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Professor Calculus, Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock, and Calculus's assistant Frank Wolff are aboard an atomic rocket-powered spacecraft leaving the Earth bound for the Moon. Soon after takeoff they discover that the detectives Thomson and Thompson have accidentally stowed away on board, putting a strain on the oxygen supply. The detectives accidentally turn off the nuclear motor, disrupting the artificial gravity and sending everyone floating until Tintin corrects the problem. They then suffer a relapse of the Formula 14 drug (seen in Land of Black Gold), resulting in their hair growing rapidly in multiple colours, until Calculus subsequently administers a cure. Haddock, who has smuggled whisky aboard the rocket, gets drunk and takes an impromptu spacewalk, during which he briefly becomes a satellite of the asteroid Adonis, but Tintin is able to rescue him.
The rocket lands in the Hipparchus Crater, with Tintin being the first human to step on the Moon. Next day, Calculus and Wolff set up optical instruments to begin observational work on the Moon while Tintin and Haddock build the Moon tank. Two days later, Haddock, Wolff and Tintin take the Moon tank to explore some stalactite caves in the direction of the Ptolemaeus Crater; inside a cave Snowy slips into an ice-covered chasm, but Tintin rescues him. Later aboard the ship, Tintin is ambushed and left bound in the hold by a third stowaway, Colonel Jorgen, a spy who had been smuggled aboard by Wolff, who has been blackmailed by a foreign power for which Jorgen works. With Wolff's help, Jorgen seeks to hijack the ship and return it to Earth, but Tintin escapes and foils him through emergency sabotage that cuts power to the engine.[2]
Due to the strain on the oxygen supplies, the crew decides to abandon the Moon tank and the optical instruments and to cut short the lunar stay. The repair work is completed slightly ahead of schedule, and the rocket is cleared for lift-off. Halfway to Earth, Jorgen escapes his bonds due to the detectives' bungling and tries to kill Tintin and the others with a gun; Wolff seeks to prevent him, and in their struggle over the gun accidentally kills Jorgen by shooting him through the heart. When it is revealed that there will not be enough oxygen aboard for the crew to survive the journey, Wolff sacrifices himself by opening the airlock and floating out into space to his apparent death. Upon approaching Earth, the crew fall unconscious, but Tintin wakes long enough to set the rocket to auto-pilot and it arrives back in Syldavia safely. After landing, the crew is recovered when oxygen masks are placed on them. Calculus hopes they may return to the moon someday, but Haddock refuses, reveals he learnt something from all of this Man's proper place is on dear old earth. [Ka0UTE-bGKs] |