Adrift on the Sea of Rains

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1. morelispJun 2021
   For a more realistic depiction, along both Weir's suggestions (opaque explanations) and yours ("workers who do a job that is pretty much pre-determined"), I'd suggest Ian Sales's Adrift on the Sea of Rains which features a fictional commander stranded on a late-Cold-War moon base. Lots of jargon, no infodumps, no context for the reader (towards good literary effect).

   In the grey gunpowder dust, he stands in the pose so familiar from televised missions. He leans forward to counterbalance the weight of the PLSS on his back; the A7LB’s inflated bladder pushes his arms out from his sides. And he stares up at that grey-white marble fixed mockingly above the horizon. He listens to the whirr of the pumps, his own breath an amniotic susurrus within the confines of his helmet. The noises reassure him—sound itself he finds comforting in this magnificent desolation.

   If he turns about—blurring bootprints which might otherwise last for millennia—he sees the blanket-like folds of mountains, grey upon grey, and a plain of the same lack of colour, all painted with scalpel-edged shadows. Over there, to his right, the scattered descent stages of LM Trucks and Augmented LMs fill the mare; and one, just one, still with its ascent stage. Another, he knows, is nearly twenty years old, a piece of abandoned history; but he does not know which one.

   A click from his radio reminds Peterson where he is. The voice of Major Philip Scott, USMC, his XO, follows: We’re about ready to make another evolution.

   Peterson glances at the Omega strapped about his spacesuited forearm and sees that he’s been out for half an hour. The PLSS is good for a seven-hour EVA. He says, I’ll watch it from out here.

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2. timclarkJul 2017
   Adrift on the Sea of Rains by Ian Sales

   A Dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest

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