Ocean of Storms: A Timeline of A Scientific America
- Thread starter BowOfOrion
- Start date
Just finished reading. Absolutely loving it.
I did have a thought after the recent bombings. The possibility of losing communication with Mission Control again - even by accident - has to be weighing on NASA. With the tempo of operations in space only increasing, it would probably make sense to give Skydock (or a successor) the capability of taking over from any earthbound Mission Control in an emergency.
I did have a thought after the recent bombings. The possibility of losing communication with Mission Control again - even by accident - has to be weighing on NASA. With the tempo of operations in space only increasing, it would probably make sense to give Skydock (or a successor) the capability of taking over from any earthbound Mission Control in an emergency.
That is a very good idea. Out of reach of any ground based terrorist, and a highly symbolic step in the right direction.
Do what I Dream of Jeannie* and The Cape did and shift some MCC ops to KSC.
* - I wonder if Major Nelson and Jeannie ever moved to Houston
XLIX: Wings, Wheels, Spaceship Deals
Wings, Wheels, Spaceship Deals
3 October 1995
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
29° 33’ 47” N 95° 05’ 28” W
The smell of chlorine made his eyes sting. He didn’t know how Judy could stand it. If this was his office, he’d have worn a space suit. She sat behind a taupe industrial table with a modesty panel and a filing cabinet. It wasn’t a desk in any true sense, but it would do until they got her a proper office in the new structure.
They were down the hall from the weightless training facility. The massive pool, like any that could be found in a Houston backyard, gave off a chlorine smell that was noticeable throughout the building. If it was quiet in the office, he’d have been able to hear the various training operations that operated around the clock.
Despite the noise, smell, and general make-work look of the room, he remembered that among the astronaut corps, this was still the height of luxury. Judy Resnik was still the head astronaut, having mercifully been at headquarters in Washington on the day of the bombing. Her office had been destroyed, along with everything else in Building 30, but they had cobbled together a space for her as a high-priority need.
Amongst other things, that space included a television set, which is why she now had eighteen people crowded into the room.
Cale Fletcher, commander of Athena I, didn’t have to ask for a chair. As with every other gathering of astronauts, one was simply available to him when he was ready to sit.
He settled into the uncomfortable contraption of blue wool and faux wood and faced the TV at the back of the office.
The television was tuned to GNN, but it didn’t really matter. Any other channel would be showing the same thing at the moment. The announcer was going on about something, but quickly shut up when the jury appeared on the screen.
It took a few minutes for the judge to go through his spiel. Fletcher didn’t pretend to understand the intricacies of American justice, but he knew that the big moment was coming. So did everyone else in America and most of the people in the world, at least the ones who had access to televisions.
Finally, they had a wide shot of the defense table and off screen, you could hear a woman with excellent diction rattling off the statement.
“We the jury, find the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, guilty of murder in the first degree.”
What came after was garbled under the cacophony of groans, sighs, and muffled exclamations of varying emotions. Someone started to clap, but quickly stopped after a sharp look from Resnik. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a football game. Muttering replaced the initial noise and Fletcher heard at least one person utter the only sentiment he found himself agreeing with, “At least it’s over.”
“All right, you all have things to do that aren’t this. Get out of my office and go be astronauts,” Resnik said, descending into that tone familiar to every elementary school teacher.
In singles and pairs, the astronauts shuffled out to return to their duties. Fletcher alone stayed behind.
As he was about to speak, the voice of the news anchor cut in:
“If you want more news on today’s verdict, visit our website at aitch tee tee pee colon backslash backslash double-you double-you double-you dot GNN dot com slash OJ. Or search America Online keyword GNN OJ.”
Resnik reached for the remote. It took three tries to get the angle right and turn it off. She put it down and checked that the office door was shut. It was.
“What’s going on?”
Cale looked grim, “BJ just got the word this morning. The latest round of medical screenings. They’re saying it’s confirmed. Bad.”
“Oh no. No, no, no. I really thought he had the flu,” Resnik said.
“We all did,” Fletcher paused, letting everything flow around him, “He asked me to tell you. He went home to talk to Natalie and the kids.”
“Of course,” Resnik said. She bit her lip, looked out at the grey overcast skies that now seemed stifling. She could kvetch later, but there was work to do now.
“You need a new right-seat,” she said.
Fletcher nodded, “Yeah….. yeah.” He kept nodding softly as though it would change the situation.
“Should we get Brett Morrison in here and tell him?”
“I had a different idea,” Fletcher said.
“You were never happy with Morrison as a backup,” she said. It was neither a question nor an accusation.
Fletcher shook his head. He wasn’t usually this quiet. It was slightly unnerving.
“Cale?” she said. He flinched and looked up.
“I want Sally Ride,” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Judy said.
“I want Sally Ride as my right seat,” Cale Fletcher said.
“I’m getting you a week’s vacation. Take it now. Don’t argue. Just go out to your car and drive until you hit water,” Resnik said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re clearly training so hard that you haven’t been able to look at a newspaper or a telecast in the last two weeks,” she said.
“Oh, I heard. She likes girls. So do I. That’s not a disqualification,” Fletcher said.
“I don’t give a damn about that. I give a damn that she’s the only thing the news cares about this month besides OJ,” she said.
“You think this’ll make it worse?” he said.
“I think it’ll make it much worse, Cale.”
“Yeah. I don’t care,” he said.
“You have to care,” she said.
“I really don’t,” he said. “I need someone who can take over in case I get knocked in the head. I need someone who understands how to function on a space station and on a surface base. I need someone who can improvise, and I need someone who can lead.”
“That’s half our people,” she said.
“Half our people can do half those things,” he said.
“You’ve got every reporter in the world who’s going to want to interview you in the next thirty-eight months. Do you really want to field questions on your co-pilot’s sex life?”
“Are you asking if I’m okay laughing at a reporter who asks me a dumbass question?” he said.
She put her head in her hands and sighed. Then looked back up, “She’s not an engineer. You need an engineer. The first couple of months are pure engineering. An astrophysicist won’t be what you need up there.”
He chuckled, “Sally Ride helped design the Canadarm and then used it to deploy two satellites on her first mission in ‘81. She fixed a faulty antenna on Kitty Hawk’s first time out of the barn in ‘90, and she commanded Skydock during a legitimate crisis back in ‘93. Are you really going to try to argue her resume? Really?”
“You’ve got a golden ticket here, Cale. All you have to do is fly this thing perfectly. Come back in one piece and you’ll be the second coming of Frank Borman. Book deals, world tours, statues, all that TV crap you love. Why are you trying to complicate this?”
“I didn’t give BJ Klang cancer,” he said. He sighed and went on, “Look, this isn’t some political crap. This is about putting the best person in the right-hand seat. Why are you fighting me on this? You’ve known Sally since we were ascans. You know how good she is. The only other person I’d rather take is you. What are you fighting me for, Judy?”
“I don’t want her put in a spotlight,” Resnik pushed some papers back on her desk. “You know how many death threats she’s gotten in the last week? She’s not like you, Cale. She doesn’t love being on camera. I think she needs some time and space.”
“Dr. Ride is unavailable for comment at this time because she’s training for an important upcoming flight,” he said, with a stentorian accent. “There you go. That’s your c-mail to anyone who asks.”
“You really want to stick it to these people, don’t you?” she said.
“It’s not about that,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” she said, levelling a pen at him as though it was an accusation. “Just say it. Say it out loud. Say it to me.”
Fletcher’s mask broke and he gave in, “Hell, yes, I want to stick it to these people! They attacked us! They put a bomb in my house, I’m putting a dagger through their hearts. They hate lesbians. They hate scientists. They hate the space program. I’m gonna make them and their daughters watch as I put Sally Ride on Mars. If they’re very, very lucky, I won’t stick a pride flag in the sand and salute, but I make no promises.”
A moment passed. Judy sat back in her chair, “Better you get that out in front of me than in front of Gene Krantz… or Dan Rather.”
“You baited me,” he said.
“You needed the bait,” she said.
He sighed.
Her mouth formed a grin, “You could have offered it to me, Cale. I think they hate Jews as much as they hate gays.”
Fletcher snorted and waved a hand past his face, “Eh, you’re busy.”
“You know what Sally will say, right?” she asked.
“She doesn’t need some big, strong man to rescue her from the American fascists?” he said.
Resnik nodded, “And that she’s not a prop for your little vendetta against the people you didn’t like back in high school.”
Cale cursed and sighed, “I just lost BJ Klang and his year and a half of training with the Aurora. I’m not doing this to rescue her. I’m doing this so she can rescue me.”
Resnik nodded again, “We’re smart to put you on television. You should have done something that let you talk for a living.”
“Didn’t I?” he asked.
She chuckled, “Go talk to her. If she’s in, I’m in. And I’ll fight it out with whoever I have to fight it out with.”
“Okay,” he said, rising from the chair.
“Cale?” she said.
He turned before he could reach for the door.
“All that stuff about daggers and lesbians and daughters. Leave it in this room. Got it?”
“Got it.”
24 October 1995
X-39D Squealer
Edwards Air Force Base
34° 54′ 20″N 117° 53′ 01″ W
“Release,” said the voice from the squawkbox. Hank Patterson hoped it was a good omen.
Release was what he needed now. Release from this project, from this blind alley, from this cul-de-sac of aeronautics and wishful thinking. For seven years, he’d struggled with this little box of problems.
It had started simple enough. Reagan had wanted a suborbital ship that could deliver passengers from Washington to Tokyo in two hours. It was likely just a coincidence that the same ship could deliver a bomb or a squad of paratroopers to Moscow just as quickly. Perish the thought.
Patterson had been able to look past the haze and found something that had seemed worth pursuing.
The Scramjet was the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow of turbofans engines. A design that managed to be both intricate and elegant, the mechanics of it never failed to astonish his imagination. The idea of going from supersonic to suborbital speed with little or no need to carry along oxidizer seemed like the stuff of fantasy. A way to cheat Aeolus on the road to the heavens. Any curious engineer would have been willing to see it through.
Now, ten years later and ten million dollars lighter, the scramjets that would have pushed Reagan’s superplane out of the atmosphere amounted to a pair of wind tunnel mockups and one last test article that was now dropping from a B-52.
The wedge-shaped body of the X-39 was mounted to the front of a missile. Smaller than a kitchen table, it had no crew, only a compact collection of computer systems. It took only a few seconds to push the little craft up to the speed of sound. Patterson never heard a sonic boom. By the time the missile was up to speed, it was already over the Pacific.
In less than twenty seconds, they’d reached Mach four and began the engine test. One minute and ten seconds was all it took to expend the fuel on board. Patterson heard one of his technicians call out Mach five point nine-two. That would, at least, set a couple of records. What other good it did, he could not say.
Well, there was one theory. If this project was ever taken to another phase, a fate he prayed to avoid, then its primary use would be kinetic. Reagan’s superplane would likely become a supermissile.
Mach six was a dangerous speed to sustain. Dangerous for anything on board, or in the general vicinity. Clipper flights got out of the atmosphere as quickly as possible for that very reason.
You wouldn’t even need a warhead at that speed. Explosives would be superfluous. If you get it moving fast enough, you can get steel to flow like soup. And whatever it’s flowing around won’t be useful anymore at that point.
One of the Air Force guys said, “Kearsarge reports radar loss.”
That was no surprise. The last three prototypes had suffered structural failures before they hit the water. Seems the delta model was no different. The Kearsarge was somewhere north of Hawaii waiting to retrieve the X-39 if it survived. That wasn’t going to happen, but the data from its radar would at least provide a nice little eulogy for the last of America’s scramjets.
Single-stage-to-orbit was a fun concept. Every science-fiction writer had tossed one around, usually without even realizing it. The ability to take off from a dead stop, ascend to orbit and return, all without dropping a tank or burning a booster rocket was the holy grail of aerospace engineering. And, like the actual Holy Grail, it might not really exist.
Say what you will about fuel tanks and solid rocket boosters, but they were cheap. Dragging low-speed jet engines, high speed scramjets, rocket motors, and RCS fuel out of the atmosphere was a tall order. Dead weight for a launch system was what cholesterol was to an artery. Much easier to leave a few pieces of litter behind. Sometimes, like the Pegasus, they could even be recovered, refitted, and reused.
He stuck around for a few hours to shake some hands and make some calls. He was going to hit LA at rush hour. It seemed a good metaphor for his career.
14 November 1995
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
29° 33’ 47” N 95° 05’ 28” W
The panel was designed to give a range of opinions. In the old days, all the astronauts were pilots, so they dismissed anyone who didn’t have sufficiently impressive aviation credentials. As Apollo waned, that policy had been criticized for its lack of diversity, both demographically and professionally.
Most of the current astronaut corps could be divided into engineers or scientists, though most had some talent in both areas, and all were trained in basic piloting techniques. There were still a few pure aviators taken from military ranks, though they were usually relegated to simpler assignments, such as ferrying other astronauts up and down from Skydock.
As the Clipper program had allowed for a plethora of mission specialists, aka scientist-astronauts, to come to the fore, so too did the screening methods for interviewing new candidates. Now any applicant was confronted with a three-judge panel consisting of one astronaut from both the engineering and scientific specialties, with a third randomly chosen from the group as a whole.
In an air-conditioned room, only a few buildings away from the remnants of Building 30, the group conducted their second day of interviews. Sabrina Barnette, a career geologist, sat dead center, representing the mission specialists. Ken Borden sat to her left, appearing for the engineering group. On her right was Teri Young, an astronomer with one stint on Skydock who had been randomly selected.
Over disappointing turkey sandwiches, the trio discussed the two applicants they’d seen this morning. Alexandra O’Connor, a microbiologist recently returned from an Antarctic research assignment, was a yes. Jonathon Turner, a Navy pilot who was applying for the second time, was a maybe. Sabrina wondered if they might inadvertently have been more lenient to these two because they’d rejected all four applicants they’d seen on Monday.
As they swept away the remnants of lunch, Ken stepped outside to call in the next interviewee.
This guy looks like a surfer.
That was Sabrina’s first thought as the man sat down.
He was suntanned and thin. Had a mop of spiky hair, as was the popular style for this year. Unlike the other candidates they’d seen today who opted for businesswear, he’d worn a khaki windbreaker with an IASA patch. She flipped open the blue folder in front of her and looked over his resume.
“Doctor John Robert Crichton Junior,” she said, idly, as he settled in.
“That’s me,” he replied. There was a touch of a southern accent that had faded behind years in classrooms.
Sabrina’s brow furrowed, “Junior… Jack Crichton?”
The man gave a sheepish grin and shrugged, “Yeah, my dad used to work here.”
“Did a bit more than that,” Ken Borden said. “Jack Crichton mentored me through the ASCAN program back in ’78.”
“Dad sends his regards,” Crichton said.
“I was so sorry to hear about Leslie,” Borden said.
“Thank you, sir,” Crichton said.
Sabrina, as de facto leader of the panel, began to run down the resume in front of her, almost line-by-line.
“Let’s see… two years at NC State before you transferred to MIT.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “Class of ’91.”
Teri pressed, “It’s not easy to transfer into MIT. Why not go there in the first place? Were you not accepted?”
Crichton gave a half-smile which folded into a wince, “That would have been better. Coming out of high school, I still wanted to play football. After two years in Raleigh as a backup, a coach told me that I was better in a classroom than in the pocket.”
“The pocket?” Sabrina asked.
“Football term. I was a quarterback. Not a good one. Third-string. I once missed a practice to go to an astronomy lab.”
“I see. Degree in aeronautical engineering and then you got bit by the science bug,” she said, continuing to read, “Is this right that your doctorate is in astrophysics, not engineering?”
“The two play off each other pretty well,” Crichton said.
“And you’ve been with IASA for the last three years?” Sabrina asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Crichton said.
“Why IASA?” Teri asked. “You’re American, after all. Why not stay close to home?”
“I’ve spent most of my life as ‘Jack Crichton’s son.’ Thought it’d be nice to go somewhere where he’s not a big deal.”
“Is there some tension there?” Ken Borden asked.
“Oh, I love Jack Crichton. It’s being son of Jack Crichton that can be a little difficult.”
“What IASA station are you with?” Teri asked.
He nodded, “The experimental projects lab in Collaroy, Australia.”
Sabrina moved on, “What were you working on in Collaroy?”
“My project was a double-slingshot maneuver. We were running calculations on low-cost ways to go beyond lunar orbit. You fire once in LEO, then again as you come around perilune, then again as you swing back by Earth. Build up velocity each time.”
“What’s the catch?” Sabrina asked.
“Very small zones of opportunity. You have to hit exact points in space within very small windows if you want to go anywhere useful. We were working on a pulse motor that might have been better at hitting those windows. But our funding got redirected two months ago.”
“How far along were you?” Teri asked.
“We have an engine prototype that was set for testing out at Woomera in the spring. The plan was to launch a probe that would test the engine and the maneuver in the same flight.”
“And you’re allowed to discuss this with us?” Teri asked.
“It’s an international alliance. There’s not a lot of secrecy. That’s part of its charm. Hell, Popular Mechanics did an article about us last May,” Crichton said
“I’m gonna look that up. What was it called?” Ken asked.
“The article?”
“The project,” Ken corrected.
“Farscape,” Crichton said. He took a blue plastic floppy disk from his inner jacket pocket and slid it across the table. It had a white label with FARSCAPE written in black marker. Ken added it to his folder.
“What have they moved you to?” Sabrina asked.
“A biconic design for crew access to low Earth orbit,” Crichton said. He almost sounded embarrassed.
“Not as fun?” Ken asked.
Crichton shrugged, “Farscape was innovative. I liked working on something new.”
“Would you say that the cancellation was what prompted you to apply here?” Sabrina asked.
“No, not really. I always wanted to fly. I didn’t realize when I joined up, but, IASA isn’t looking to put Americans into their astronaut corps. Now, the new hires you’re making are supposed to be the biggest class of new astros since the 70’s. Seemed like a good time to come home.”
“Speaking of flying…” Ken said.
“Instrument rated since I was nineteen. A little over seven hundred hours in Cessnas. Nothing with jets, I’m afraid.”
Ken scribbled some notes.
“If you got a seat on an Athena mission, what would you want to do with it?” Sabrina asked.
“I think subsurface structural engineering looks interesting. After the first flights, you’ll want to expand and with the radiation, it’s best to go underground. Also, with what we’re seeing from the Prometheus samples, you’d be able to make Martian concrete. That could be a great way of getting some elbow room up there. There’s that. There’s potential for exploring Marineris by air.”
“How do you mean?” Sabrina asked.
“Blimps. Climbing in and out is dangerous, but you could float a probe to the bottom and bring it back up. Make it big enough and you could float a whole team down there.”
Sabrina nodded and wrote a few notes.
Ken posed a question, “John, you grew up around NASA. You’ve been working for IASA. That’s a unique perspective. How would you say they compare?”
The corner of Crichton’s mouth wrinkled. He paused, like a gambler debating whether to call.
“Honestly?”
“Yeah. Hit me,” Ken said, rubbing his palms together.
“Both strike me as unimaginative.”
Ken gave a light laugh. Sabrina put her pen down and raised an eyebrow, “Really?”
“When I first joined, IASA wanted to do interesting, experimental stuff…”
“Like Farscape?” Sabrina asked.
“Like Farscape,” Crichton said. “But, now they just want to go down the same trail you already cut.”
“And what about NASA?” Teri asked.
“Your Clippers are almost obsolete. Moonbase doesn’t really use anything more advanced than what we had in 1980. You’re expanding at what, one new module every six months, if that. That might be growth, but it’s anemic.”
“What about Mars?” Sabrina asked.
“Zubrin’s plan was better. Now you’re retreating to old 70’s tech to do a 90’s mission. You’re gonna cross interplanetary space in a ship that is already ten years old. By the time it reaches Mars, Orion will be a teenager. By the time it heads off for Athena II, it’ll be old enough to vote. And by the way, that’s the biggest issue with the cruiser plan.”
“The age?”
“No. It’s that all your missions will depend on one ship over and over. Athena will only ever put six people on Mars at a time. Then it’s got to take them home before the next group can come over. Six people isn’t a colony. It’s barely an outpost. With Zubrin’s Oregon Trail, you could have launched two or three crews in each window. It’s the same flaw that Apollo had. Getting there is easy, staying is harder. What’s the point of going if you aren’t going to stay a while?”
“A year and a half on the surface isn’t long enough for you?” Sabrina asked.
“Wasn’t long enough for the people who built Jamestown,” Crichton said. His voice was a bit agitated.
“You think going to Mars is timid?” Teri asked.
“No, I think coming back from Mars is timid,” Crichton said.
“So, what would you do?” Sabrina asked.
“One of two things. First, you could put a crew down on Mars and tell them to wait, while you go get another group. Keep sending supply ships and new living modules and let them expand out while they wait. It’s expensive and it’s dangerous, but in ten years, you’d have a colony, not just a base. Crops, power generation, research.”
“What the other thing we could do?” Ken asked.
“Convert the rest of the Clippers the way you converted Orion. Expand their capabilities. Take that dumbbell and make it a wheel and put twenty people in it. Build a bigger Aurora to put them down on the surface. And stop obsessing about bringing them back.”
“Don’t bring them back?” Teri asked.
“It’s the biggest dead weight in the mission plan. So many resources poured into return. Your MAV, by the way, completely wrong. It would have been a lot simpler to put it down flat and have the crew raise it vertical after they arrive. The Russians do that at Baikonur, you could do it on Mars.”
“Backup a minute. You’d send a crew to Mars without a plan to get them back?” Teri asked.
“Zubrin’s plan was called Oregon Trail because they turned Oregon into a place to live, permanently. They weren’t looking to go back to Missouri.”
“Well, you can breathe the air in Oregon,” Teri said.
“NASA has spent the last thirty years being extra cautious. It’s been great. We’ve got a Moonbase and we haven’t lost anyone since Apollo 1. But you can’t discover new lands if you never leave sight of the shore. I think it’d be incredible to walk on Mars, but I think it’d be an honor to die there.”
“Tell us how you really feel, John,” Ken said. Sabrina and Teri shared a knowing smile.
A beat passed and Crichton reeled himself in. He sighed and gave a half-hearted chuckle. “I’m sorry. I had two hops on the C3 to get across the Pacific. I took a MagLev halfway across the continent just to be in this room. I came too far to pull punches.”
“It’s okay, John. What were you saying about our Clippers?” Ken said.
Crichton hemmed and hawed a bit, “Oh, I should probably quit while I’m very, very far behind here.”
“Please,” Ken said. “We may never be here again.”
Crichton gave a pained smile, “Your Clippers are obsolete. And they aren’t really designed for how you’re using them. At least the crew Clippers. The trucks are just fine.”
“What do you mean?” Ken asked.
Crichton shrugged, “Well, all the Clippers really do these days are ferry passengers from Kennedy to Skydock and back. When they were designed, they were set up to be mini-space stations. You’d use them as quarters and life support while you dock to a science module, or do work on a satellite, or something. It was a good plan. The problem is, Skydock does all that better than the Clippers.”
He continued, “Clipper is really a victim of its own success. You used it to build a space station that can do its job better than it can. The Hubble gives you better astronomy than you could get from a crew in low orbit. The trucks are better at getting sats out to GEO. Moonbase just relies on Orca and the Eagles. Unless Skydock crashes, all you really need is a simple way of getting warm bodies up and rock samples down.”
“Something lighter?” Ken asked.
“Lighter, smaller, but still reusable. Not some great interplanetary exploration ship or a space station module with wings, just a taxi. Build that, convert the other Clippers like you’re doing with Orion, then you’ve really got something. A fleet.”
Ken nodded, “It’s an argument that has some merit.”
“Sounds like a great Star Trek movie,” Sabrina said.
“Look, I’m not mocking you or the program. Going to Mars is great. Sign me up. I’d be honored to be a part of it. I want the same things you do; I just don’t want to wait another generation to get them.”
Sabrina felt a lull as he wound down and seized it, “Well, Dr. Crichton, I think we have enough for the moment. We’ll be doing a lot of these and if you’re asked to go on to the next round, the office will contact you.”
Crichton looked wistful and nodded, “Thanks. I appreciate your time.”
He swung the door wide as he left, and Sabrina tossed her pen onto a legal pad as the door shut again.
“Cocky son of a gun,” she said, staring at the back of the door.
“I like him,” Ken said.
Sabrina raised a sharp eyebrow in his direction. “He’s a hothead. Wants to die on Mars. He’d get somebody killed. You really want that man on your crew?”
“He’s qualified,” Ken said.
“Everyone we talk to is qualified. No one gets in here who isn’t. It’s his temperament. He’s arrogant, brash,” Sabrina said.
“So was everyone who went to the Moon on Apollo,” Ken countered.
“Thankfully, that’s not our guiding star anymore,” Sabrina said.
“I didn’t find him to be brash,” Teri said, chiming in.
“Excuse me?” Sabrina asked.
“’Brash’ implies a certain rudeness. So does ‘cocky,’ for that matter. I didn’t hear rude. I heard passionate,” Teri said.
“He told us we were wrong,” Sabrina said.
“Are you so sure we’re not?” Teri asked.
“He’s a twenty-six-year-old kid who thinks he knows how to run a space program,” Sabrina said.
“I’m not saying we appoint him head of NASA, but a couple of mavericks aren’t the worst thing for the program,” Teri said.
“You must be joking,” Sabrina said.
“No, I think she’s right on the money,” Ken said. “If you’re dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you’re smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you. We’ve got a bunch of smart people here. We could use someone who disagrees with how we do things.”
“Even if one of those things is ‘don’t let people die on Mars’?” Sabrina asked.
“Not quite what he said,” Teri said.
“It’s close. We need measured, practical people, not Tarzan of the Schiaparelli Crater,” Sabrina said.
“I think he’s worth another look,” Ken said.
“I agree,” Teri said.
Sabrina huffed. Then she gave a snort and chortled once, “Fine, we can stick him in the maybe pile. But fifteen years from now, when you’re halfway up Olympus Mons and the food runs out, make sure you eat him first.”
22 December 1995
Moonbase Outpost
Expedition 27
Day 18
Her watch beeped. Monica Ikeman sat up in bed and hit the button to stop the alarm. She yawned and stretched. It was going to be a long day.
She had taken to sleeping in her office. It had more space than the bunk that was assigned to her. Her desk, if she ever managed to clear it of papers, could be folded into the wall. Even with it deployed, she had enough room on the far side of it for a chair and a cot. The chair was for guests, the cot was hers.
Monica opened her laptop and hit the power button. It would take a few minutes to go through the start-up checks and she might as well use the time. She had been pleased to have a new computer. Scott MacDonald had radioed down to her about the godawful desktop that had been in use for the last four years. The new ThinkPads issued to the crew were top of the line. It had 64MB of memory and a 1.2GB hard drive. She saw the screen pop up that signaled the launch of Windows 95. It was nice to have cutting edge tech.
She grabbed a granola bar from the box that she kept behind her desk chair. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she put on her headset and clicked over the dial three notches, which brought up her private channel to the ground.
“NORAD, this is Ikeman, do you read?”
Whoever was on CAPCOM desk was sleepy. It was understandable, considering they had a few million tons of rock between them and sunlight.
“NORAD copying you five by five.”
“Initiate the evac drill please,” she said, calmly.
It took a moment, presumably while everyone confirmed ground readings, before they responded, “Copy you, Commander. Sending the signal now.”
She leaned back in her chair and put her hair in a basic ponytail. On her left, attached to the wall, was a whiteboard with a few notes that she had made over the past few days. In the top right corner, circled in green ink, was the single notation remaining from Scott MacDonald’s tenure as commander.
147 mins
She was determined to beat that time.
Down the hallway, she heard a faint buzz-screech calling out from Base Command. She started the stopwatch feature on her wristwatch. A moment later, Mercy Torrez padded down the hallway and leaned through the threshold. Mercy wore grey sweatpants and an orange T-shirt with the University of Texas’s Longhorns logo over her belly. She looked bleary-eyed and ragged. She’d had the night shift and that was never fun.
“Commander, we’ve got an evac drill alert,” she said.
Monica rose from her chair. Mercy handed her a ripped sheet from the printer. Monica looked it over as a formality.
***THIS IS A DRILL***
***EVACUATION DRILL – ALL PERSONNEL – FULL EVACUTION***
***THIS IS A DRILL***
***EVACUATION DRILL – ALL PERSONNEL – FULL EVACUTION***
***THIS IS A DRILL***
“Okay, let’s go,” she said. The two of them returned to Base Command. Once inside, Monica stood over her console and Mercy took the desk in front of her.
Monica said, “Give me four wails and the blinkers please. Let’s wake ‘em up.”
A shrill siren sound blared four times through every speaker box on the Moon. Small emergency lights began to flash in most of the modules. Monica pulled the handset off the back wall and Mercy nodded as she hit the button to open the main circuit.
Monica smiled and put on a cheery voice, “Good morning, Moonbase. This is your commander. We are now conducting an evacuation drill. All personnel muster in dome two in ten minutes. This is an exercise.”
As she ended the announcement, Mercy leaned over the console and wrinkled her mouth, “Five fifteen, Mon? Really?”
They began to walk out together, heading for the modules that connected dome one to dome two.
“If we have to evacuate, you think it’ll come at a convenient time?” Monica said.
“I think we’ll never have to evacuate at all,” Mercy said.
“Reactor overloads, meteor impacts, missile attack…”
“Missile attack?” Mercy said, incredulously.
“North Korea may not like what we’re doing up here,” Monica said, stepping through the hatch to the storage room.
“We’d have a better chance of being attacked by a UFO,” Mercy said.
“No one ever thinks it’s going to happen until it does,” Monica said.
Mercy rolled her eyes, “North Korea can’t hit Japan, let alone the Moon. Our Russian friends watch that reactor like it’s their dinner. And if there are aliens in UFOs, they’re smart enough not to come here.”
They walked through the machine shop in silence and made their way into dome two. As they came to the space suit racks, Mercy saw the three of the Beatles approaching.
Doctors John Ellis, Paul Redding, and George Hager were all from the biomedical team. Ellis was a microbiologist. Redding’s education centered on aquatic biospheres and Hager was a botanist. When they were all assigned to cabin two it had only been natural to name them after the great British singing sensation.
“Where’s Ringo?” Monica asked the trio, as they entered.
“Still in the bathroom,” Ellis said. Jeff Mayfield, the biochemist who was randomly assigned to join them in cabin two, had never had a chance when it came to nicknames. “Ringo” had been inevitable once the room assignments were made.
“Okay, start your prebreathing and suit up. Let’s get a jump on things,” Monica said.
Over the next fifteen minutes, the various crewmembers came in, at varying levels of both alertness and attire. Grumbles and gripes flowed in lieu of coffee. No one liked being woken up before they were ready. Temporary loathing is often a cost of command, but discipline is only discipline if it is constant.
She was pleased to see Nikolai Slavin, the Russian commander, come in with his crew of four already in their cooling suits. They marched in military precision to the five Orlan spacesuits at the end of the row.
“See there, folks. These guys aren’t griping,” she said, watching her unkempt Americans clamber into their five-piece space suits. The torso, legs, gloves, and helmet were a bit of a trial to don, especially with each crew member in need at the same time. Generally, her crew had paired off, all the better to get the process done quickly, but it meant that every time one astronaut was suited, there was one who was less capable of helping another suit up.
She watched Nikolai and his team pop open the backpacks of their Orlan suits and shimmy inside in one fluid motion. The Russians knew how to make things simple. The five cosmonauts had the look of mechanized toys as they each coordinated the sealing and checking of their suits. Forming a nice little ringed conga line as the procedures were completed. She was thoroughly impressed.
She patted Zack and Barry on the shoulders as they rose to retrieve their helmets, “You two, go ahead and take the buggy and head on out to Huffman. Get a jump on things while I ride herd with the rockhounds.”
The pair of Air Force Academy graduates gave her polite confirmations as they finished up their work. In addition to being fine engineers who were necessary to the life and health of this base, they were also the pilots slated to fly the Eagles up and down for this expedition.
“How much do you want us to do?” Barry asked her.
“Go through the usual power up procedures and then run your weekly diagnostics checks. Might as well do a little work while we’re out there,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Barry replied.
The two eagerly made their way into the rover hanger and she watched the indicator board as it showed them moving into, and eventually out of, the smaller man-sized airlock. She would never be able to hear the little sand rail heading off to the Eagle landers, but she knew it was happening.
“Shall we get the rovers going?” Nikolai asked.
“Da, pazhalsta. Spasiba,” she said. Wistfully wishing she’d focused more during her Russian lessons.
The Russians filed into the rover bay and began to work. She watched as her quasi-klutzy band of biologists and geologists made the last of their preparations. It was, all at once, amusing, adorable, and infuriating. They were all trained, but the bioscientists hadn’t done much EVA work and the geology people weren’t particularly speedy.
“Okay boys and girls, let’s get moving.”
The group headed into the pressurized rover bay. The excursion vehicles awaited their human cargoes. The two rovers, each with eight astros aboard, swung around to face the big door. Unfortunately, without anyone in Base Command, there was no one to open the door through the hardline circuits. That meant they were reliant on the garage-door-opener gizmos that each rover had. And just like Monica’s garage door opener at home, they didn’t work well.
As Zach and Barry radioed that Eagles XIII and XV were up and running, Monica exited her rover and walked, in full vacuum, over to the control unit that operated the big bay door. She was back aboard the excursion rover by the time the door had fully opened.
The drive to Huffman Prairie took only a few minutes. During the traverse, Monica thought to check her watch, only to remember that it was now safely ensconced under the hard, opaque casing of her space suit. Over Nikolai’s shoulder, she saw the gleaming gold and grey hulls of the Eagle landers.
She keyed her radio mic to talk to everyone on the Moon, “Okay folks. In a couple minutes we’ll start boarding. Once everyone is in their seats, that’ll be the end of the drill. For those of you running surface operations today, we’ll drop you wherever you need to go once we’re done.”
She directed, Nikolai to park by pad one. Through the radio, he commanded Dominika to stop at pad two.
The landing pads were a pair of heavy square canvas tarps, sixty-foot on a side. At their corners were lights on the end of large spikes which secured the canvas into the bedrock. The material was something special the engineers had cooked up that was tear-resistant and heat-resistant. It held up well, even through the harsh exchange of full sunlight and bitter darkness.
The canvas wasn’t just to mark the sites. It also served to minimize dust around the spacecraft. This made the maintenance sessions much easier for the engineers. On the ground maintenance had extended the life of the Eagles greatly.
When Nikolai parked the rover, she was the first to hop out. She felt the tarp under her boots. There was no great ceremony here. Everyone here understood what to do. They began the boarding process in single-file lines, like a pair of first-grade classes getting on the bus for a field trip. As Nikolai exited, she followed in behind him and looked around for any signs of trouble.
A few hundred yards away, though still clear as a bell to her vision, was the drilling rig that was extracting new core samples. To her left, she saw the rise marking the edge of Shackleton. At the corner of the landing pad, by the flashing red light, was the broom that they used to keep dust off the landing pads.
She remembered how that broom had been used to wipe away old footprints after landing so that the newbies could have a clear piece of ground for their first step. It was a tradition for new arrivals. Everyone who ever walked on the Moon wanted to preserve that moment forever. At the old Apollo sites, the prints were protected by both law and taboo. But with all the traffic at Moonbase, a crisp photograph was the best they could do. Frank Borman’s bootprints would last through the end of time, but yours are going to get crunched by a rover tire before lunch.
Monica waved to Dominika at the other pad. She watched the Russian pilot scramble up the ladder as fast as her Orlan would let her. With everyone else aboard, Monica was the last to climb in. She sealed the hatch behind her and sat down. Once her belt was secured, she radioed in.
“NORAD, drill complete. How’d we do?” she braced herself, hoping they’d beaten MacDonald’s record.
“Moonbase, NORAD. One-hundred-sixty-three minutes. You are now free to resume the Day 18 schedule, over.”
So close.
26 January 1996
Guiana Space Center
Kourou, French Guiana
5° 13′ 20″ N 52° 46′ 25″ W
A Russian booster, on a French launch pad, hauling an American payload. If that wasn’t enough, it helped to remember that funding from more than a dozen other nations was helping to pay for this launch. The entire exercise was an effort of economics as much as engineering.
The fury of old Soviet rocket engines brought an early dawn to the tropical coastline. A new sun rose over the northern skies, heading swiftly for a place amongst the stars. Bringing light, heat, and confusion to the various mainland wildlife that bore witness to its ascent.
As this flight would deliver a long, potent, critical component of the Athena missions, the plan was for it to bear the name of Athena’s spear. And then a couple of very polite professors from the University of Houston pointed out that Athena’s spear didn’t have a name. So, remembering that the launch would convey, amongst other things, Orion’s new radiation barrier, the Aegis mission rolled over the equatorial Atlantic, headed for low orbit.
The payload represented a fusion of the space agencies that launched her. At the base was a pair of Zeus nuclear rocket engines, each with its own reactor and engine bell. Each capable of sending Orion to Mars and back independently. The design offered redundancy in exchange for weight. Ahead of the Zeus engines was a fuel module which arrayed four cylindrical tanks in an X-formation, centered around a central truss which had a square cross-section. Radiators and deployable solar panels would be added on-orbit. Forward of the hydrogen fuel tanks was a hefty plate of shielding, designed to protect astronauts from any dangerous radiation produced by the Zeuses, or the Sun.
In the event of a flare, Orion would simply point its engines at the star and have the crew huddle in the center of the carousel.
The carousel, a pair of crew cabins connected by long, telescoping booms to a central hub, had been IASA’s biggest contribution so far. The booms were retracted for the launch but, when deployed, would provide the artificial gravity which would aid Orion’s crew on the months-long voyage to the red planet. The spinning section, with its sophisticated wiring and gyroscope setups, would be one of the more complex components of the mission. Built by European engineers to American specifications with the reward of nuclear technology, the carousel sat at the top of the stack, presenting a blunted hammerhead shape that was mercifully shielded by the sleek, white aeroshell.
Strapped to the side of the Energia core, the payload clung to the roaring motors as the Zenit boosters fell away. In ten minutes, the Zeus engines would fire, proving their readiness and establishing orbit. In ten hours, the stack would begin maneuvers to rendezvous with the Skydock Orbital Space Station. In ten days, astronauts would begin the next phase of construction of Orion, America’s first interplanetary spacecraft.
16 February 1996
Daytona International Speedway
Daytona Beach, FL
29° 11′ 8″ N 81° 4′ 10″ W
For once in his life, Cale Fletcher had to give credit to the accountants. This had been a great idea.
Like any human endeavour, there was no way to avoid a certain level of commercialization. This was a capitalist society, and money is like water on pavement. NASA had been an entity of popular culture for more than three decades. It wasn’t unreasonable to use the spotlight to make a little cash. To get something back for the taxpayers.
He had worried that they’d want input on design or specifications, but in truth, the only change to the rover was a three-ounce decal that they’d placed on the front of the nose. The little blue oval, known to anyone who had walked down an American street in the last hundred years. The Ford logo now graced the front of the Red Runner and it popped beautifully against the white of the hull.
Of course the one he’d been standing next to for most of the morning wasn’t the real thing. It wasn’t even an engineering model, or a test article. This one was pure public relations. From the outside, it looked exactly like the one that would be on Mars four years from now. You had to look at the internal mechanics to know better. In private, he’d taken to calling it the Showcar.
For starters, the real article was primarily solar powered and had a top speed of only about twenty-five miles per hour. At that speed it’d take at least six minutes to get around this track. The good folks at NASCAR had been accommodating, but that was asking too much. The technicians who had put the Showcar together had bumped up the power to the wheels and the one that would lead the field today topped out at about sixty. Workable for a TV spot.
He mounted up as Miss America gave the command for the drivers to start their engines. He slid into the Mars rover and plugged in his radio headset.
The first voice he heard was an official in a red hat who was standing right in front of the rover.
“Captain Fletcher, can you hear me?”
“I copy,” he replied.
“We’re going to roll in just a second. Take them around for two laps and then bring it down pit road and back to the garage. We’ll have someone there with a flag to show you where to turn.”
“Copy that,” he said. People expected astronauts to speak on the radio like they did in movies and on television. Cale Fletcher was happy to oblige.
After a few moments of idling, the official stepped aside and waved him ahead. He put the rover in gear and stepped on the accelerator. She hopped off the mark with a bit of a jerk. He gripped the control yoke a little tighter and made a gentle turn, heading onto the track. Behind him a trail of forty-three cars followed, two-by-two.
He could see into the grandstands. Kids were waving. Flags and t-shirts proclaimed preferred drivers in bold patches of color. Beer flowed freely and the sun was just high enough for it to be justified. He wondered, for a moment, whether more alcohol or more gasoline would be consumed before the checkered flag fell today.
He smiled, remembering the dirt tracks of his youth. He could still picture that beat-up old Plymouth that had got out from under him at North Wilkesboro. Those hot summer nights back in ’73. It all came flooding back as he looked up at the crowds. These were his people.
A crackle came over his headset as the field entered the backstretch.
“Commander Fletcher, this is Ned Jarrett up in the broadcast booth. Do you read me?”
Fletcher pressed his headset a little tighter and replied, “Copy, I read you, Ned. How am I looking from up there?”
“You’re doing great, Cale. We all just wanted to know how that rover was handling as you lead the field around,” Jarrett said.
“Well, she’s not the fastest car on the track today, Ned. But I’ve got a good set of tires and if this thing comes down to fuel mileage, I expect the solar panels might give me an edge,” he said.
Jarrett and the team from CBS Sports gave him a polite chuckle. “Might have a hard time passing inspection after the race,” Jarrett said.
“I called Smokey Yunick. He says he’s got it covered,” Fletcher said.
That had ‘em howling all the way to turn three, “Who have you got your money on today, Cale?”
“Well, it’s tough to bet against Earnhardt, but this race always seems to have him snakebit. I’m looking in my rearview and spotting two fellas who looked mighty fast in practice yesterday. Makes me very happy to see Davey Allison back in a race car. After his accident, I didn’t think we’d ever see that again.”
Making small, tight movements to warm up their tires, the two lead cars followed about twenty yards back. In the pole position was the white #28 car sponsored by Havoline. On the high side of the track, the bright orange and blue Hardee’s #18 led the outside line.
“Yes, indeed, we’re glad to have him back. He’s going to be tough to beat today, just like he was on Thursday. I know you’ve had that fella in the Hardee’s car in your rearview before,” Ned Jarrett said.
“Yep. Last time I had Dale Jarrett on my back door was at Hickory Speedway back in ‘74. He put a bump and run on me going into three and I almost went off in the pasture,” Fletcher said. The nostalgia had brought his Southern accent out of storage.
“That sure was a fun night, won’t it?” Ned Jarrett said.
“Well, you got to watch your son win a race. I had to explain to Mr. Yarborough why I tore up that Dodge he’d loaned me,” Fletcher said. He threw in a laugh to show there were no hard feelings.
“And now Mr. Yarborough has got Dale driving one of his Chevys and you’re headed off to Mars,” Ned Jarrett said.
“Ain’t this the greatest country in the world, Ned?”
“It sure is,” Jarrett said.
“Aight. I’m about ready to duck on off and let these boys get to work. If anyone out there wants to get a look at this rover up close, tomorrow, she’s going on a tour, appearing at Ford dealerships nationwide,” Fletcher said.
Now that he’d paid a few bills, he slowly steered the rover left and onto pit road. In his wake, the double conga lines of sleek American engineering were unleashed. The green flag dropped and off they went.
18 March 1996
Guiana Space Center
Kourou, French Guiana
5° 13′ 20″ N 52° 46′ 25″ W
The warm ocean breezes were a perfect complement to the chilled local beer. Pierre Hidalgo dug his toes into the sand and relaxed under a large umbrella as the waves crashed in a hypnotic rhythm.
He’d been out here since mid-morning, slowly watching the freighter come closer and closer. Over wine, cheese, and the occasional foray into the Caribbean, Pierre and his team enjoyed their final day of rest before the real work began.
By four o’clock, the food had run out, but the drinks were still flowing. The freighter was close enough to see their new toy. On the top deck, under a protective casing, was the clear outline of a blunted nose which flowed into the long fuselage. Her wings and tailfin would arrive later, but they were unlikely to be used.
Pierre had such plans for his great white beauty. He would fill her cargo bay with a crew compartment. Fuel tanks would be strapped to her sides that would extend her reach well past the Moon. Her belly would be stripped of its heavy entry protections. Her engine block, now empty, would be given an American treatment. Larger, flashier motors, with big, busty engine bells.
Tomorrow, the work would begin in earnest. What the Americans had stumbled into, IASA would do correctly from the start.
Since 1957, space had been the playground of the superpowers. Russia and America used it, as boys would, to strut, to threaten, to make mischief for one another, and now, at the close of the Cold War, they sat together upon the hill and played King of the Mountain.
A new century approached. A new millennium, a new era. Pierre Hidalgo was determined that the next frontier would not be filled with McDonalds fast food, or Russian recklessness. He would give the rest of the civilized world a bridge to Mars, that they may stop the spread of coarse culture before it infected the planets.
As the sun set on the Western horizon, he raised a glass of proper French wine with his team as the freighter came into port.
“To Buran, our ambassador to Mars!”
7 May 1996
Orion
Orbital Inclination: 29°
Altitude: 268 mi
First steps are always small and tentative. It’s as true for toddlers as it is for spacecraft. Orion, having undergone the most dramatic overhaul in the history of human spaceflight, was now more of a travelling space station than a short-range passenger transport.
It had taken most of the morning to run through the checklist for undocking. The afternoon had been spent backing away ever so slowly from Skydock, leaving the orbital cranes behind. Turnaround was another two-hour process. Eileen, Mike, and Story finished a dinner of cheese cubes and ham slices. Then it was time to fire the engine.
“NORAD, Orion,” Mike Dexter said, from the left-hand seat.
“Orion, NORAD,” came the clipped reply.
“We are secure and ready for engine test one. Requesting your go,” Mike said.
“Orion, this is NORAD. You are go for the TLI burn.”
“Copy you, NORAD. Arming engines one and two. We are proceeding with TLI burn on my mark. Five, four, three, two, one… mark.”
Dexter counted down with the digital display. The green button on the keypad between he and Eileen flashed. He pressed it and then felt a gentle push from the back of his seat.
With vigilant gazes, the two pilots monitored their instrumentation, knowing full well that a hundred others were doing the same down at the bottom of the gravity well. The Zeus engines were as reliable as ever throughout the seven-minute push.
Once the engines were secure, Dexter ordered Eileen and Story to get some sleep. It was already late by the ship’s clock, and the schedule called for a big day tomorrow. As the two of them settled in to sleeping bags in the aft section, he clipped his headset on to the collar of his shirt, buckled himself into the seat, and tried to relax. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, even with zero gravity, but he was at the controls. If anything went wrong in the night, he’d be ready to work in the blink of an eye.
8 May 1996
Orion
Lunar Transit Trajectory
Altitude: 122,378 mi
“Okay, Houston, eh, NORAD, sorry. We’re seeing good deployment on the Bravo arm. It’s the Alpha arm that’s stuck. That’s similar to what we saw back at Skydock last month,” Story said. His near limitless reserve of patience was beginning to show signs of deterioration.
“Copy you, Orion. We are consulting with our IASA contacts. We want to get a read from Paris before recommending a course of action, over.”
“I’m not asking for a recommendation, NORAD. I know what the problem is. I’m asking to override the pressure sensor output in A3 so we can deploy the arms. Once they’re fully open, I can get in there and find the problem in the circuitry, over,” Story’s tone had dropped from irked to annoyed. With his soft-spoken nature, it was rather like hearing an aged housecat complaining about the neighbor’s dog.
“Negative, Orion. We are not authorizing any overrides at this point. We want to see if Paris can give us a workaround,” came the voice from the ground.
Story sighed. He took the little black marker off the clip and wrote on the whiteboard, “Go make lunch.” Story tapped the message twice with his forefinger.
Mike Dexter smiled and gave a mini-salute completely unfit for a United States Marine. He pushed out of the storm shelter at the center of the carousel and made his way through the service module with its cramped nest of tanks and piping. He took a bag of breaded chicken tenders from the cold storage at the forward end of the module. Then he pushed off again, flying through the science deck like Superman delivering takeout. Reaching the transition between the front of the science module and the aft of the original Clipper Orion, he made his way to the little kitchen space and its microwave.
Dexter carefully put in seven strips of chicken and looked down the long corridor. They floated and tumbled and bumped into each other chaotically. He spotted Story hovering in the center of the storm shelter and gave a thumbs-up. Musgrave returned the gesture and he hit the button to start cooking the meal. Then he flung himself through the modules again, returning to Story at the center of the hub.
Musgrave adopted a formal tone, “Commander, I think I can fix our alpha arm deployment if I can override the pressure sensor output in A3.”
“What does NORAD say about it, Flight Specialist Musgrave?”
Story pointed to his headset, “I’ve been unable to get their reading on it due to some kind of RF interference through the radio.”
Dexter smirked, “Can’t imagine where that came from. Well, for the safety of the mission, I defer to your judgement.”
Story wasted no time. He reached over and used the computer mouse on the wall to click a button on the screen. A moment later, Mike heard a mechanical whirr and looked over Story’s shoulder.
“How about that? Seems that we’re getting a good deployment on the alpha arm now,” Dexter said.
“Affirmative, Commander. Alpha arm has recommenced deployment,” Story said.
With the problem sorted, they dropped the act, “What the hell happened?” Mike asked.
“It’s a bad sensor connection in A3. If the arm reads falling pressure anywhere in the system, it’ll automatically retract. The system is designed to retract as a default. We’d given it the command to deploy and halfway out the sensor got disconnected, or something. Likely as not from movement as the accordion expands. At any rate, now the system has two commands arguing and it froze. I overrode the sensor data, so now it just thinks to deploy. After lunch I’ll get in there and go over the connections.”
“You’re sure there’s not a leak?”
“A2 and A1 are just fine. And the backups all read nominal. The same thing happened back at Skydock last month. We thought it was a bad sensor, but it’s got to be the connector between the sensor and the interface.”
“Okay, keep an eye on it,” Dexter said. “I’m gonna go get that chicken.”
11 May 1996
Orion
Lunar Orbit
Inclination: 86 degrees
“Okay, Eileen, how are we looking back there?”
“Good to go, Mike,” she called back. She stood in the front of the science module, at a computer console with a joystick. Her eyes were fixed on the monitor embedded in the wall.
“Undocking in five, four, three, two, one… undock,” Mike called out.
He pulled the two switches by his knee and saw a puff of air flash in front of Orion’s cockpit windows. Then he saw the Russian lander fall away.
When the Russians had planned their own base, before the fall of Ptichka, they were developing a version of the Eagle to bring cosmonauts to the surface. As part of their obligations to the Moonbase partnership, the Russians had reworked the design to American specifications. The new lander would be able to ferry personnel up and down from orbit and do long-range hops for scouting missions. Nick Brand had been assigned to the project as the astronaut representative. Mike wondered who he had pissed off. Nick had spent ten months in Moscow eating beets and going blind looking over blueprints in Cyrillic.
The lander was quintessentially Russian. A bulbous central module, surrounded by a skirt with six legs, six fuel tanks, and six small engines. Backups over innovation. The American subcontractors had fun fusing Russian brute force with American finesse. The beauty of the design was that the legs could interface with a detachable wheel system, so the landers could be towed inside Moonbase’s rover bay. One would be able to go from Kennedy Space Center all the way to Base Command without ever having to put on a space suit.
With this little dress rehearsal needing some extra mass, it was a good enough time to test-fly the new equipment.
Eileen took over the lander and used her controls to push it clear of Orion. After she had pitched over to the proper orientation, the receivers picked up the beacons from the landing pads down at Shackleton.
“Moonbase, this is Orion. We are sending down your new lander and the care package now. Hope you enjoy.”
“Copy you, Orion. We’ll wave as you pass on by overhead.”
Orion was now on a trajectory that would take her back to Earth. The data from this test flight would be processed for the next few months to work out any potential kinks with the various systems or hardware.
Eileen remotely controlled the new lander through a braking burn that put it on course for the ground. For normal operations, the beacons at Moonbase would be able to guide down a lander automatically. It’s not like there was traffic or weather to worry about. There was, quite literally, nothing between the ship and the landing pad, fifty nautical miles away. Still, this was a way to test out the hardware on board Orion and NASA didn’t like to waste an opportunity.
When Orion eventually reached Mars orbit, one of the crew’s tasks would be to remotely land a MAV. As such, the science module was equipped to remotely pilot a vessel.
Collins brought the lander through thirty-thousand feet, keying in on the beacons and the lights down below. On Mars, it would be much trickier. There would be a beacon on the first MAV, but the terrain wouldn’t be so flat and the weather might be anything from a gentle breeze, to a blinding dust storm.
Around ten-thousand feet, the screen turned to static. She frowned. At the current rate of descent, she only had a moment to decide what to do. The radar telemetry was still active, but with a full crew down at the base, she didn’t want to risk slamming a shiny new spacecraft into humanity’s first off-world settlement. She flipped the controls to automatic and watched the telemetry data.
“Moonbase, Orion. I’ve lost control of the lander. It’s been switched to internal guidance. Please confirm that it’s in the lane,” she said.
From the ground she heard Moonbase reply, “Orion, Moonbase. That’s affirm. We’re seeing it correct to deorbit route four. No further action needed. We’re showing a good connection down here. We’ll bring her in.”
“Roger that. Sorry I couldn’t get her all the way to the front door,” Collins said.
“Not a problem, Orion. Safe travels back to Skydock.”
“Thanks,” Collins said.
She pulled up the telescope controls on the monitor. By the time she had the system powered up, they were already over the horizon. Orion was heading back to low Earth orbit.
4 July 1996
Wahoo Range
Outside Freer, TX
27° 49′ 2″ N 98° 59′ 50″ W
Conrad watched the funny little man squirm into the silver flight suit. The technicians attached the helmet to the neck ring and slid open the face plate for him. He looked like one of the old G.I. Joe toys Andrew used to play with as a kid. Pete Conrad had flown with the best of the best in the Navy and the space program. Now, his copilot was a nondescript billionaire who looked like he shouldn’t operate anything more dangerous than a crisper drawer.
“So, Mark, you wrote some computer program and then turned that into a computer thing. And now that computer finds other computers?” he asked.
“Sort of. Wahoo is what’s called a ‘search engine’. It’s a website that finds other websites based on what you’re looking for,” Mark said.
“And people pay money for that?” Conrad asked.
“Businesses pay money to make sure people find them and not their competitors,” Mark said.
“And you made how much from that?”
“Enough to buy this seat,” Mark said.
“That’s crazy,” Conrad said.
“Any crazier than you and your best friend making a company to take rich guys into space for five minutes?” Mark asked.
“I guess not,” Conrad said.
One of the staffers came in with a clipboard, “Gentleman, we’re ready.”
They followed the young woman out to the tarmac. Even coming up on sunset, it was hot as a rocket exhaust out here. The heat shimmer was enough to distort his view in every direction. As soon as they stepped out of the shadow of the building, the crowd gave a roaring cheer. There had to be a hundred people who had somehow thought this would be worth the trip out to the middle of nowhere. He felt a little bad.
So far, the crowds had been mollified with a projected screen showing the USFL Championship Game. Now that the game had entered the 2nd quarter, it was time to start prepping the halftime show.
Pete waved to Dick, who was up in the booth talking to the TV people. Dick waved back, still mad that he’d lost the coin toss for this. They both wanted the first ride.
The aged astronaut followed the scrawny billionaire up the little ramp that led into the back of the truck. He sat on the bench and looked over to see his own reflection in the glass. If Mark looked like a G.I. Joe, then Pete Conrad looked like a NASCAR driver.
His own flight suit was covered in patches. These weren’t from missions, but from sponsors. Across the forehead of his helmet, just like Mark’s, was the Wahoo! logo in purple. On one shoulder, he had the blue and red Pepsi ball. The other shoulder had the double shield of the NFL. Fritos had paid to get their lettering over his left clavicle. His right was occupied by the Stetson-and-rocket logo of the company he had founded with Dick: Space Cowboys Inc.
Across his chest was the big sponsor though, the so-called energy drink that was paying most of the bills today. The blazing letters spelled out PowerQuench. The preferred drink of skateboarders, snowboarders, and people who used the word “extreme” as a compliment rather than a warning. Still, their money spent as well as anyone else’s.
Money was always the name of the game for astronauts. Months of negotiating and half a million dollars allowed them to buy the ship and pull it out of mothballs. It had cost quite a bit to more to restore it after they took ownership. And all of that was nothing compared to the cost of the rocket on which it now sat.
The truck came to a stop and Pete looked out the window. The scissor lift extended from the chassis and he and Mark rose sixty feet off the ground. He could see the curved white fuselage of the rocket, looking like a plump Coke bottle (don’t tell the Pepsi people) as the truck lifted them to the little craft on top.
The MiG-106 was a two-seater version of the 105 that had flown for the Soviet Air Force. Somewhere along the way, the Reds had decided that asking one man to fly, rendezvous, and shoot down a Clipper was too much trouble, so they’d made a ship with a GIB to handle the deadly work while the pilot took care of things up front.
With the Russians now learning the fine art of making a dollar, Pete and Dick and a consortium of private investors had bought the 106 and were going to use it to separate rich thrill seekers from their riches, starting with Mark here.
When the initial investments had run out, they’d gone for sponsors and had run into a perfect marriage. Pepsi wanted a marketing stunt to promote their energy drink. The USFL wanted a halftime show for their championship game that would draw eyeballs and ad dollars. Pete and Dick wanted to show that their little company could get people up and down safely. It was, as the suits were fond of saying, a win-win.
Provided he didn’t scatter this nice little yellow rocketship all over southern Texas.
The cows weren’t bothered by the construction crews using a corner of this ranch for a launch pad and runway. The local beef baron had agreed to allow his land for this provided he got his cut.
When the scissor lift stopped, the doors opened, and Pete and Mark got their first look at the ship.
They’d ripped out the variable geometry mechanisms for the wings and locked them at full extension. The bubble cockpit was open and the two seats faced the early evening sky. Two technicians helped Mark into his seat at the back and Pete chuckled as he looked at the big Pepsi logo down on the rear fin. On the left wingtip was a garish electric P rippling through a Q. Under the bubble cockpit, stenciled in black lettering was the ship’s new moniker “Lightning”. PowerQuench promised athletes a new level of refreshment, describing the product as “lightning in a bottle.”
He was very grateful the cameras couldn’t see him rolling his eyes.
The canned air that was piped into the suit was comfortably cool. He was grateful for that. The techs were sweating. If this little endeavor took off, as it were, then they’d have to think about relocating to somewhere a little more hospitable. The mixture of scrub brush and sand out here had looked this way a thousand years ago and would look the same a thousand years hence. Not the kind of place to bring billionaires.
He grabbed the lip of the cockpit and pulled himself in, sliding his feet over the pedals. He’d been in this cockpit a dozen times, but never had he mounted it when it was already facing the sky. He clipped the harness and gave a thumbs up when the canopy had been sealed.
The director, of programming, not flight control, came onto the radio.
“Captain Conrad, are we ready to fly?”
“You still up for this, Mark?” he asked.
“Yep,” Mark said from behind him.
“We are go for launch,” Pete said.
Already he saw the scissor lift retracting, taking the little white-room back down to the surface. Once the little box was back on the chassis, that truck driver pushed the rig like a bat outta Hell. Pete smiled. Tough to blame the driver. This little booster was supposed to pack a wallop.
“They had an injury timeout, so we’re going to hold about five minutes,” the director said.
“Copy that,” Conrad said.
Three miles in the distance, he could see the lights of the runway. They cast long shadows of the crowd and bleachers. The Lightning gripped him tight as he waited. He made a little conversation.
“Mark, you got the can back there?” he asked.
Mark held up the tiny yellow can in front of the camera that had been mounted on the back of Pete’s seat.
“Yeah, all set, Captain.”
“Remember, don’t open it until I tell you. They ain’t paying to be the highest energy drink in Earth’s atmosphere,” Conrad said.
“You got it,” Mark said.
Conrad clicked his jaw. First space tourist. First energy drink in space. First civilian hop. At least it was fun. He and Dick might not be the world’s greatest businessmen, but by God they’d certainly be entertaining. He listened to the final call of the countdown.
“So long, Texas. See you in ten minutes,” he said.
“What was that?” Mark asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s be colorful.”
A hundred miles to the north, the jumbotron at the Alamodome lit up with the launch of the little yellow spaceplane. To his credit, Mark kept his demeanor and his bladder under control for the three minutes of burn time it took to make the ascent.
The little rear-view mirror allowed Conrad to watch the empty booster separate and fall away. It would return to Earth under the world’s largest parachute, like some kind of Texas sequel to Operation Dumbo Drop. Pete had a thirty-cent bet with Dick that the rocket would come down at some awful angle, collapse one of the landing legs, and cost them another ten grand to repair.
As the sky went from blue to black, Pete experienced a new dawn. The little craft had gotten high enough to catch the sunlight over the curve of the planet.
“Welcome to space, Mark!” he said, making it official as they crossed the Karman line.
At the top of the parabola, he and Mark broke out the little cans and toasted their accomplishment. The stuff tasted like dreck, but he had to smile. Pete watched the can float in front of him, tumbling as he tapped the edge. He pushed it behind his seat, letting Mark stow it away. With the last bit of advertising done, he nosed the ship around and brought her into an entry attitude.
Much less dramatic than a Clipper entry, the little MiG sank into the atmosphere like a heavy toy in a bathtub. Relative airspeed meant that he wasn’t buffeting high-speed wind, but rather cutting down through the stratosphere, on his way to a region where his wings would be useful.
A long, winding spiral brought the ship down from the upper atmosphere. Pete made lazy circles, trying to keep his airspeed at a reasonable mark. Bringing the little yellow spaceplane in for a landing he could hear a Dopplered cheer as he rolled past the crowd.
After a few photographs and a quick round of questions from the press, Pete and Dick got a chance to get away from the hullabaloo. As they came back to the blockhouse, one of their staff, a young computer engineer, stood proudly over a laptop, pointing.
“Three million hits on our website!” he said.
“Is that a lot?” Dick asked, “That seems like a lot.”
“It is,” the staffer said.
“We have a website?” Pete asked.
“Wahoo set it up for us, remember?” Dick said.
“Okay. What does it do?” Pete asked.
“Well, right now, it’s taking requests from people who want to go into space,” the kid said.
“Do any of them have enough money?” Pete asked.
“Oh, no way. But your c-mail accounts have been filling up and some of those people have money. I did some searching on the web and, so far, you’ve gotten mail from the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, about ten trust-fund guys, and the nephew of the president of the World Bank. All of them young, reckless, and with money to burn.”
Dick smiled, “Conrad, we’re gonna be rich!”
10 July 1996
Cineplex 12
Houston, TX
29° 43’ 56” N 95° 25’ 37” W
Together, Monica and Mercy took their seats as the 20th Century Fox fanfare blared through the theater. They gave polite shrugs as they tiptoed to the middle of the row. The opening credits came up in sleek silver letters.
Under ominous music, the alien mothership came over the horizon. Skillfully, the filmmakers did not show the craft, merely the shadow as it passed overhead, swallowing crater rims and footprints in darkness as it approached the target.
The little model of Moonbase was well-crafted. Monica gave an acknowledging head tilt as she noted the four domes and some assorted ground vehicles. The special effects people should be commended, she thought, as the scene moved to inside the base.
The interior shots didn’t look all that much like Moonbase. Too much open space. The ceilings were too high. The computers and screens were too modern. She watched the fictional astronauts struggle to comprehend what was happening as the mothership took station overhead. She bemusedly wondered if Moonbase would even know if an alien craft appeared in the skies overhead, short of a ground team outside radioing in.
The green laser beam illuminated the model, a searing ray of color in a drab background of grey and black. When the shot cut back inside the base, she wondered where the green light that glowed over the commander’s face had come from. Moonbase did not have a window to speak of.
The model exploded with marvelous scientific inaccuracy. She suspended her disbelief as Moonbase burst and splintered under the alien death ray.
As the mothership headed for Earth, the little prologue now complete, she gave Mercy a playful swat on the arm.
“Told ya.”
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now lets hope he won't disappear in a wormhole
going to mars - won't be a wormhole - it will be spatial anomaly 521
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mortonofski
Donor
Question to the masses: who is your favourite Ocean of Storms astronaut, and why is it Cale Fletcher? Honestly my favourite OoS character (aside from perhaps the late great Tom Wheaton), and the way he stood up for Sally Ride just cemented that. Bravo!
Also, I feel terrible for the guy, but I suspect Captain Turner's folder may be shifted from the "maybe" pile to the "nope" pile once they read the line about how he's the second coming of Paul Tibbets...
Also, I feel terrible for the guy, but I suspect Captain Turner's folder may be shifted from the "maybe" pile to the "nope" pile once they read the line about how he's the second coming of Paul Tibbets...
I'm torn between Judith Resnik and Sally Ride - one's Jewish, the other's a lesbian.
benackerton
Banned
Both were fascinating characters with tragic stories. We have a Resnik thread at NASAspaceflight.com, she was intensely beautiful, smart, but also with a complicated private life. Beyond them, every single woman in that group of 6 (TFNG, 1978) was extraordinary, and they all had incredible careers (J. Resnik, S. Ride, R. Seddon, C. Sullivan, S. Lucid, A. Fisher)
I'm glad you pay hommage to Resnik in your TL.
benackerton
Banned
Life magazine back then did a portrait of Anna Fisher in an EVA suit - and those photos are incredible.
" https://www.google.com/search?q="anna+fisher""life+magazine"&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi_4KTd2-z6AhUF3RoKHdREAh8Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq="anna+fisher""life+magazine"&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECAAQHjoFCAAQgARQyANYwytgsjBoAHAAeACAAbMBiAHrCZIBAzUuN5gBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=QCZQY7_ADIW6a9SJifgB&bih=931&biw=1880&client=opera&hs=Gga "
" https://www.google.com/search?q="anna+fisher""life+magazine"&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi_4KTd2-z6AhUF3RoKHdREAh8Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq="anna+fisher""life+magazine"&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECAAQHjoFCAAQgARQyANYwytgsjBoAHAAeACAAbMBiAHrCZIBAzUuN5gBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=QCZQY7_ADIW6a9SJifgB&bih=931&biw=1880&client=opera&hs=Gga "
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As a lesbian who applies every NASA astronaut corps application cycle, I cannot overstate how awesome this was to read.
.....Waaaaaaaaait a second, I know that name!
Everyone just getting it now is a bit disappointing seeing as you included his father back in in the 1970s.
Let's not worry about people showing up late to the party, and just celebrate the fact that they're here now.
Everyone who knows Farscape is a win.
Though I am getting reminded of the folks who didn't realize that Lani Tupu was doing Crais and the voice of Pilot until the end of Season 1.