypoints

Add them on the map, then drag or arrow-key to adjust.

  1. Direct route. Add a waypoint to work the contours.
Add a waypoint by grid reference

Metres from the south-west corner of the sheet.

LIVE TRAVERSE SOLUTION

Route assessment

REPLAN ROUTE

The direct line crosses ground the suit can’t hold. Route around the steep contours.

Route length
0.0km · direct 1.4
Elapsed time
00:00window 00:35
Steepest section
0.0percent grade
O2 at arrival
34walkback needs 9%
Suit battery
100no shadow time
Earth contact
Fullline of sight held
Checklist estimate 00:17

Read the ground, then draw the line

Contour lines join points at the same elevation. Where they sit far apart the ground changes height gradually; where they crowd together the same change happens over less distance, and the slope is steeper. The small bowls ringed with inward ticks are craters — the ticks point downhill. A direct route may be short and still cut straight across the tightest lines, which is how a walk becomes a climb.

Terrain is only half of it. West of the marked shadow line the ground falls into darkness long before the window closes, and a suit that walks in shadow spends its battery fighting cold that never lets up. East of the ridge crest the Earth drops below the horizon and takes Houston with it — the ground is fine, but nobody hears you until you top the rise again.

The walkback rule

One constraint in this model is real, and it shaped every Apollo moonwalk: the walkback limit. However far a crew ranged from their lander — on foot or by rover — they had to keep enough consumables to walk home if everything else failed. Traverses were planned as loops that shrank toward the lander as oxygen margins fell, which is why the longest drives of Apollo 17 came early in each EVA, not late. You can read the planning conversations verbatim in the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, and explore the real terrain those crews read from contour sheets in LROC QuickMap.

That is what the oxygen check above is doing: it is not asking whether you arrive with air, it is asking whether you arrive still able to change your mind.

View the simplified rule set

The sheet is 1:25,000 with a 10-metre contour interval, and every number is priced against the same terrain model that drew the lines. Walking speed starts at 5.1 km/h and falls as grade rises; boulder fields slow it further. Oxygen falls with time and effort from a starting margin of 34% of an eight-hour charge. Suit battery drains slowly in sunlight and dozens of times faster in cold shadow, where the survival heaters fight a surface the sun has never warmed. The route passes when it beats the window, keeps every section at or under a 12% grade, lands with the walkback reserve, and keeps a quarter of the battery.

No randomness, accounts or tracking are involved: the same line always produces the same report.

Where this walk comes from

In Cold Soak, the day plan at Artemis Base opens on exactly this traverse — a relay check on the rim, seventeen minutes by the checklist, walked by a man who trusts the duty board more than anything else in the room. Read the opening extract to see where the walk leads, or join the Mission Log for the release announcement. For the science behind cold machines on the Moon, start with why cold matters on the Moon.

The visual language is an original recreation inspired by Apollo-era flight-plan contour diagrams. It contains no NASA marks and implies no endorsement.