CHAPTER 5 – DEPARTURE
14:08 (GMT)
Wednesday, November 25, 2043
Command center, H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP
Low Earth orbit
‘’To all the crew: we are five minutes away from nuclear engines ignition. If you are not already strapped into a seat, do it now and seal your spacesuits. This is the last warning.’’
Switching her microphone off, Janet Larsson looked to her right at her flight engineer, Roberto Calderon.
‘’Systems status, Mister Calderon?’’
‘’Everything is a go, Commander.’’
‘’Mister Ponichnikov?’’
Viktor, who was occupying the nuclear engines control station, answered at once.
‘’All nuclear engines are in pre-boost mode, switched to the primary fuel tanks and are ready to go, Commander.’’
‘’Navigator?’’
‘’Route entered and locked in the computer, Commander.’’ replied Shen Li Yang, sitting to the right of the ship’s pilot, Anton Kubtchev.
‘’Good! Close your visors, people!’’
The eight other men and women inside the fairly small compartment closed their visors and secured them, then made sure that their individual breathing systems were functioning. The command and control section, mounted on an axial pivot inside the center core module, was already pivoted to make its floor point aft, so that the thrust of the nuclear engines would be felt by the astronauts as coming from under them. As for those in the ring carrousels, the engine thrust would add a less than five percent gravity tangential force to the rotational gravity they already felt, enough to make someone feel like in a gently rolling ship but not enough to significantly disturb objects and persons around the spaceship. However, Janet Larsson did not believe in taking unnecessary risks, which was why the crewmembers would have to stay strapped in their seats for the total duration of the nuclear engines burn time of a bit over one hour. Ten seconds before the planned time for engine ignition, Janet spoke again briefly.
‘’Mister Ponichnikov, put the nuclear engines at idle power. Mister Kubtchev, initiate the final countdown.’’
‘’Understood, Commander! Time to ignition: five seconds!...three, two, one, engines ignition at full rated power!’’
A powerful roar and strong vibrations transmitted through the structure of the ship followed as the sixteen PHOENIX 2000 nuclear rocket engines started burning a total of 4,160 kilos of liquid hydrogen per second, producing a total thrust of 4,000 metric tons. The huge spaceship started at once to rise from the low Earth orbit in which it had been parked for more than two years. As they started to follow their flight path to Mars, Janet couldn’t help look at one of the holographic video display screens which gave a view of the space outside the ship. Visible as a tiny dot in a lower orbit was the H.S.S. MIR, which was nearing completion in Earth orbit. The MIR was a twin of the FRIENDSHIP and was meant to add to the transport capacity towards Mars. It was also meant to act as a rescue ship if anything bad happened to the FRIENDSHIP. To see it there, nearly ready to travel into space, did a lot to reassure Janet. Not that she believed that the mission had low chances of success, on the contrary, but extra backups were always welcome in space.
There was little talk inside the command center during the next hour, with only short reports and instrument readings being given around while the nuclear rocket engines roared, pushing the spaceship into a Hohmann transfer orbit5 towards Mars. Then, following a pre-calculated flight plan, Janet Larssen gave an order to Viktor Ponichnikov at a precise time.
‘’Bring the nuclear rocket engines to idle power and cut the flow of liquid hydrogen. Once at idle, switch the nuclear engines cores to power production mode.’’
‘’Throttling down nuclear rocket engines to idle… liquid hydrogen flow cut to zero… Switching to power production mode.’’
From a working temperature of 2,450 degrees Kelvin, or 3,950 degrees Fahrenheit, the uranium cores of the PHOENIX 2000 engines started cooling down as the control bars quenched the nuclear reaction in them. With the flow of liquid hydrogen fuel, which had circulated around the cores to both produce thrust and cool the exhaust nozzles, now cut, distilled water was next injected into a network of pipes closely surrounding the pressure vessels of the nuclear engines. That water quickly flashed to superheated steam as it collected the waste heat from the cores while helping the latter to cool down. That steam then was directed to steam-powered turbo-generators, producing massive amounts of electricity. With the sixteen nuclear rocket engines now functioning pretty much like individual nuclear power plants, the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP ended up with over 480 megawatts of extra electrical power flowing through its power circuitry. Viktor, who was closely following that switch into power production mode on his instruments, soon spoke up again.
‘’Nuclear cores now stabilized in power production mode. We have 480 megawatts of extra power now available.’’
‘’Excellent!’’ said Janet Larssen. ‘’Mister Calderon, start our magnetoplasma engines, cruise thrust mode.’’
‘’Starting our magnetoplasma engines. Low thrust, high specific impulse mode selected!’’ replied the flight engineer as he switched on the eighteen two gigawatt VASIMR plasma engines of the spaceship. Those plasma engines, which constituted the cruise engines of the spaceship for long, deep space missions, started heating gaseous argon fuel via powerful electromagnets, transforming it into hot plasma before that plasma was compressed, further heated and accelerated by a second set of electromagnets, then ejected through an exhaust nozzle, producing thrust. That plasma left the engines at a temperature of over one million degrees Kelvin, 173 times hotter than the surface of the Sun, at velocities close to 70,000 meters per second and with a specific impulse of 10,000 seconds, over ten times more efficient in fuel than the PHOENIX 2000 rocket engines. While the engine thrust to spaceship mass ratio thus created was a measly 0.001, that thrust could be sustained for months and even years, greatly increasing the final velocity of the ship at little cost in fuel mass. While the PHOENIX 2000 nuclear rocket engines by themselves cut in half the duration time of a trip to Mars compared to the eight to nine months needed with pure chemical rocket engines, that travel time was further cut to forty days with the use of the VASIMR engines. Less travel time needed in space meant in turn less possible radiation exposure to the crewmembers of the ship and smaller quantities of supplies and foodstuff needed aboard, two factors highly beneficial to the mission.
‘’Magnetoplasma engines now at steady cruise power.’’
Viktor Ponichnikov concentrated for a moment, trying to detect any felt push given by the VASIMR engines.
‘’Hell, we are accelerating even more slowly than the first clunker I bought at a Moscow used car dealer when I was a teenage student.’’
Roberto Calderon threw Viktor a faked look of outrage on hearing that.
‘’Are you calling our 23 billion dollar spaceship a clunker?’’
‘’He better not!’’ added Janet Larssen, painting a severe expression on her face. ‘’If so, then he will be practicing his space walking…without a spacesuit.’’
Viktor faked a terrified look in response, making the other occupants of the command center burst out in laughter. Janet Larssen, who had also laughed briefly, then became serious again and switched her microphone to ship wide announcement mode.
‘’Attention all hands! You may now unbuckle your safety harnesses, get out of your spacesuits and resume your activities. Thank you!’’
Undoing her own seat harness, Janet then got up and looked at the others in the small command center.
‘’You may now get out of your spacesuits in rotation. Anton, Roberto, Paul and Ken, you take the first shift until 19:00. I will be touring the ship and talking to the crewmembers in the meantime.’’
Janet then floated out of the command center, which was in near zero G conditions in this stage of the flight.
Inside their cabin, Jack and Xiulan Sommers gladly got out of their spacesuits, then stored them in their alcoves, ending up in internal ship uniforms. Since they were not astronauts by profession, being instead classified as non-technical support personnel with only basic training on space systems, both still found their spacesuits a bit claustrophobic, on top of being rather heavy and cumbersome. Jack smiled on seeing Xiulan take off her uniform’s vest to change it for a white blouse and a classic blue and black, double-breasted barman’s jacket, ending for a moment with only her bra to cover her small but firm breasts. Gluing himself to her back and kissing her neck, Jack also gently fondled her breasts with both hands, making Xiulan purr with appreciation. She in turn put both hands in her back, rubbing his hardened penis through his trousers. Xiulan however put a stop to it after a few seconds, turning around to face her husband and smile to him.
‘’We can continue that after we complete our first work shift, Jack. You have to prepare supper for all the famished crew members aboard, while I have to get the bar ready to operate.’’
Jack sighed with regret but did stop his rubbing and fondling and kissed her on the lips.
‘’You are right, as always. I hope that you will have a nice first work shift.’’
‘’The same for you, Jack. Shall we walk together to the crew lounge?’’
‘’Of course! Let the other see what kind of nice couple we make.’’
Xiulan giggled at that before finishing to change. Both then walked out of their cabin and headed to the nearest set of stairs leading up to the Promenade Deck.
They found the crew lounge already occupied by a good thirty people, as many crewmembers would have little to do while the ship cruised towards Mars. Xiulan split with Jack once they got near the bar of the crew lounge, kissing him again before she went through the door giving access to the back of the bar and to its alcohol storage room. She found the other barmaid of the ship, Mary McGregor, behind the bar, taking out glasses from their protective boxes and lining them up in shock absorbing trays under the service counter.
‘’Hi Mary! Need help with this?’’
‘’I sure can, Xiulan! Take care of the cocktail glasses and I will take care of the beer mugs.’’
‘’Deal!’’
Going to the small storage room at the back of the bar that contained glassware, utensils and towels, Xiulan picked up a container of beer mugs and, using the small pair of wheels fitted to one end of the bottom, raised and pulled the container, rolling it out of the storage room and near the counter, where she put down the container and opened it before taking out the beer mugs one by one, inspecting them visually for any cracks or damage before storing them under the service counter. While doing so, she couldn’t help ask a question to Mary, an Irish girl married to an hydroponics technician working on the ship.
‘’Hey, Mary, is it true that this spaceship will be the first place in space where alcohol will be served routinely?’’
‘’It is true, Xiulan. Before, alcoholic drinks were either banned in orbit or severely regulated, being served rarely and in controlled conditions. Here, we will be able to serve beer, wine and spirits to our customers at will, until they are judged to have had enough and failed the alcohol meter test.’’
Xiulan threw a quick glance at the alcohol meter machine, standing in the middle of the counter and fitted with a quick-change mouth straw. On the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, the maximum permitted blood alcohol limit had been set at 0.04, enough to get a feeling but too little to be considered truly impaired. Even then, the crewmembers were expected to show moderation in their drinking habits. Some non-alcoholic beverages and substitutes, like alcohol-free beer and coolers, were stored in quantity aboard but real beer, wine and hard liquors would also be served, with a fairly diverse variety available at the bar, including beer on tap. Beer on tap, being stored in aluminum kegs, weighed much less per liquid volume than when stored in glass bottles and was also much less susceptible to breakage and leaks, making it ideal for a spaceship’s bar. Beer on tap however had a shelf life of only a few months, so bottled beer with a strong alcohol content had also been brought aboard in quantity, in order to ensure a supply of beer during the whole two-year mission.
A bit over one hour later, with the bar ready to operate, Mary and Xiulan took off their barmaid’s jacket, closed the counter’s shutters and went to the nearby cafeteria to have supper. There, they ended near the head of a growing lineup of waiting customers, with the kitchen counters due to open for service in a few minutes. Mary and Xiulan took that time to study the menu of the day, written with erasable pens on a dry white board hooked to a wall near the service counter.
‘’Hum, should I go for the lamb curry, the sauté chicken and vegetables or the deep fried cod in batter? They all sound good.’’ said Xiulan, making Mary point firmly at one item.
‘’For me it will be the deep fried cod in batter, no questions asked. The cooks in Vandenberg always managed to screw up fried cod but they do it really well on this ship.’’
‘’Why not try a little of everything, Mary? This mission is a great occasion to be exposed to truly international cuisine.’’
‘’You may be right, Xiulan. I think that I will do just that. With such good food served aboard, I will have to be careful not to get fat.’’
‘’Me too! Aaah, the service counter is opening now.’’
With the lineup then advancing quite quickly, Xiulan ended up being next to be served by none other than her smiling husband.
‘’Hi, honey! What will you have?’’
‘’Gives me some sauté chicken and vegetables, along with one lamb chop and one fried fish fillet on the side. Everything looks and smells so good.’’
‘’Thanks! I must say that Chef Caldi is a true culinary master: he can cook about any dish from around the World that you can think of, even if his forte is French and Italian cuisine.’’
‘’And you, Mister Sommers? What is your specialty?’’ asked Mary McGregor, making Jack beam with pride while he started serving Xiulan.
‘’Me? I’m the king of grilled meat! I’m especially good at making barbecued, spicy pulled pork.’’
‘’Spicy pulled pork? Hum, I never tasted that. When do you expect to cook some of it on this ship?’’
‘’Well, I will have to discuss that with the Chef: he decides the menus on a weekly basis. And what will you have tonight?’’
‘’I will also go for a mix, but centered on the fried fish rather than the sauté.’’
‘’Then, here you go. Bon appétit!’’
‘’Thank you!’’
Going first to the beverage counter, then to one of the unoccupied booths lining the walled side of the cafeteria, next to a lemon tree planted between two sets of booths, the two women quickly started eating their food while glancing out from time to time at the road traffic passing by their ‘dinner restaurant’ and visible through their ‘restaurant window’.
‘’I nearly could think myself back in Vandenberg right now.’’ said Mary. ‘’This mission promises to be quite pleasant, on top of being an incredible adventure.’’
‘’The space service bonus is also quite nice.’’ added Xiulan, making Mary nod her head.
‘’That too! The pay me and Sean were getting in Ireland was positively meager compared to what we are making now. We will be able to put aside a nice bundle from this mission.’’
‘’And how are things in Ireland these days, Mary?’’
Mary’s expression changed then, becoming somber and making Xiulan regret having asked her question.
‘’Not too good, I’m afraid. Floods, torrential rains and mud slides are now way too frequent around Ireland, while a number of fishing villages that have existed for centuries have been washed away by the rising sea. The changing water temperatures also played havoc with the fish stocks and catches are way down from past decades. Overall, the general standard of living in Ireland has taken a hard hit, like in the British Isles. We were damn lucky to have been selected by the ESA6 for this mission. And you, Xiulan?’’
‘’Me and Jack were lucky, in that he was serving at Vandenberg, which is situated high enough not to be endangered by the rising sea levels. However, before we married a year ago, I had lived many years in Los Angeles and that whole coastal strip, along with the port of Long Beach, had to be protected with long lines of sea walls and dikes. All the nice beaches that California had once been famous for are now under water, while droughts have become both more frequent and more severe every year.’’
‘’That is sad indeed. I hope that we manage one day to reverse this global warming and its consequent ice caps melting.’’
‘’Me too! Now that most nations on Earth understand fully how serious this climate crisis is and have cut drastically their respective military budgets in order to fight natural disasters, real and meaningful efforts are being done at last to reverse the situation or, at the least, stop the damage from spreading.’’
‘’I wish that people would have awakened earlier to all this. It would have avoided us a lot of misery and deaths.’’
Xiulan could only nod her head to that before continuing to eat slowly in silence.