20 Years Earlier: 2042

(the following is revealed via interwoven flashbacks throughout the series)

CIEX'S MOON STATION: LUNALPHA

In 2042, American astronauts Chen Mengsei (28) and Scott Rose (28) were part of a mission to Lunalpha (a CIEX operated moon station) that was preparing payloads for transport to the new Mars missions. Both young men were brilliant — albeit arrogant — young scientists working for CIEX, the world's largest private space company. At the time of the mission, Mengsei and Rose had been part of CIEX's Luna program for three years.

Lunalpha was built in 2034, and by 2042 CIEX wanted to accelerate the expansion of the Moon station. CIEX needed new transport shuttles in order to keep their NASA contract and their lead in the Mars base establishments — the Chinese were coming along quickly. But the only way for CIEX to afford new shuttles was for CIEX to get a new NASA contract for expansion of the Lunalpha station on the Moon. But the expansion would cost over $1 Trillion dollars, and in 2042 it was being voted down in Congress on the basis that it was unnecessary due to the current Lunalpha station being sufficient, and due to a general economic recession that was making taxpayers leary. So CIEX needed to do something quickly or it risked losing first dibs on Mars work, while the recession ran its course. CIEX needed to create a need for the expansion of the Moon facilities.

Thus on that mission in 2042, Mengsei and Rose were given secret duties, delivered to them by an upstart 24-year-old, rising star in CIEX, Donna Karper. Their secret instructions were to cause a fire in the Agricultural Research Unit (ARU) of Lunalpha sufficient to require it to be rebuilt. The ARU was built by a subcontractor — a now defunct Spanish company upon which CIEX could safely lay blame.

To keep any of the seven other ARU astronauts from being hurt, Mengsei thought Rose had uploaded a unique BWS response code into their nine helmets — each was to get a warning to exit the ARU in time, but not a warning that would have seemed to have been placed there on purpose. But when the explosions occurred, and none of the seven others had come, Mengsei was horrified and scrambled to rescue as many as he could. He hurried back and forth, in and out of the ARU, risking his own life, getting severely burned himself, and rescued three. But four died in the fire. All the while Rose was in a debilitating full shock/panic attack, and didn't help rescue any.

Mengsei took a moment before they went back to Earth to investigate the bio-settings in the helmets of the four survivors, plus his helmet and Rose's helmet. Mengsei saw that only his and Rose's helmets were calibrated to give the early warning.

Later, while they waited to take off for the return flight, Mengsei observed Rose switching out all five helmets, moving the name badges and BWS codes to new helmets, and tossing the original five out onto the surface of the Moon near the disaster site. Mengsei figured either Rose made a mistake in uploading the warning code into the seven other astronauts' helmets — or Rose forgot to do so — or worse yet, Rose was under separate CIEX orders to not warn the seven at all. Either way, Mengsei then knew that he and Rose were both responsible for the deaths of the four astronauts. Rose saw that Mengsei had observed Rose switching out the helmets. Neither said a word to each other — enough was understood.

Upon their return to Earth, Rose would not speak to anyone, other than to confirm the truth as Rose saw it — Mengsei was a hero for risking his own life to go into the ARU over and over again to save the three. Mengsei received a hero's welcome and was awarded the Medal of Honor by the elderly President Gavin Newsom.

The four who died are given funerals with full honors at Arlington Cemetery. At the graveside of William Bell (one of the four dead astronauts), a member of the military Honor Guard handed William Bell's six-year-old son, Benjamin Bell, the tri-folded American flag that had just been on the boy's father's casket.

The 28-year-old Mengsei and Rose attend the funerals of the dead astronauts — because they had to — but neither said a word to the other.

When the young Benjamin Bell spotted the Hero of Lunalpha (Mengsei), the boy tried to give Mengsei the tri-folded flag from his father's casket. Before Mengsei could decline, the widow of the dead astronaut stepped in to stop her son. She thanked Mengsei for his gallantry and said she only wished Mengsei could have saved her husband too. Mengsei became overcome with grief.

Mengsei and Rose stayed loose-friends over the next 20 years, but never spoke about Lunalpha. Mengsei was elected to Congress in 2046, and Rose climbed through the CIEX ranks to become their CTO in 2055.

As the story within the series progresses, we learn that Rose has been trying to find the five abandoned helmets: his (Rose's), plus Mengsei's, plus the three belonging to the survivors. Over the past 20 years, salvagers had sifted through debris left on the Moon and were selling items of interest to collectors.

It is never clear exactly why Rose wants the helmets. It's doubtful Rose wants them for sentimental reasons — most likely Rose wants them because (as Rose sees it) the helmets are the only evidence remaining in the Universe as to what Rose did that awful day at Lunalpha.

It's also unclear whether Rose realized (before it was too late) that by bringing home Mengsei's helmet, Rose was bringing home the most guarded secret in the world — the BWS of the President. Rose took those secrets to his grave when he committed suicide publically in 2062, almost 20 years to the day after the Lunalpha Disaster.