CHAPTER 11 – ON THE WAY TO MARS
09:19 (California Time)
Thursday, July 31, 1975 ‘C’
Port aft access airlock of the U.S.S. LIBERTY
Low Earth orbit
Lilya Litvyak was near the end of the queue formed by the 27 passengers of the spaceplane THUNDERBOLT, which was now docked to the gigantic U.S.S. LIBERTY. Lilya had been quite surprised by the composition of her fellow travelers who were joining the crew of the American spaceship three days before its departure for Mars: only five of them were Americans, while the rest were foreign scientists or specialists, like Lilya. Also, Lilya was one of only two military members in the group, the other one being a French Air Force officer. Commandant Pierre Vadeboncoeur was actually a most pleasant man, on top of being a fighter pilot, like Lilya. That Vadeboncoeur had fought Soviet pilots during Stalin’s failed attempt at invading Poland and the Baltic States in 1953 had not soured Lilya’s relations with him, her having judged Stalin’s actions at the time to be an act of folly from a paranoid, power-drunk dictator. In fact, French-Soviet relations had become quite good in the past few years, while those between the Soviet Union and the United States were now at least at the thawing point. Once inside the wide locker room situated on the LIBERTY’s side of the docking airlock, the passengers of the THUNDERBOLT were greeted by the commanding officer of the U.S.S. LIBERTY, Brigadier General James Mathison, a veteran astronaut from the U.S. Space Corps. Like his crewmembers present in the locker room, Mathison wore the dark blue work uniform of the Space Corps, while the newcomers wore spacesuits with their visors opened.
‘’Welcome aboard the U.S.S. LIBERTY, ladies and gentlemen. Since you are probably anxious to get out of your spacesuits, we will lead you at once to your respective cabins, where you will be able to change and freshen up. Then, I will see you in the main crew lounge in ninety minutes, where you will get a pre-departure mission briefing. On this, grab your kit bags and follow me. Make sure that you always have one of your magnetized boot soles touching the deck’s surface, so that you don’t end up flying inside the communication tubes.’’
The scientists and specialists, most of whom were not experienced astronauts, then cautiously followed Mathison out of the locker room and into a cylindrical communication tube leading up towards the saucer section of the ship. One graying astronomer still managed to fly off the deck mid-way, with one of the crewmembers escorting the new arrivals having to grab him by one leg and return him to the deck, where the magnetized soles of his spacesuit’s boots could get a grip on the paper-thin plate of steel covering the floor. Lilya, having been a cosmonaut for twenty years now and being in fact the dean of the Soviet cosmonaut corps, had no trouble staying down on the deck of the tube and was actually finding amusing the klutziness of her companions in a zero-gravity environment. However, things got a lot better for the newcomers when they arrived at the two huge contra-rotating carrousel habitats which made up the main section of the ship. Each carrousel, separated from the other by airtight partitions and sets of airlocks, measured 160 meters in diameter at its top deck, with a usable deck width of four meters. Lilya couldn’t help stare for a moment at the curved deck of the top level of Carrousel ‘A’ when she stepped on it and felt the 0.9 G artificial gravity created by the centrifugal force of the rotating carrousel. The deck actually disappeared in the distance as the curved ceiling hid it from direct line of sight. From her familiarization classes she had followed to learn about the U.S.S. LIBERTY’s layout and ship’s systems, she already knew that the upper level decks of the two carrousels each had a circumference of 502 meters at floor level, while the circumference of the lower deck, two levels down, was 565 meters, with an astonishing total usable deck surface per carrousel of 6,400 square meters. Half of the width of the upper level she now stood on was occupied by various crew facilities, like the crew lounge, the crew cafeteria and a bar-lounge, each featuring large display screens camouflaged as windows with views to the outside, where pre-recorded video scenes taken in various locations on Earth were displayed in one-year-long closed loops. The other half width of the deck was in essence a closed-loop running track, on which crewmembers could either walk or run to exercise themselves. The managers of the Soviet space program had called all that ‘extravagant and wasteful luxuries’ but Lilya strongly disagreed with them. Her past missions aboard the MIR space station had shown her how important the human psychological factor was to the efficiency and good health of cosmonauts. She thus could only applaud the Americans’ decision to equip their two spaceships with such carrousels, which in essence provided Earth-level artificial gravity and a pleasant living and working environment to its crew during its two-year-plus mission.
From that point, the group of new arrivals split up in smaller groups, each led by a crewmember holding a list of cabins and of their occupants. On her part, Lilya was led to Cabin A-12, on the middle deck of Carrousel ‘A’, by a young American man wearing the dark blue two-piece, loose-fitting work utility uniform of the U.S. Space Corps.
‘’Here you go, Colonel: your cabin for this trip to Mars. It shares a bathroom with Cabin A-11, which is occupied by a woman, so you won’t have to worry about, uh, undue contacts.’’
‘’By undue contacts, I suppose that you mean having a man sharing the bathroom with me, Sergeant?’’ asked Lilya, amused.
‘’Yes, Colonel! In fact, the subject of interpersonal relations between crewmembers will be covered by General Mathison during his incoming meeting in the main crew lounge.’’
‘’The main crew lounge… We didn’t have a proper crew lounge aboard MIR. Well, thank you for guiding me, Sergeant. I will be on time for the meeting at the crew lounge.’’
‘’Yes ma’am!’’ replied the NCO, saluting her. Lilya returned his salute, then opened the sliding door of her cabin and entered it, her kit bag in one hand. She already knew what the layout of the standard cabins was on the U.S.S. LIBERTY, but her classes had not prepared her for the level of attention to comfort and relaxation she found inside. While everything had been designed to be both light and of simple construction, the pastel blue-green walls and indirect lighting made for a relaxing environment. One of the walls of the living room she was now in featured a large, flat television screen of the kind Americans could now buy on the market and which made most Soviet citizens green with envy. That television screen was in turn made to look like a window. Seeing an envelope taped to the large chest situated under the TV screen, a curious Lilya let down her kit bag and went to grab the envelope and open it. Extracting two folded sheets of paper from it and looking at them told her that they were explanations notes on how to use the television. One paragraph in particular excited her at once: it described a feature of the set that allowed a particular type of video scenery to be played in closed loop, to make the screen look like a window to an Earth vista, on top of being able to play a wide variety of movies, TV documentaries, sport events or general address messages from the ship’s commander. Switching on the television, Lilya followed the instructions which then appeared on a small side-display, in order to review the choice of Earth vistas available. Her heart jumped with joy when she saw a particular choice as she scrolled down the list of vistas available.
‘’Lake Baikal?! Hell, I’m a taker!’’
Selecting that choice, she then saw a familiar scenery appear on the screen, displayed in vivid colors and showing the huge open expanse of Lake Baikal, along with one of its forested shores, as if seen from the window of a house situated on the shore of the lake. There was even a soundtrack that went with the video, with the noise of birds singing and waves washing on the shore. Going to sit on the comfortable sofa set opposite the wall screen, Lilya watched for a minute the video, which the explanations sheet said had been filmed in continuous mode during a whole year from an old house next to the lake. She finally got up with regret from her sofa and switched off the television set, then went to the alcove set at one end of the living room, where she was able to get out of her spacesuit, which she then secured in place to a special support frame before connecting her spacesuit to a diagnostic and recharging box. Next, she carried her kit bag to the adjacent bedroom, finding there a comfortable bed of standard size with drawers built in its base. She took a few minutes to distribute her personal belongings into the captain bed’s drawers and in a small closet, finishing by hanging up on a wall hook a framed photo of her parents. Next, she went to quickly inspect the small but well-equipped bathroom she shared with another cabin. The two access doors of the bathroom, one per cabin, could be locked from the inside to provide intimacy while using it, but also had large multilingual signs reminding users to unlock the doors when not in use. Lylia nodded her head in approval as she looked at the shower stall, toilet and sink inside. She then noticed another multilingual sign on one of the walls, next to the sink unit, and got closer to read it.
‘’Do not use bathroom if flashing red lamp announces an incoming zero-gravity environment. A zero-G toilet and shower stall for emergency use are situated at the end of the hallway, next to the staircase to the upper level. In case of sudden loss of centrifugal gravity, this toilet will automatically seal itself to avoid any leakage… hum, they really thought about everything on this ship.’’
Lilya didn’t have to think long before deciding who had made all this possible: this had the hallmarks of Ingrid Dows’ attention to details and care about seemingly innocuous things which actually ended up making big differences in a design. On top of being a deadly adversary in any air combat, Ingrid Dows was also acknowledged in Moscow to be a top notch aerospace engineer and a highly skilled astronaut who also had proven to have an uncommonly open mind, as her invitation for a total of no less than seventeen Soviet men and women to participate in this Mars mission showed. More than satisfied with her living quarters, Lilya looked at her wristwatch and saw that she still had plenty of time before the scheduled meeting with General Mathison. Deciding to take that spare time to explore a bit the ship, she left her cabin and climbed to the upper deck level of her carrousel.
Once on the upper deck, Lilya started walking calmly down the running track while looking at the facilities which she encountered. The side of the track next to the partition wall separating the two carrousels of the ship slid along with a one-meter-wide fixed sidewalk that allowed crewmembers to transition from the artificial gravity of Carrousel ‘A’ to the zero-gravity of the airlocks which linked the carrousels to the rest of the ship. However, Lilya knew that, apart from the contra-rotating carrousels, which consisted of two huge pressurized rings turning inside magnetic levitation closed-loop tunnels, the rest of the ship, except for small sections containing the command complex, the nuclear reactor plants and the nuclear rocket engines, was little more than a huge collection of fuel and oxidizer tanks contained inside an arrowhead-shaped aerodynamic body that had acted as a lifting body and wing for its maiden takeoff and which now provided thermal and anti-radiation protection to both the tanks and the ship’s living and working systems. Even with its tanks presently filled with more than 60,000 tons of cryogenic liquid hydrogen destined to fuel its twelve PHOEBUS-2B nuclear rocket engines during its return trip to Mars, the U.S.S. LIBERTY would easily float if somehow put down on the surface of the ocean. Still, Soviet rocket designers and political leaders could only be jealous of this extraordinary ship of space, which had no equal but its sistership, the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION. From what she had overheard during her months of training in Vandenberg, Lilya knew that the CONSTITUTION was presently being refurbished and improved in advance of its future second space mission. However, she still didn’t know what that mission would be. Another trip to Mars, maybe? Right now, only Ingrid Dows and a very few key American managers and leaders knew the answer to that. In fact, many things concerning the American space program were still a mystery to most people. The one thing that Lilya knew was that a sort of gigantic ramp some twelve kilometers long was being built in Vandenberg. Due to its sheer size, its existence had been impossible to hide, but its exact future function was still the matter of speculations. Lilya strongly suspected that it was going to be some sort of launching ramp for rockets, but couldn’t figure out what kind of advantage such a huge and expensive-to-build thing would bring to the American space program.
After walking by the crew cafeteria, the bar-lounge, the tea lounge, the quartermaster section, the ship’s library, the cinema room, the administrative section and the command section, Lilya ended up at her starting spot and, after a look at her watch, decided to go to the crew lounge for the meeting. There, she found about half of the people who had arrived aboard with her already seated and waiting. Seeing the handsome Commandant Pierre Vadeboncoeur among the ones present, she went to sit next to the French Air Force fighter pilot and smiled to him.
‘’High again! What did you think of your cabin, Commandant?’’
‘’That it is positively marvelous. That television system showing Earth vistas is a true stroke of genius, in my opinion: it will do miracles for the crew’s morale during this long mission.’’
‘’Indeed! May I ask what vista you selected to be your ‘outside’ view?’’
‘’You may, Colonel: I chose the view of Paris taken from near the top of the Eiffel Tower. It will remind me of my native home city. And you, Colonel?’’
‘’Please, let’s drop this rank business during this mission. Simply call me ‘Lilya’.’’
‘’And you may call me ‘Pierre’. So, what vista did you choose, Lilya?’’
‘’Lake Baikal. It is probably one of the most beautiful lakes you could find in the World, on top of being by far the largest.’’
Vadeboncoeur’s face then reflected dreamy thoughts as he spoke softly.
‘’Lake Baikal… One of my old comrades who fought with the Normandie-Niemen Squadron in the Soviet Union during World War 2 told me about it, having visited it during the war. He loved the place, its savage and pristine beauty and its vastness.’’
‘’I love it too. Seeing it will greatly help me to relax after work. Ha, here is General Mathison!’’
The pair, like the rest of the people in the crew lounge, fell silent as Mathison took a standing position at one end of the section occupied by the new arrivals. After quickly looking around at the attendees, he then started speaking in a strong, firm voice.
‘’Good morning, or should I say ‘good evening’ to you, ladies and gentlemen. While you flew off from Vandenberg in the early morning, this ship functions on Greenwich Universal Time. You thus may now set your watches to 19:47 hours.’’
Mathison waited a few seconds while the new crewmembers set their watches to the new hour, then resumed his presentation.
‘’Now, I know that you all received detailed indoctrination courses about this ship, its layout and its systems and facilities. I will thus mostly cover more human-related points of our mission to Mars. First, as you know already, our mission is destined to be a follow-up to the CONSTITUTION’s mission and will build on what it found on the Red Planet. Basically, we will build a semi-permanent base inside the largest cave and tunnel complex found by General Dows, which is connected to an extensive underground aquifer of brine. Inside those caves, that base will be well protected from the radiations constantly raining on the surface of Mars. Once that base will be operational, two of our teams will start covering the areas of the Valles Marineris which have not yet been explored on the ground by our first mission. Two other exploration teams will be launched separately and will land respectively near Mars’ North Pole and on the volcanic plateau of Tharsis Rise. From there, we will decide our next moves depending on what we find. You will notice that the crew for this mission is markedly larger than the one of the CONSTITUTION on its first mission. That’s because we will send more people than the CONSTITUTION down on the surface of Mars, with more materiel and vehicles, in order to explore a much larger area. Also, an extensive mapping and analysis team will work from this ship to learn as much as we can from orbit about Mars and its surrounding space. That’s basically it for the moment about our mission goals. Now, about the human factors. Let’s talk first about sex.’’
Mathison smiled in amusement as all the people present suddenly froze and stared at him or bent forward to better listen.
‘’As the French often say, we Americans have a reputation for being rather prudish, at least in public. That is even more true when it comes to our government and armed forces. However, the U.S. Space Corps was created and is commanded by General Ingrid Dows, who would be the first to acknowledge that she has a reputation as someone who likes her fun and is quite liberal-thinking. I will thus list to you now her directives about interpersonal relations between the members of this crew during this long space mission. I emphasized the word ‘long’ because two years of forced celibacy can be a very long period indeed for young and healthy adults when stuck aboard a ship with companions of the opposite sex. General Dows’ rules are actually simple: abstinence is still the safest rule of conduct during space missions, but if you have to break that abstinence, do take your precautions. I have no wish to return to Earth with a nursery and daycare full of babies and small children. Romantic disputes are also not conducive to an efficient and quiet work environment. If you decide to enter into a relation with another crewmember, please be discrete about it. Also, don’t impose yourself on others of the opposite sex. I will be very severe about cases of sexual harassment, so make sure that your relation is strictly consensual, on both sides. Basically, conduct yourselves like responsible and respectful adults and be discrete about your private lives. Next, alcohol consumption. You all know that there is a bar-lounge on this ship that will sell alcoholic drinks to the crewmembers, but that doesn’t mean that you can get drunk at will. The bartenders will have the authority to refuse further drinks to crewmembers who will start showing signs of intoxication. Written records of individual consumption will be kept by the bar and you can be assured that I will keep a sharp eye on those records. I have nothing against the occasional drink, but don’t turn into a bar fixture or I will be the one to fix your case. Those rules will apply to all, Americans and foreigners alike, and any reports of misconduct will be forwarded to your respective governments on return from this mission. So, if you hope to go on another space mission with us in the future, please behave! Well, that’s it for my morality class. In terms of crew entertainment, we have a library, a cinema with a well-stocked video and film library and we will also receive regularly from Earth retransmissions of televised news bulletins, sport matches and other public entertainment events. It will also be possible for you to send and receive personal messages to and from Earth. Do you have any questions at this time?’’
A few hands rose at once, with Mathison pointing at a Dutch woman who was an expert in bio-chemistry.
‘’Yes, Doctor VanDusen?’’
‘’General, I heard rumors that a baby was born aboard the CONSTITUTION during its trip to Mars. Is that true?’’
Mathison sighed, having preferred to keep that little detail under wraps.
‘’Yes, it is true, Doctor VanDusen. It was a perfectly healthy boy and he was 22 months old by the time that the CONSTITUTION returned into Earth orbit. For your professional information, the pregnancy and birth went without a hitch, thanks to the artificial gravity and excellent medical facilities aboard the CONSTITUTION. While I don’t wish to duplicate that experience on the LIBERTY, we have the facilities and supplies to handle similar cases…if they happen. Next question!’’
This time, it was an American geologist who spoke up.
‘’My name is William Conway and I am a geologist, General. Will there be religious services available aboard this ship during our trip?’’
‘’Uh, not really, Mister Conway. Please understand that, while vast, the space on this ship has to be fully dedicated to our primary mission and our living quarters are already filled with scientists and specialists like you, so we couldn’t afford the luxury of having a dedicated chaplain aboard. However, you will find a small interdenominational chapel on Deck A-2, where you will be able to pray in peace and quiet.’’
What Mathison didn’t say was that the relations between the U.S. Space Corps and the various religious orders in the United States were decidedly on the frosty side, thanks to the controversy concerning the reports of Martian life brought back by the CONSTITUTION. Thankfully, nobody else raised the subject of religion and he was soon able to declare an end to the meeting. However, he discretely made a sign to Lilya Litvyak to stay a while longer and went to speak with her under one of the lemon trees planted around the lounge.
‘’Colonel Litvyak, know first that I am genuinely happy to have you aboard my ship for this mission. Our two nations may have fought each other in recent past years, but this is a peaceful scientific mission with an international crew and we certainly can use a veteran cosmonaut like you. Be assured that I will use your competences to the full on this mission. Right now, I can tell you that you will be the deputy commander of our surface exploration crew on Mars, on top of leading one of our four exploration heavy rovers, with a crew of ten persons directly under your command in that rover.’’
Not having hoped for this much before, Lilya came to attention and saluted Mathison.
‘’You can count on me, General. Thank you for your confidence in me.’’
‘’And I know that you will not disappoint my confidence in you, Colonel Litvyak.’’ replied Mathison while returning her salute. More than satisfied, Lilya then pivoted on her heels and walked away, watched by Mathison.
‘She may be a Soviet officer, but she seems like a really decent person.’ thought Mathison to himself. ‘Hopefully, politics will not rear its ugly head on my ship during this mission.’
08:03 (Universal Time)
Saturday, August 2, 1975 ‘C’
Bridge of the U.S.S. LIBERTY
Low Earth orbit
‘’Attention to all the crew! This is your commander speaking! We will boost out of Earth orbit in five minutes. You must be wearing your spacesuit by then and be strapped to your seats by the time our engines will ignite.’’
Having done his public address on the ship’s intercom, James Mathison then looked at his flight crew of three men and one woman.
‘’Status review on our engines, people!’’
‘’Our twelve nuclear rocket engines are at idle power and ready for ignition, General.’’
‘’Chemical rocket engines ready for ignition, General.’’
Mathison nodded his head at that. On the trip to Mars by the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION, its ten powerful F-1 chemical rocket engines, which burned a mix of kerosene and liquid oxygen, had not been used, their fuel and oxidizer tanks having intentionally been left empty to minimize the mass of the ship for its boost phase. However, this time the tanks of the U.S.S. LIBERTY had been filled to the brim for their departure, to add extra thrusting power in the initial boost phase. Because of the wide goals of its mission, the LIBERTY had been loaded up with the maximum mission payload possible, on top of having a crew nearly double that of the CONSTITUTION on its first Mars trip. General Dows had thus decided to use the ten Rocketdyne F-1 rocket engines of the LIBERTY, which were originally planned to be used only during the maiden takeoff and climb to orbit of the spaceship. Now, their total thrust of 7,000 tons would be added to the 410 tons of thrust from the twelve PHOEBUS-2B nuclear rocket engines which were the main space engines of the ship. Still, that massive amount of thrust would only result in an initial acceleration of 0.11 G, due to the staggering mass of 67,900 metric tons of the fully fueled U.S.S. LIBERTY when it would boost out of orbit. However, contrary to the F-1 chemical rocket engines, which had fuel for only a few minutes of burn, the PHOEBUS-2B nuclear rockets were going to burn for over one hour before shutting down, leaving the LIBERTY to coast in freefall down its trajectory to Mars. What few knew apart from Ingrid Dows and senior commanders of the Space Corps was that newer, more fuel-efficient engines were being developed for the second deep-space mission of the CONSTITUTION. From what Mathison knew, those new magneto-plasma engines, while having a weak thrust, had a fuel efficiency ten times better than those of nuclear rockets, which were themselves more than twice as fuel efficient as the best conventional chemical rockets. With those new engines, what would normally be space trips taking many years would be cut to months, thus opening the way for manned exploration missions to the confines of the Solar System. The future indeed looked bright for the U.S. Space Corps and for the American space program.
Carefully watching the master clock on the bridge, Mathison waited until the last thirty seconds before giving more orders.
‘’Start throttling up the nuclear engines! Set the chemical engines to full thrust and be ready to ignite them at my signal. Navigator, are you satisfied with our calculated boost time and trajectory?’’
‘’Yes, General!’’
‘’Flight engineer, rise gradually our nuclear engines to full thrust. To all the crew, full engines ignition in fifteen seconds… Five, four, three, two, one, ENGINES IGNITION, FULL THRUST!’’
Mathison’s voice was then nearly covered by the thunderous roar of the ship’s engines, which was transmitted via the structure of the ship. Mathison felt himself being slightly pushed into his seat by the 0.11 G acceleration. However weak that acceleration felt, it was enough to make the massive ship leave its low orbit and rise, gradually accelerating towards the orbital velocity needed to insert itself into its calculated Mars transfer orbit. Mathison then grinned inside his spacesuit’s sealed helmet as the chemical rockets were still roaring.
‘’Mars, here we come!’’