CHAPTER 2 – A REAL NAIL BITTER
14:44 (California Time)
Friday, May 17, 2041
Launch Control Center, Vandenberg Space Center
California, U.S.A.
Despite his deep faith in the project he led, Robert Lithgow couldn’t help feel somewhat nervous as he looked at the video image of the huge disk and its six booster rockets displayed on the giant plasma screen of the Launch Control Center, situated inside a bunker at the Vandenberg Space Center. While he had carefully reviewed every possibilities for a launch failure and done his best to prevent them, nothing in space exploration and travel was risk-free. One seemingly insignificant mistake or oversight could be enough to delay the launch of the main section of the Human Space Ship FRIENDSHIP or, worse, lead to its destruction and loss at launch. If that last thing occurred, then it would set the Mars Home Project back by at least three years. Worse, it could shake the political support that the project so depended on in the long term to achieve its ultimate goals.
Lithgow briefly looked to his right at the other important guests who had come to Vandenberg to watch this critical space launch. Maria Cardona, the NASA Administrator, was here of course, along with Doctor Misha Borisovich, the head of Roskosmos, the Russian Space Agency, Wang Lao Xi, the head of the Chinese Space Agency, Michel Dupré, the head administrator of the European Space Agency, and Shinzo Kurozawa, the head of the Japanese Space Agency. Normally, the head of the Indian Space Agency, which had participated in the development and design of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, would have been present as well. Sadly, Doctor Chandra Sahriman was now dead, along with his whole technical team and more than half of India’s population. Faced with an impending Pakistani land invasion of its parts of Kashmir and of the Punjab, the Indian government had issue an ultimatum to Pakistan to cease and desist, to which General Khan had replied by launching a ‘preemptive’ nuclear strike on India, concentrated against the main cities and military bases east and south of the Punjab. With over 140 Pakistani nuclear-tipped missiles in the air and with dozens of Pakistani combat aircraft loaded with tactical nuclear bombs flying into Indian airspace, the Indian government had no other option but to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike of its own on Pakistan. The subsequent explosion of over 290 nuclear warheads around the Indian Sub-Continent had killed instantly tens of millions of Indian and Pakistani citizens, with hundreds of millions more dying from radiation exposure in the weeks to follow. The radioactive fallouts, apart from irremediably contaminating most of the arable lands in both countries and ensuring mass famines in the near future, had also played havoc with a number of neighboring countries, contaminating vital agricultural lands, forests and rivers and forcing the mass evacuation of millions of Iranian, Afghan and Burmese citizens. Ismail Khan, the man who had started it all, had then compounded his stupidity with cowardice, fleeing by plane to China and abandoning his people to its grim fate. However, instead of being given refuge by the Chinese, who had been up to now his allies, Khan had been summarily executed on arrival by the furious Chinese, who were also suffering indirectly from the nuclear war that had happened on their doorstep. Sadly, that lone act of justice could not erase the fact that over a billion people had died in the last month, while tens of millions more would die from either famine or radiation poisoning during the next few months. Robert Lithgow momentarily felt a flash of anger as he remembered some of the cruel, racist comments he had heard on some of the most extreme right wing American radio stations, in which a few radio talk show hosts and their listeners had exchanged gleeful comments about the nuclear destruction of India and Pakistan, calling the deaths of over a billion people ‘an overdue culling of excess population’. However, the storm of public outrage that had followed had shut up those racists and even forced the closure of two of the most extreme right wing radio stations.
Chasing away with difficulty those awful souvenirs, Lithgow concentrated his attention back on the giant disk resting vertically on its edge, supported by six big integrated rocket-ramjet engine pods attached at the vertical to its underside and topside. The disk section itself, which had a diameter of 190 meters and a thickness of 36 meters, was capped with an aerodynamic cover along its top edge. That cover would prevent damage from air pressure and friction heat as the assembly would rise and take up speed within the atmosphere. It would also help make its flight more economical in fuel by virtue of its shape, which would make the disk section form an airfoil with appreciable aerodynamic lift coefficient and would cut drag as well. The cover would then be jettisoned before the disk section attained Low Earth Orbit, or LEO. As for the rocket-ramjet engine pods, they were essentially similar to the engine pods used by the new fleet of heavy cargo shuttles now in NASA service. Once their work of orbiting the disk section would be completed, the six integrated engine pods were going to detach themselves from the disk section and then individually reenter the atmosphere, to return and land in Vandenberg, which was now the prime space launching base in the United States. Cape Canaveral and its huge space complex had unfortunately been lost six years ago, along with most of the state of Florida, when it had been submerged by the rising sea.
‘’ONE MINUTE TO LAUNCH!... THIRTY SECONDS TO LAUNCH!... TEN SECONDS TO LAUNCH!... FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE! IGNITION!’’
Lithgow felt Maria Cardona’s hand search for his right hand and then press it nervously as the final seconds of the countdown were called. In response, the systems engineer and astrophysicist gave her a reassuring smile.
‘’Everything will be fine, Maria.’’
He didn’t have time to say more before the overhead speakers of the launch control room suddenly blared with the powerful rumble of six engine pods coming to life simultaneously, while huge flames came out of their exhaust nozzles, to be deflected sideways by specially built concrete-lined trenches. With a total initial thrust of 52,000 metric tons from the chemical rocket engines of the six pods, which burned liquid oxygen and RP-11, the huge 42,000 metric ton assembly, 16,000 tons of which was the disk section, started rising vertically at once from its launch pad. With nearly everyone in the launch control room excitedly shouting encouragements, the disk and its six engine pods quickly acquired speed, accelerating continuously as the volume of air entering the pods via their forward intake nozzles increased with speed, boosting further the mighty thrust of the engines via what was called ‘ram air effect’ and also making the engines more fuel efficient.
‘’GO, FRIENDSHIP, GO!’’ shouted Maria Cardona as the main section of her future spaceship reached the speed of sound while still climbing and accelerating. Once at a speed of Mach 2.1, the six integrated engine pods switched to nearly pure ramjet mode, injecting liquid hydrogen inside the ramjet tubes surrounding the chemical rocket engines, while the rocket engines throttled down to idle. The hydrogen, vaporized by the air heated via compression after entering the intake nozzles, helped greatly lower the temperature of that ingested air, thus improving the efficiency of the ramjet part of the engine pod. It was then mixed with the oxygen in the atmospheric air and ignited, creating huge thrust while operating at a fuel efficiency rate, or specific impulse in aerospace parlance, much greater than that of any pure chemical rocket engine. The ramjet engines went on until the big structure reached a speed of Mach 5.5 and an altitude close to 30,000 meters, where the air started becoming too rarefied to let the ramjet function. Then, the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen chemical rocket engines of the pods ignited, taking over at an altitude where they could perform much more efficiently than at sea level. That ultimate thrust phase finished pushing the main disk section into its initial low Earth orbit, where the six integrated engine pods detached themselves under remote control and started flying back to Earth, where they would be inspected, refurbished and reused for other launches. The aerodynamic nose cover also detached itself a few seconds before that moment, but went down only to burn on reentry, as planned.
More wild cheers greeted the reaching of low initial orbit by the main section of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, prompting Lithgow and Cardona to exchange happy handshakes and hugs with their foreign colleagues. Misha Borisovich in particular proved quite effusive, in line with his reputation for joviality and cheerfulness. He nearly crushed Maria Cardona in his arms when he cheerfully hugged her while celebrating the success of the launch.
‘’We did it, Maria! We did it!’’
‘’I know, Misha, but could you press a bit less strongly?’’
‘’Oh, sorry!’’ said the Russian astrophysicist, who was built like a bear. ‘’Still, to launch in orbit such a huge mass, and this without a single hitch. It must be a record.’’
‘’It is a record, Misha, and one that we can be extremely proud of. However, there is still a lot more to be done before we can send the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP towards Mars and even more to be done before we end up with a self-sustaining colony on Mars. Hopefully, we will be able to achieve all that before Humanity destroys itself through sheer stupidity and lack of vision.’’
‘’Or is able to reverse this damn global warming and make the sea lower to its previous levels.’’ added Michel Dupré, of the European Space Agency, or ESA. Robert Lithgow nodded his head at that but inserted a comment of his own.
‘’That would definitely be nice to see, but even then I hope that our political leaders will understand that this project must be brought to its ultimate end state: a viable, self-sustaining colony on Mars. This global warming crisis was brought on by us, through our own lack of common sense. There is no way to know what other stupidity we will do in the future that could kill for good Earth’s ecosystems. We need to invest into space colonization, no ifs or buts!’’
‘’I fully agree with you, my friend.’’ said softly Misha Borisovich. ‘’Right now, we still don’t know the true extend of the damage done worldwide by that stupid Indo-Pakistani Nuclear War. As things grow worse, with seas rising and temperatures increasing, more such follies could easily happen.’’
The group slowly nodded their heads at those words before Robert Lithgow clapped his hands together and smiled to the others.
‘’Well, enough about the doomsday talk! How about if we go celebrate this success in style? I know a very good restaurant near the base where we could have supper together. I’m paying!’’
‘’Well, in that case, what are we waiting for?’’ exclaimed Borisovich, making the others laugh.
02:46 (Greenwich Meridian Time)
Monday, May 20, 2041
NASA light space shuttle AURORA
On approach to the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP’s main section
Low Earth orbit
‘’Shuttle AURORA on final approach to docking station Alpha of main FRIENDSHIP’s section. Fifty meters and closing!’’
Denise Wattling, who was piloting the light shuttle, waited until her craft was within twenty meters before speaking again to the Vandenberg controller via radio.
‘’Going down the glide path nicely, autopilot and automated approach system fully synchronized. Approach speed: 0.4 meters per second… Five meters to docking port… Docking clamps engaging!’’
Denise then pressed a couple of buttons in sequence, tightening the docking clamps to render the docking collar airtight, then filling the nose airlock with warm, breathable air. She nodded her head inside her spacesuit’s helmet when an indicator light turned green.
‘’Nose airlock pressurized! We are now going to go inside FRIENDSHIP.’’
‘’Understood, AURORA! Proceed at your own pace.’’ replied the NASA controller. Denise then looked at her team leader, Mark Dempsey, sitting in the copilot’s seat.
‘’We can go inside the ship, Mark.’’
‘’Good! There is quite a lot to do for us in there.’’
Dempsey released the safety harness of his seat, then got up and put one boot down on the deck plate between the two forward seats of the light shuttle. As was now standard in all spacesuits, be they produced in the United States, Russia, China or Europe, the soles of his boots had a number of small permanent magnets incorporated into them. That allowed astronauts to cling to a spacecraft or ship’s decks, which were lined with very thin steel sheets. While that cost a bit in terms of mass, the fact that one could move and walk nearly normally even in zero gravity conditions made working and living in space so much easier. Even the soles of the astronauts’ inner slippers incorporated small magnets, for the same reason. Being cautious not to walk at a too brisk pace and thus risk breaking completely contact between the deck and his boots, the activation team’s leader walked down the wide central aisle of the light shuttle, passing by the seven members of his team who were sitting in their padded, crashworthy seats.
‘’Come on, guys and girls: time to get to work!’’
Imitated by Denise Wattling, who put her shuttle into dormant mode first, the members of the activation team got out of their seats and followed Dempsey down to the lower deck, where the airlock chamber of the nose docking ring was situated. Double-checking first that the airlock was properly pressurized, Dempsey then opened its wide, aluminum alloy door and entered the airlock. He let two members of his team join him, nearly filling the airlock, then gave a couple of orders.
‘’Seal your suits! Omar, close and secure the airlock’s door.’’
In theory, and with all instruments indicators telling him that the airlock on FRIENDSHIP’s side was pressurized, he could have simply left both doors of the shuttle’s airlock opened, thus accelerating greatly the rate at which his team members would enter the huge main section of the spaceship. However, instruments could go wrong for all kinds of reasons, while a bitterly learned lesson about space work was that about anything could happen at any time with little or no warning. He thus was resolved to play it safe all the way on this mission and not risk unnecessarily the lives of his team members. Once Omar Kawaji had closed back the shuttle’s inner airlock door, Mark opened the outer airlock door and glided inside the transfer chamber of the docking station’s airlock, followed by Roberto Calderon and Viktor Ponichnikov. He waited until Viktor had secured the shuttle’s airlock’ outer door before unlocking and opening the outer door of the spaceship’s airlock, revealing a wide chamber big enough for ten astronauts in spacesuits to stand in. All three astronauts then glided inside the spaceship’s airlock chamber and planted their boots on the steel-lined deck, with Viktor closing and securing the outer door before Mark spoke in his helmet’s microphone.
‘’The spaceship’s airlock is confirmed as pressurized. The rest of the team can now come in.’’
‘’Understood!’’ replied Denise Wattling, who was the second-in-command of the team, on top of being the pilot of their shuttle. Less than four minutes later, all nine members of the team were together in the spaceship’s airlock, with the outer doors of both the ship’s airlock and of the shuttle closed. Mark paused for a second before opening the inner door of the airlock: they were about to enter the largest space structure ever put in orbit. He then corrected himself: that space structure was still incomplete, with many more sections to be added to it before it became a fully flyable spaceship.
The activation team members were happy when they were able to finally open the visors of their spacesuits’ helmets once inside the large reception area of the docking station: No matter how well designed a spacesuit was, there was always a claustrophobic element to them. At this time, however, the reception area, like the rest of the ship, was only dimly lit by secondary lights powered by the solar panels that had deployed out of the main disk section once it had attained its parking orbit. They would have to activate first the main and secondary nuclear reactors of the spaceship before the main disk section could be fully powered up. Mark Dempsey thus looked at Viktor Ponichnikov, the nuclear engineer loaned to this mission by Roskosmos, the Russian space agency.
‘’Viktor, you take Max with you and go activate the two nuclear reactors of the spaceship. I will go with Denise to the central command section to activate the other ship systems from there, while Jiang Min will lead the rest into the carrousels to remove the braking clamps, so that we could initiate their rotation. Let’s go!’’
The team then started walking down the seventy meter-long padded tube that linked Docking Station Alpha to the central axis section that contained both the central command section and the nuclear reactors’ compartments. Twenty meters down the tube, five of the team members, led by Jiang Min, split from the rest of the group and entered a side airlock that led to the contra-rotating carrousels of the ship. The two huge carrousels, which actually worked like rings running on circular racetracks rather than carrousels with moving spokes, were each contained in adjacent but separate, airtight sections, so that any accidental decompression would not endanger both carrousels. Jiang Min, a member of the Chinese Space Agency, knew pretty much everything about those carrousels, as his own father had designed what was possibly one of the most critical components of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP. One reason for the failure of the previous Mars One Mission had been the poor health on arrival on Mars of the astronauts, partly due to the long time spent traveling in zero gravity conditions. Thus, incorporating some sort of a rotating carrousel section into the next generation of spaceships, so that some artificial gravity could be created via centrifugal effect, had been one of the prime lessons from that tragic failure. The genius of Min’s father, Jiang Chao, had been to do away with the space-consuming moving spokes that came with classic carrousels. Struck by the sight of open cars going up and down a roller-coaster track at an amusement park, Chao had adapted the roller-coaster concept to a spaceship design, with a system of two airtight rectangular-section rings turning smoothly in opposite directions inside circular tunnels, using magnetic cushions similar to those of high-speed maglev trains. This eliminated the need for heavy and complicated rotating spokes and their supports, with their problematic central axis seals around their base rings. It also insured a complete separation, pressure-wise, of the two carrousels, or ‘running rings’, as Chao preferred to call them. The compactness of the design had also permitted design engineers to surround them with various auxiliary systems and hydrogen fuel tanks, which gave the carrousels precious and effective anti-radiation protection against space radiations, including deadly energetic cosmic rays. Finally, it greatly simplified internal circulation aboard the spaceship, with crewmembers not having to go down a long, rotating communication spoke and then go up another one just to go from one carrousel to another. Instead, crewmembers could do like Jiang Min was now doing, stepping inside a transfer compartment and then going four meters down a tube with a metallic ladder. He and his four companions ended in a three meter-wide by four meter-long compartment featuring two airtight doors, one at each end but on opposite corners. A few small armored windows gave the astronauts a view into the two dormant carrousels, both immobile and obscure save for the sparse light from secondary lamps.
‘’Alright, follow me, friends!’’ said Jiang Min before opening the inner door of the airlock giving access to the forward carrousel. Once his whole group was inside that airlock, he secured the inner door and checked on an indicator panel that the forward carrousel was effectively pressurized and that its air was breathable. Only then did he open the outer door, which swung inside the airlock, and set foot on the narrow platform adjacent to the edge of the top level deck of the forward carrousel, also known as the Promenade Deck. Looking left and right, he saw the apparently endless floor of the Promenade Deck, which curved gently upward on both sides along the circumference of a circle with a radius of 65 meters. That deck was a full seven meter-wide and its ceiling stood over four meter-high, giving it a very generous internal volume compared to that of even orbital space stations. There were however three additional decks under this one, while another, similar carrousel stood on the other side of an airtight wall separating the two carrousels. Keiko Minegumi smiled with contentment as she eyed the vast carrousel space.
‘’This is great! Such vast spaces should do wonders for the morale of the future crew of the FRIENDSHIP. And to be able to travel as well while feeling close to one G of artificial gravity along the whole trip to Mars will prevent so many health issues.’’
‘’Those were exactly the reasons that pushed our respective space program managers into requiring that this ship have contra-rotating carrousels, Keiko.’’ said Min. ‘’However, those carrousels won’t start to rotate by themselves, so let’s get to work! Keiko, Roberto, you come with me down the left side. Benjamin and Omar, you go down the right side. Remember, we have a total of eight braking clamps to disengage on both sides. We will meet again here once we complete our tour around this carrousel.’’
On their part, Mark Dempsey and Denise Wattling went down the communication tube all the way to the central axis core section, which contained the most vital systems of the spaceship deep within its bowels and well protected against the most penetrating radiations. They again had to open an airtight door before exiting the tube and entering the core section, carefully closing it back before proceeding further: in space, safety rules, while sometimes appearing to be inflexible, always had a clear purpose and one only ignored them at their peril. Securing back every airtight door you went through was possibly one of the most primordial of those safety rules. Using their magnetic soles to walk along the surfaces of the compartments they went through, the pair soon arrived at a section surrounded by a water-filled jacket. That section, which contained the command and control systems of the spaceship, was also meant to act as an ultimate anti-radiation citadel for the crew in the case of abnormally powerful solar storms or cosmic ray shower. Even the access hatch to that section had its own water jacket, making it distinctly heavier than the other airtight doors in the ship. Going through that hatch and closing it, the two astronauts then floated to the airtight door of the command center proper and entered that compartment, which was filled with work stations, status display screens, computers and padded seats. Mark Dempsey went first to the work station reserved for the duty engineer and strapped himself in its seat, while Denise Wattling went to the communications station. The first thing Mark did was to check on the auxiliary power systems, to see if all the solar energy panels of the spaceship had properly deployed once the disk section had attained parking orbit. To his satisfaction, all of the solar panels, along with the multiple radiator panels, had deployed correctly.
‘’Excellent! Even without the nuclear power plant online, we already have enough juice to light up the inside of the ship. Let there be light!’’
Throwing in succession a series of switches, he was rewarded by the main ceiling lamps of the compartment lighting up. Throwing another series of switches turned on the ventilation and air recycling system of the central core section.
‘’It is now safe to open our visors, Denise.’’
‘’Thanks! On my part, I am in audio and visual communication with the other members of the team. I am now switching on the internal and external surveillance cameras of the ship.’’
Mark was about to ask a question to Denise when the instruments on his work station registered a sudden and massive surge in electrical power on the main circuits. That prompted him to call Viktor Ponichnikov, who had gone to the main reactor plant with Max Kruger.
‘’Hey, Viktor! That was some fast work!’’
‘’Hell,’’ replied the Russian nuclear engineer, ‘’I only had to throw a few switches and power breakers! No need to praise me for so little.’’
‘’Alright then, I will say instead that you simply did your usual, barely adequate work, Viktor.’’
The noise that the Russian made in response made Mark and Denise laugh briefly. With plenty of electrical power now at hand, Mark next contacted Jiang Min and his team.
‘’Min, this is Mark. How are you doing in the carrousels?’’
‘’We have taken off up to now five of the rotating brakes of the forward carrousel. I will call you back when both carrousels will be ready for rotation. By the way, thanks for the extra lights and powers.’’
‘’Thank Viktor for that!’’
Mark and Denise then concentrated on running a long, extensive checklist of systems, making sure that the powerful vibrations caused at launch had not disconnected some wires or shaken some equipment loose. They were still going down their checklist when Min called back twenty minutes later.
‘’Mark, this is Min! All the rotating brakes have now been released. We are ready to start the rotation of the carrousels.’’
‘’Excellent! Just brace yourselves at first, in case of some glitch.’’
‘’We are all strapped into seats on the top deck main promenade, Mark. You may go ahead now.’’
‘’Understood! Powering up the magnetic cushions and rotation motors now!’’
Mark watched like a hawk the various indicators connected to the rotating carrousels as he very gradually powered them up. His biggest fear was that the strong vibrations at launch would have deformed the rings or their running tracks, thus making useless a vital part of the ship. To his relief, everything seemed to be working smoothly at first.
‘’Min, how are things sounding and feeling out there?’’
‘’I can hear the soft humming of the magnetic motors and I also can feel a growing sensation of gravity here. Keep going!’’
Encouraged by those words, Mark