CHAPTER 14 – U.S.S. CONSTITUTION
15:09 (California Time)
Thursday, April 4, 1968 ‘C’
Military Space Command giant assembly hangar complex
Muroc Air Force Base, California
John F. Kennedy had been dying with curiosity for months about what he was about to see in the huge assembly hangar belonging to the Military Space Command and situated in the North Base part of Muroc Air Force Base. He of course already knew what was in the assembly hangar, having been briefed regularly about it by Ingrid in the past months, but there was a big difference between hearing about something and looking at it, especially when it concerned a so-called ‘black’ secret project that had already cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The garguantuan size of the assembly hangar alone, which was a tightly guarded classified military facility not opened to visitors, would have given a clue to anyone looking at it from a distance that it was no ordinary hangar. A full 340 meters wide and 400 meters long, the ‘A’-framed building, made of a steel girder structure covered with aluminum siding, stood a mind-boggling 160 meters, the height of a fifty storey building. It thus could be seen from quite far away. Another thing about it that had attracted attention was the fact that it was as well the terminal of a recently built extension to the rail line servicing Muroc Air Force Base. Large, canvas-covered objects and parts had been arriving at the assembly hangar for months now, inflaming the rumors going around Muroc about what exactly was being built inside it. No doubt that the Soviets and many others were trying their best to find out about that.
Following Ingrid Dows and surrounded by his security detail of eight Secret Service agents, the American President entered the south side annex attached to the assembly hangar, finding himself in a large hallway where five electric carts were waiting with their drivers. John was invited by Ingrid to sit with her in the first cart, with the rest of their group splitting up to board the other carts. The small convoy then started rolling quietly down the hallway, which led towards the core of the hangar, while Ingrid started describing to John what he was seeing.
‘’While this assembly hangar may look quite impressive by itself, Mister President, it is actually a very conventional building in terms of construction and structure. Most of its internal volume is empty, with cantilever steel beams structure used to leave a pillar-free central floorspace measuring 1,200 feet by 1,000 feet and with a height clearance of 300 feet. That central floorspace is itself surrounded by a number of workshops, secondary assembly halls, parts storage rooms and auxiliary machinery. Above the central floorspace are a number of floor levels containing technical and administrative offices linked to the project.’’
‘’Why build so big, Ingrid? This building by itself still cost quite a few millions of dollars.’’
‘’Because of the size of what we are building in it, Mister President.’’ Explained patiently Ingrid. ‘’The whole point of our orbital space station project is to cut the costs and complexity of building and placing it in orbit by making it a single stage to orbit, or SSTO, vessel. We thus avoid the need to assemble it in orbit, a job both risky for our astronauts and also fraught with technical difficulties. A normally minor work accident on Earth becomes a potentially lethal one in space, while working inside a spacesuit is no easy job. What we do here may appear as an extravagant expenditure for many in Congress, but building the same thing in space would have been infinitely more costly, apart from being a lot harder and longer to do.’’
‘’And the size of your orbital station itself, Ingrid? Did it need to be this large?’’
‘’It had to, and for one main reason : to accommodate a contra-rotating carroussel large enough to provide a near-normal level of artificial gravity for the crew of our space station. That carroussel’s diameter is a full 500 feet, but it will prevent the long-term debilitating effects on the human body of long periods in zero gravity. We already know from our experience with Moon crews and from the experience from the Soviet astronauts that lived aboard their orbital space station MIR that months or even as little as a few weeks in zero or low gravity will affect the bones and muscles of astronauts. Another reason for building big is to be able to incorporate sufficient anti-radiation protection for our astronauts without it becoming too high a fraction of the total mass of the station. Also, don’t forget that most of the volume of our orbital station consist in fuel tanks, which will be mostly empty once in orbit. Our orbital station will be in effect a flying wing full of rocket fuel on takeoff. This way, no parts are thrown away at launch, something that cuts part of the costs. Further, many parts used for the launch will also be able to serve other functions once in orbit, like the liquid oxygen tanks that will be turned into storage areas.’’
John nodded his head at that in appreciation.
‘’Clever, indeed! I can’t wait to see it.’’
‘’We are about to enter the main assembly hall, Mister President.’’
After coming to a large garage door that a technician opened for them, the convoy of electric carts entered what must have been the largest enclosed space John Kennedy had ever seen. His eyes, like those of his Secret Service agents, however focused at once on the huge, blunt arrowpoint-shaped mass filling the assembly hall. Two equally huge cylindrical pods with angled air inlets at their front were attached to short pylons under the arrowpoint-shaped, while a pair of stubby wins were attached to the sides of the thin main body. The whole thing shone the color of stainless steel, except for the forward edges, which were black. John looked slowly from the bow of the main body to the stern, awe on his face. The thing had to be about 300 yards long and 200 yards wide, excluding the wings.
‘’My God! I never could have imagined that it would be so big, Ingrid. It actually looks more like a spaceship than an orbital space station.’’
Ingrid gave her a funny look then, a smile on her lips.
‘’To the Americans and others who will watch it fly away to orbit, the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION will indeed look like a true spaceship, Mister President. While its designated shape is strictly a function of what was the most efficient way to fly it to orbit, the inaugural flight of the CONSTITUTION will strike the imagination of the American public, even though it will be its sole flight ever through Earth’s atmosphere. I may not give you a Mars landing during your presidential term, but you will be able to claim a major, spectacular accomplishment for the end of your mandate.’’
In turn, John looked at Ingrid with sparkling eyes, visibly happy.
‘’Thank you, Ingrid, in the name of the United States. The American people owe you, big time!’’
Ingrid sighed lightly at those words and gave a sober look to John.
‘’Just a bit more racial tolerance across this country would be plenty to make me happy, Mister President.’’
06:13 (California Time)
Saturday, September 28, 1968 ‘C’
Military Space Command Assembly Hangar
North Base, Muroc Air Force Base
California
‘’Be careful, Malcolm, and come back in one piece, please.’’
Malcolm Scott Carpenter returned the emotional hug from his wife while softly speaking into her ear.
‘’Don’t worry, Rene : everything will be fine.’’
Malcolm then hugged his four grown children in turn before joining the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION near the elevator cage resting on the concrete floor of the assembly hall, under the center of the arrowpoint-shaped main body. He gave his family a last, longing look as the spouses and children of the crewmembers got back in the convoy of electric carts that had brought them under the massive hull of the CONSTITUTION, to be then driven away. Ingrid, who had been waiting patiently for the crew to have a last moment with their families before departure, smiled in encouragement at the seventeen men and four women who were about to fly out to orbit.
‘’Well, this is THE big day indeed, ladies and gentlemen. The eyes of all the Americans will be on you today, but I know that you will do honor to your command and to yourselves. Since I hate long speeches and since there is still a lot to do, I will now let you go inside your spaceship.’’
The eyes of Navy Captain Alan Sheppard, the commander of the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION for its flyout to orbit, gleamed with pride at those words.
‘’I wish that my old admiral could see us as we fly out : we are about to take off on a ship bigger than his aircraft carrier. As a naval aviator, I couldn’t ask for better.’’
‘’The CONSTITUTION should impress many people around the World today, Alan, including the Soviets. However, don’t use that excuse to do some aerobatics after takeoff, please.’’
The group laughed at that, with Charles Yeager, the copilot of the CONSTITUTION, replying to Ingrid.
‘’Is that why you didn’t put Gordo in command today, Ingrid? He would have been most happy to do a few loopings and barrel rolls on his way to orbit.’’
Ingrid grinned at that barb shot at Leroy Gordon ‘Gordo’ Cooper Jr., who was often nicknamed ‘Hot Dog’ for his propensity to pull stunts in flight…when it was safe to do so. The other also laughed at that as she answered Yeager.
‘’And you never pull stunts yourself, Chuck? Alright, get in the elevator cabin before I change my mind and ground you all.’’
With the atmosphere now quite relaxed, Ingrid shook hands one last time with the crewmembers as they filed past her to get in the elevator cabin. Once all in, with Ingrid staying on the ground, Alan Sheppard powered the electrical winch of the elevator cabin, making it rise towards a large belly hatch opened in the main body of the hull. The cabin rose a full 45 meters up before disappearing inside the belly of the CONSTITUTION. Once inside, the 21 astronauts hurried out of the cabin with their hand luggage and climbed a short flight of stairs leading to an airtight door giving access inside the main bow-to-stern communication tube of the ship. They had to walk a full 230 meters down the tube and pass in succession four airtight doors before arriving inside the nose section, a long pointed tube jutting out of the bow of the main body. There, they carefully stowed away their personal luggage before getting into their respective spacesuits, which had been stowed in advance behind the cockpit last evening. All the while, they felt the first movements of the CONSTITUTION as an ultra-heavy towing vehicle, a model specially built for this purpose, started pulling the ship out of the assembly hall and towards the northern extremity of Runway 18, the seven kilometer-long, 270 meter-wide runway running roughly North-South on the hardened surface of the Rogers Dry Lake immediately adjacent to Muroc AFB. The Rogers Dry Lake and its cluster of extra-long runways were in fact the main reasons why Ingrid had decided to build the assembly hangar in Muroc, an Air Force base, rather than at one of her two main bases in Vandenberg and in Cape Canaveral.
The 21 men and women had time to fully don their spacesuits and to take place in their padded seats in the cockpit section by the time that the CONSTITUTION made a stop halfway to Runway 18, at the rocket fuel filling station built away from the assembly hangar. There, technicians wearing protective coveralls and masks and operating a number of crane-mounted platforms, started pumping in the ship close to 4,000 tons of liquid oxygen, 1,900 tons of refined kerozene, 380 tons of nitrogen tetroxide and 230 tons of aerozine-50, plus some 120 tons of liquid hydrogen. That delicate but crucial operation took a good hour, with the ship’s crew checking thoroughly their instruments at the end of it before the towing vehicule resumed its slow trip to Runway 18. By that time, four Air Force Police jeeps had taken positions to block the section of highway running along the base perimeter that was in line with the end of Runway 18, ready to stop the car and truck traffic on the portion of highway that would be in the danger zone at takeoff. Now weighing a staggering 9,700 metric tons with the fuel in its tanks, the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION finally stopped at the northern extremity of Runway 18, its nose pointed south. The crew of the ultra-heavy towing vehicle then hurried to undo the tow cables attached to the two main engines belly pods of the ship and then got out of the way. Alan Sheppard, sitting in the pilot’s seat of the nose cockpit section and having a dominant view from fifty meters above the ground, initiated a careful and methodical pre-takeoff checklist with Charles Yeager and Jack Ridley, the flight engineer for this mission. With a total of ten main rocket engines and 26 orbital or attitude control rocket engines to check, they could not afford to cut corners now : crashing on the ground with their ship on takeoff, apart from destroying a ship worth over half a billion dollars, would also result in an explosion equal to that of a small atomic bomb.
After ten minutes used to go through the checklist, Alan then keyed his radio microphone.
‘’U.S.S. CONSTITUTION to Muroc Tower, we are ready for takeoff, over.’’
‘’From Muroc Tower : you are cleared for takeoff, CONSTITUTION. All nearby air traffic has been either rerouted or delayed. Your flight corridor is empty, over.’’
‘’Thank you, Muroc Tower!’’
Alan then twisted his head to look at both Yeager and Ridley.
‘’Time to tango, guys! Jack, light up our main engines, full power!’’
‘’Lighting up main engines now!’’
The ten main rocket engines positionned inside the two ramjet tubes in the belly pods then exploded to life with over 6,820 metric tons of pure rocket thrust, to which was then added the mass of air that the pumping effect they created in the ramjet tubes sucked in by the front intakes. With the rocket flux being rich in kerozene fuel, that sucked air mixed with the rocket exhaust and ignited, adding another 6,500 metric tons of thrust. The huge ship nearly jumped forward under the 13,300 metric tons of thrust, accelerating down the runway at a rate exceeding that of even fighter jets. The few drivers stopped by the Air Force policemen on the highway north of the runway looked on with awe as the exhaust from the ship’s main engines created the equivalent of a hurricane that blew across the highway after jumping over the blast deflectors specially built for the occasion along the perimeter fence of the base. Watched by everyone on the base, the CONSTITUTION quickly accelerated down Runway 18 in a thunderous, deafening roar that made everything vibrate. After rolling only a bit over 1.5 kilometers on the hard surface of the dry lake, Alan was surprised to feel his ship already starting to act like it was ready to lift off. He knew that the flying wing shape of his ship’s main body would provide extra lift to add to that of the two stubby wings of the CONSTITUTION, but the wind tunnel tests had not found by exactly how much and he had expected that he would have needed more runway length than this. Nonetheless, he gave a curt order to Yeager while pulling on his controls.
‘’Rotate!’’
With both pilot and copilot pulling on their controls, the spaceship took off cleanly at once and started climbing in the sky while still accelerating at a rapid rate. Overall, the level of power he could feel now was nearly intoxicating to Alan, who grinned with pride and triumph, while Charles Yeager and more than a few of the other crewmembers yelled with delight. Seeing that their ship was performing flawlessly and was taking speed quickly, Alan started a slow, gradual turn to the right, in order to line up with his calculated orbit insertion vector. To his please surprise and that of Charles, his huge ship responded with unexpected nimbleness, making Yeager speak up.
‘’Hell, I could think right now that I am at the commands of my old SABRE, rather than at the commands of a nearly 10,000 ton ship. I love it!’’
‘’It must be the flying wing shape of the main body. This is fantastic!’’
On the ground, in Muroc, Ingrid was watching anxiously as the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION was rising steadily in the air and taking speed while initiating a slow turn towards the coast of California. A lot had been resting on this takeoff, including possibly her positions as commander of the Military Space Command and Director of National Space Programs. Her many political enemies in the Congress and at the Pentagon would have used at once and without compunction the crash of a half billion dollar prototype to censure her. The loss of the CONSTITUTION would also probably be a death blow to her orbital station project and the future mission to Mars. However, everything seemed to be going as planned…up to now.
‘’FLY, BABY! FLY!’’ She shouted out while raising both fists in the air.
In and around Los Angeles, everyone stopped and looked up as the CONSTITUTION skirted the northern limits of the city, plainly visible to all thanks to its sheer size and to the fiery trail from its rocket engines. The thunderous roar it produced also helped attract attention to it as it climbed and accelerated in the sky, going roughly from East to West while performing a wide turn. Those who had cameras with them quickly raised them to take pictures of the CONSTITUTION, while children and adults alike ran out of their homes or onto their balconies to look up excitedly at the stunning sight. The spaceship was still turning, completing a wide half-turn and climbing steadily when it broke through the sound barrier at about the same time it crossed the California coastline. Less than a minute after that, it sped past Mach 2.5, with its main rocket engines throttling down to let its much more economical ramjet engines provide most of the thrust for the next few minutes. A few more minutes and the spaceship had attained the speed of Mach 5.5 and the altitude of 29,000 meters, at which time its ramjet engines were cut off and its main rocket engines went back to full power. By then, close to 2,000 tons of rocket fuel had already been burned, making the spaceship that much lighter and helping it keep and even augment its acceleration and climb rates. Fifteen minutes after having taken off from Muroc, the CONSTITUTION was officially in space and approaching minimum satellisation speed while still under the power of its main rocket engines. Aboard the spaceship, Alan Sheppard had to cut temporarily the main rocket engines when they exceeded satellisation speed with a good margin, despite having still a few hundred tons of liquid oxygen and kerozene propellants in the tanks.
‘’Shut down the main engines, Jack! We will use our leftover liquid oxygen and kerozene later, to fire short burns in order to regularize our orbit once we will have established our apogee and perigee. How are our systems doing?’’
‘’Everything is still green across the board, Alan.’’ Replied the flight engineer. ‘’This flight was as smooth as silk.’’
‘’Well, let’s not celebrate too fast : there is still a lot to do. Jean, how close to our planned orbital path are we?’’
Jean Hixson, a female veteran flyer from the 99th Composite Wing, consulted her mapping radar and her inertial navigation system before answering.
‘’We are within one degree of our planned inclination, Alan, and are now overflying Northern Canada. When we will fire our main engines again to regularize our orbit, I suggest that we do it at a slight angle of a couple of degrees to the right from our present heading, so that we can correct our orbit inclination. I will calculate the precise heading and burn time needed once we know the actual height of our apogee and perigee.’’
‘’That’s fine with me, Jean.’’ Replied Alan Sheppard, who was presently feeling litterally on top of the World. Never in his wildest dreams would he have believed in the past years that he would once fly such an impressive ship into space.
A bit over three hours and two main engines burns later, their orbit had been circularized at an altitude of 420 kilometers and an inclination of 68 degrees, at which time Alan gave the permission to his crewmembers to leave their seats and take off their spacesuits. Once everybody was down to their flight coveralls and boots with magnetized soles, he assembled them around him in order to pass a series of orders.
‘’So far so good, people. Let’s hope that everything else continues to go as planned. While Chuck and Jean will stay at their posts here in the cockpit for the time being, we will go configure this orbital station for space operations. Scott, Milt and Neil, you go the station’s central command bridge and start deploying our various radiator panels, solar energy arrays and radio and radar antennas, along with deploying our stern telescopic section. Pete, Ed, you go configure and pressurize the two liquid oxygen tanks of our main rocket engines to turn them into viable storage compartments. We will need them in the weeks to come to store the supplies that will be flown in from the surface. Me, Jack and the rest of us will go prepare and configure our contra-rotating carroussels for rotation.’’
What Alan didn’t say then was that this last job would be by far the most critical. The main reason for the gigantic size of the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION was that so it could integrate inside its hull, which was otherwise mostly a collection of fuel tanks, a contra-rotating pair of carroussels with a diameter of 150 meters. Those carroussels contained all the living and nearly all the working and support facilities of the station and were meant to provide an artificial gravity of 0.9 G through centrifugal force. Those carroussels had been extensively tested and checked in Muroc in the past weeks and months, but nobody could bet that the strong vibrations and accelerations during their takeoff and flight to orbit would not cause those carroussels to malfunction or jam. If that ever happened, a major reason for building the CONSTITUTION would just go out the window, unless a fix could be figured out quickly. In technical and financial terms, Ingrid Dows had indeed taken a big risk with that particular design feature.
Followed by the rest of his group, Alan opened the hatch between the cockpit section and the ship’s main communication tube and started floating down towards the central command bridge, using the padded handrails fixed to the sides of the tube to propel himself and control his flight. The tube was still in semi-darkness, the overhead lights being on minimal electricity expenditure mode until the station’s solar panels could be deployed and their onboard nuclear reactor could be powered up. A further sixty meters down the tube, he came to a hatch connecting the tube with an airlock protecting the forward access point to the carroussels. He then set foot on the deck, allowing his magnetized boot soles to stick lightly to the thin steel deck plating covering its aluminum support structure. Now able to walk nearly normally but careful not to be too energetic in his steps, something that would make the weak magnetic attraction of his boot soles break contact with the deck, Alan crossed the airlock and entered a small compartment with a large deck hatch. Waiting for his group to join him, he pointed at Jack Ridley.
‘’Jack, you take half of us and go prepare the lower carroussel. I will take the rest and go prepare the upper carroussel. Let’s get to work, people!’’
With four men and two women following him, Alan opened the hatch leading down into the twin carroussel and, holding on to the handrails of the ladder, floated down to the narrow band of fixed deck separating the upper and lower carroussels. Donald Slayton looked to his left, then to his right, embracing the long, nine meter-wide curved tunnel they were now in. The walls, deck and ceiling were painted a subdued pastel blue-green color, while various back-lit large pictures of Earth panoramas, presently dark due to the lack of main power, covered the walls.
‘’Wow! You wouldn’t believe that we are now in space while looking at such a spacious ship interior volume.’’
‘’The whole idea of this carroussel design was to make long space sojourns as comfortable and natural as possible, Donald.’’ Replied Alan. ‘’Okay, let’s start going down the upper carroussel’s promenade deck to disengage the rotation brakes.’’
With Alan using a checklist and carefully recording each rotation brake being disengaged, his group slowly went down the 470 meters of track formed by the roof of the accommodations level of the upper carroussel, freeing the donought-like carroussel so that it could rotate once its electric motors were activated. Alan was going to Jack Ridley to check with him if his team had finished releasing the brakes on the lower carroussels when the main lights went on in the twin promenade decks.
‘’Aaah, Scot got the solar panels deployed. Good! Jack, are you finished disengaging the brakes of the lower carroussel?’’
‘’Disengaging the last one right now, Alan. Should we start configuring the inside of the bottom deck now or wait for the carroussels to be rotating?’’
‘’Now that we have the main power on, we might as well start the rotation motors first. Once we have artificial gravity, it will be that much easier to work.’’
‘’True!’’
Going to the nearest intercom wall panel, Alan called the command bridge, getting Scot Crossfield on the speaker.
‘’Crossfield here!’’
‘’Scot, do we have enough juice right now to power up the carroussels?’’
‘’We have, Alan. You are ready to start their rotation?’’
‘’Yes! All the brakes are now disengaged. You may power the rotation motors now.’’
‘’Acknowledged! Powering the carroussels’ rotation motors now.’’
Mere seconds later, Alan suddenly felt a weak weight sensation. While the outer wall and deck of the upper carroussel stayed fixed in relation to him, he now could see the lower carroussel to his right accelerating slowly in one direction, like a departing train from a quay, while the centerline band of deck separating the two carroussels appeared to move more slowly in the same direction. The sensation of weight grew steadily as Alan and his team anxiously listened to any noise that would indicate a friction point or another problem with the rotation mechanisms. Thankfully, the rotation speed kept going up smoothly, until he felt nearly like if he was back on Earth. Crossfield then spoke again on the intercom.
‘’Both carroussels are now rotating at their planned speed. You now have a felt gravity of 0.9 G indicated by the sensors on the bottom deck of the carroussels.’’
‘’Excellent! Pass the good word down to Muroc and Cape Canaveral and tell them that we are starting to configure the carroussels for occupation. How are you doing with powering our nuclear reactor?’’
‘’Already done! I had only to push a few buttons, after all. The reactor is presently nominal and at half power and all indicators are green. I am now in the process of gradually activating the various ventilation and air conditioning systems.’’
‘’Right on! Alright, boys and girls, go down to the bottom decks of the carroussels and set them for occupation.’’
The group then split according to a prearranged list of tasks, each crewmember going down to the bottom level of a specific section of the carroussels. Alan went to his own assigned section, which was a hundred meter long and included the crew cafeteria, the crew game room, the cinema room and various storage and office rooms. There he started moving around the dozens of large plastic foam crates piled on what had been the bottom wall on Earth, placing them in their proper location for use in orbit. Those crates, with carefully padded interior volume, contained all the equipment, supplies and various items needed to use the section, like the glasses for the bar and the utensils for the cafeteria. Once each crate was in its proper place, Alan started opening them one by one, distributing their content in the various cupboards, drawers and cabinets, then storing away the now empty crates. That job took him a good two hours, by which time he was plenty thankful that he did not have to work in zero gravity conditions, with its additional problem of having to secure in place every object to avoid accidents. Taking the time afterwards to do a detailed inspection tour of his assigned section to make sure that everything was in place or functional, Alan next inspected the other sections of the two contra-rotating carroussels. He smiled with amusement on finding Edward White, a true athlete and fitness freak, sitting down in the gymnasium, covered with sweat.
‘’Slacking off on the job, Ed?’’
The test pilot and aeronautical engineer gave him a faked outraged look at those words.
‘’Slacking off?! I just unpacked and put in their assigned places all the weight-lifting equipment of the gymnasium, for God’s sake! And you had only to move around glassware!’’
‘’Just kidding, Ed!’’ Replied Alan, patting his shoulder. Go open a crate of rations to prepare lunch for the crew while the others finish their jobs. I will go finish my tour in the meantime.’’
White, who had a voracious appetite but never seemed to take on weight thanks to his physical exercising, smiled on hearing that and got up from his bench.
‘’You have any menu preference, Alan?’’
‘’Yes! Anything but the macaroni and cheese : we ate enough of that in the Navy.’’
‘’The macaroni with ground beef then?’’ Asked jokingly White, who then barely avoided the kick to his butt coming from Alan.
0:22 (Universal Time)
Monday, October