06:19 (Universal Time)
Wednesday, February 25, 1976 ‘C’
Communications room of the U.S.S. LIBERTY
Low polar orbit around Mars
‘’Has Rover Number Two sent its morning situation report yet, Sergeant Evers?’’
‘’Uh, no sir, not yet!’’ answered the African-American communications operator, making Captain Saul Zukerman frown.
‘’Not yet? They decided to take it easy this morning?’’
‘’I don’t know, sir. Usually Captain Shepard’s crew is on the ball. Do you want me to raise them on the radio, sir?’’
‘’Please do that, Sergeant!’’
The communications watch officer floated to his chair to sit in it, donning his safety belt to stay on it and then watched Evers as the operator started calling Rover Number Two. The communications room of the LIBERTY was situated in the command section of the ship, which did not rotate on its central axis and thus did not enjoy artificial gravity. However, everything in the command section had been designed with that in mind, so it was still quite easy to go around it and work inside it for well-trained astronauts. Saul got progressively more worried as Evers’ repeated calls didn’t get answers. He finally had enough of it and used his radio console station to call Base Alpha, located inside a cave of the Melas Chasma, in the huge canyon of the Valles Marineris.
‘’Base Alpha, this is U.S.S. LIBERTY, over!’’
‘’Send, LIBERTY!’’ was the near immediate reply from the surface, making Saul exchange a look with Sergeant Evers.
‘’At least these guys seem fully awake… Base Alpha, we have been trying repeatedly to contact Rover Number Two but are not getting any answer. Can you try to contact them on your side, over?’’
‘’Will do, LIBERTY! Please hold on!’’
Zukerman then heard the radio operator at Base Alpha call repeatedly Rover Number Two, but with no response. Now truly worried, Saul spoke again on the radio.
‘’Thanks for trying, Base Alpha. We will try to contact Rover Number Two by other means. Out to you!’’
Thinking for a few seconds, Saul then hit the intercom button.
‘’Duty Operations Officer, this is Captain Zukerman, in the communications room.’’
‘’Go ahead, Captain Zukerman.’’ answered the voice of Lieutenant Colonel Aleksei Leonov, the duty operations officer at this hour.
‘’Colonel Leonov, our rover number two has not yet sent its morning situation report and, when we tried to contact it, we got no answers on the radio. I just asked Base Alpha to try contacting them but they also drew a blank. I am starting to find this worrying, sir.’’
Leonov, widely acknowledge on the ship as a competent pilot and cosmonaut, was silent for a second before responding to Saul.
‘’Continue to try contacting our rover, Captain. I will alert General Mathison about this right away.’’
Saul nodded to himself at those words, satisfied: he would have done exactly that in Leonov’s place. Space was no place for complacency or indifference, as any situation could quickly turn into an emergency. The key word here was to play it safe.
Some nine minutes later, Brigadier General Mathison entered the communications room, calling at once at Saul.
‘’Any luck yet contacting Rover Number Two, Captain?’’
‘’No, sir!’’
‘’Damn! I don’t like this at all. We may have to go do a direct visual check of our rover on the surface. What was its last known location?’’
‘’It had parked for the night at the foot of a small cliff in the Margaritifer Sinus region, just east of the Valles Marineris. They wanted to use that cliff to mask part of the radiations bathing the surface. Their precise location was 23 kilometers northwest of the Jones Crater.’’
‘’Then, I will have our ground observation telescopes examine our rover from above when we will pass overhead. That should happen in about two hours.’’
‘’But, sir,’’ objected Saul, ‘’a lot of things could happen in two hours. Our rover could well be in big trouble right now.’’
‘’Hum, you’re right, Captain. Damn! Our shuttlecraft is presently down for extensive maintenance and would take over six hours before it could fly down to the surface and check on our rover. Show me the latest situation reports from our other three rovers, Captain.’’
Taking the printed pages offered by Zukerman, Mathison read them quickly.
‘’Hmm, technically, Rover Number One would be the closest, being presently at the western extremity of the Valles Marineris. However, like Rover Number Four, which is on the Tharsis Rise plateau, its propellant tanks have not been replenished yet from our Base Alpha and it would empty its tanks by flying to the location of Rover Two, with nothing left once there. On the other hand, Rover Three is nearly as close as our other two rovers but its tanks are full, thanks to the Sabatier plant it carries. It could easily fly to the location of Rover Number Two, check on it, then fly back to the North Pole, where it could refill its tanks again. Open a line for me with Rover Three, Captain!’’
‘’Right away, sir!’’
06:55 (Universal Time)
Cockpit of Lander-Rover Number Three
Chasma Boreale region, at the edge of the north polar ice cap
‘’LILYA, WE HAVE AN URGENT RADIO CALL FROM GENERAL MATHISON!’’
Hurrying as much as she could and literally jumping up from the lower deck and through the open deck hatch of the upper deck, then propelling herself inside the cockpit, Lilya grabbed the backrest of the pilot’s seat to stop her forward motion. She then donned the headset offered by Jennifer Hamilton and spoke in the microphone.
‘’Colonel Litvyak speaking! Go ahead, LIBERTY!’’
‘’Colonel Litvyak, we have a situation concerning Rover Number Two: it is not answering our radio calls and we need someone to go check on it in situ. I want you to fly your rover to its last known location and to check on Rover Number Two to make sure that it is okay. Its last known position was 23 kilometers northwest of Jones Crater, in the Margaritifer Sinus region, at eighteen degrees, six minutes South and 21 degrees, forty minutes West. When could you start flying to there, over?’’
‘’In less than three minutes, sir!’’
‘’Excellent! Report back as soon as you get a visual on Rover Number Two, over.’’
‘’Will do, LIBERTY! Rover Three out!’’
Taking the time to sit in her pilot’s seat and strapping herself in, Lilya then punched the intercom button, making a rover-wide announcement.
‘’Attention to all! We just got an urgent call from General Mathison, asking us to go check on Rover Number Two, which is not responding on the radio. Drop everything right now and come take your flight stations, except for Lieutenant Commander Raleigh and Master Sergeant Hamilton, who will don their spacesuits and be ready to make a sortie as soon as we land near Rover Number Two.’’
Not even waiting for Donald Slayton, her copilot, to join her, Lilya started doing her preflight checklist. She was half-done with it when Slayton joined her in the cockpit.
‘’Sorry about the delay: you caught me with my pants down, literally.’’
‘’Don’t worry about that, Donald. Plot our course in the navigation computer: Rover Two was last known to be 23 kilometers northwest of Jones Crater, in the Margaritifer Sinus region.’’
‘’Got it! Our course will be 022.’’
Barely a minute later, their rover flew off the icy ground under the power of its four rocket engines. Leaving the wheels of the rover deployed, Lilya unfolded her large wings and vectored the thrust of her engines to accelerate forward while taking altitude, planning to do a short sub-orbital bounce in order to get in location as quickly as possible. All the while, she couldn’t help feel anxiousness about the crew of Rover Number Two. Julia Miller, who had quickly become a good friend of Lilya, was the copilot of that rover, working under Navy Captain Allan B. Shepard Junior. The crew of Rover Two was an experienced and competent one, so to be silent on the radio like they did could well mean that they were in trouble.
Some 55 minutes later, their rover was coming down its last curved trajectory and approaching the presumed location of Rover Two when Donald Slayton spoke up, excitement in his voice.
‘’I have a strong surface radar echo ahead! It looks like Rover Two, some forty kilometers ahead. Steer three degrees to starboard, Lilya.’’
‘’Steering three degrees to starboard. Richard, Jennifer, are you suited up and ready to go out?’’
‘’We are, Lilya! We only need to seal our helmet visors before we could go out.’’
‘’Good! The moment we will be on the ground and stopped, you will go out and enter Rover Two to see what’s going on with it. Denise, be ready to start driving the moment that we are on the ground.’’
‘’Got it, Lilya!’’
Four minutes later, Rover Number Three made a rolling landing less than 600 meters away from Rover Two. The latter was immobile and seemed parked at the foot of a small, sixty-meter-high cliff, which nearly hid the rover with its shadow.
‘’FLOOR IT, DENISE!’’
The blonde obeyed at once and started rolling at near maximum speed towards Rover Number Two as Donald Slayton examined closely the other rover while calling it on the radio.
‘’Rover Two, this is Rover Three, on approach. Please respond! Rover Two, respond, over!’’
No answer came on the radio, making Donald swear to himself.
‘’Shit! We are in direct line of sight, yet can’t get any answer. I don’t like this at all!’’
‘’Me neither, Donald. Go down and suit up yourself, quickly: three persons will be better than two in this case.’’
‘’Right!’’
As Donald went down to the lower deck, Lilya contacted the U.S.S. LIBERTY by radio.
‘’LIBERTY, this is Rover Three! We are now on the ground and approaching Rover Two. It is immobile and is not responding to our calls, even on UHF bands. Once next to it, three of my crewmembers will go out to investigate, over.’’
‘’In what state is Rover Two, over?’’
‘’It appears to be intact, but I see no movement in or around it, LIBERTY. I will keep you appraised as soon as my inspection team will be at Rover Two. Out for the moment!’’
Lilya, tense as a steel bar, then mumbled to herself.
‘’Come on, Julia! Show that you are there and alive, dammit!’’
Unfortunately, Julia was nowhere to be seen when the three-person investigation team exited the nose airlock and started walking towards the silent rover. Donald decided to first do a circle around Rover Two, in order to inspect visually the outside hull of the big craft. At first, he saw nothing but, when he started turning around the nose, he saw something that made his heart sink.
‘’Lilya, I see a hole in the hull, some thirty centimeters above one of the front cockpit windows. The hole has an approximate diameter of about four centimeters and has jagged edges folded towards the inside. It looks like something, possibly a meteorite, struck the rover from above.’’
‘’A meteorite strike? You know how infinitesimal the chances of being struck by a meteorite on Mars are?’’
‘’I know! They are even less than the chances of being struck by lightning on Earth. However, you need only one hit to ruin your day. We are now going to enter via the nose airlock.’’
As they were approaching the foot of the ladder coming down from the nose, Richard Raleigh swore loudly on the radio while pointing at something under the nose section.
‘’Holy shit! Look at that exit hole in the belly of the nose section! Whatever struck Rover Two went through it like a hot knife through butter.’’
Donald’s throat suddenly felt obstructed by a big ball as he contemplated the jagged hole blown through the hull of the rover: it was much larger than the one on top, clearly making it an exit hole. With its visible size, the whole nose section of the rover, which contained the crew living and working spaces, must have explosively decompressed in seconds.
‘’I… Let’s climb inside, folks.’’
Already expecting the worst, Donald started climbing the nose ladder, soon stepping on the platform just outside the airlock proper but inside the nose structure of the rover. When he pressed the ‘decompress’ button of the airlock, everything seemed to work as normal and he was able to quickly enter the airlock with his two companions. Closing and locking the outer hatch first, Donald then examined the pressure gauges of the command panel inside the airlock: they indicated a state of vacuum inside the rover. With tears rolling on his cheeks, he then unlocked and opened the inner hatch of the airlock, effectively finding no air at all inside. What he and his two companions found was the immobile body of Master Sergeant Roger Meredith, the communications specialist of Rover Number Two, sprawled on the lower deck near the spacesuits racks.
‘’The poor bugger must have tried to get to his spacesuit, but he suffocated before he could get to it. Let’s find the others: they were probably sleeping in their cabins when that damn meteorite struck their rover.’’
His prediction proved true, with the nine other crewmembers of the rover found dead inside their cabins, obviously taken by surprise in their sleep and unable to react quickly enough to save themselves. Jennifer Hamilton started sobbing uncontrollably after finding the bodies of Lynda Truscott and Grete Wassermann, who had become good friends of hers during their trip to Mars. As for Donald, he also cried on finding the stiff bodies of both Navy Captain Allan Shepard and of Lieutenant Colonel Julia Miller. Nearly overwhelmed, he still managed to get to the cockpit and use the radio there.
‘’This is Donald Slayton, speaking from inside the cockpit of Rover Number Two. The whole crew of Rover Two is dead, killed in their sleep by a most unlucky meteorite strike which pierced the upper hull of the nose section and then exited through its belly, resulting in an explosive decompression.’’
There was a shocked silence for a moment on the radio before the voice of Brigadier General Mathison came on.
‘’Dear God! What a tragedy!’’
‘’LIBERTY, what do you want us to do now?’’
To his credit, Mathison regained control of himself quickly and gave a few orders on the radio.
‘’First, I want the bodies of our comrades to be wrapped in blankets and then brought outside the rover, where they will be laid under the belly of their rover, so that the outside cold could preserve their bodies until they can be picked up and brought back to our ship. Second, I want Lieutenant Colonel Slayton, who is a qualified aerospace engineer, to do a full diagnosis of Rover Number Two and list what repairs and spare parts would be needed to return it to full operational status. Once that diagnosis report will be received on the LIBERTY, a repair team will be sent down to the rover’s location, with our shuttlecraft bringing back the bodies of our comrades to the ship. On my part, I will inform Vandenberg of this tragedy and will find a new crew for Rover Two among the rest of us. Our mission will go on!’’
‘’Understood, LIBERTY! We will start the work right away, out to you.’’ said Donald, who then spoke for the benefit of Lilya Litvyak. ‘’To Rover Three, I will need extra hands here to move the bodies of our comrades, over.’’
‘’We are all going to come out, save for one person manning our communications. We will be with you in ten minutes, out.’’
His conversation on the radio done, Donald went to join Raleigh and Hamilton, who had been waiting for instructions near the top of the ladder going down to the lower deck.
‘’The others will soon join us to help us move the bodies. You may start by wrapping Meredith’s body in a blanket and then bringing it outside. Lay him down under the belly of the rover, then come back for the other bodies. On my part, I will go start finding out exactly what kind of damage that fucking meteorite caused to the rover.’’
‘’We are on it, Donald.’’ replied Raleigh in a sad tone before going down to the lower deck with Jennifer Hamilton.
09:02 (Universal Time) / 04:02 (Washington Time)
326 South Grove Street, Aurora Hills, Arlington
Virginia, U.S.A.
Still half asleep, Ingrid extended one hand to grab the receiver of the telephone resting on a bedside table and spoke in a tired voice.
‘’Ingrid Dows speaking!’’
She then heard the voice of the Space Corps duty officer on night shift at the Pentagon.
‘’General, this is Captain Hennessy, at the Pentagon. We just got a most tragic news from Mars: the crew of one of our rovers has been killed when their rover was struck by a meteorite strike which explosively decompressed their craft. The ten crewmembers of Rover Number Two are dead.’’
‘’Oh my God!’’ replied instinctively Ingrid, who then remembered that Julia Miller, who had fought three wars at her side, had been part of the crew of Rover Two. Tears came next as she did her best to talk with a steady voice.
‘’Very well, Captain. Get as much details as possible on that accident: I will be at the Pentagon in less than half an hour.’’
‘’Understood, General!’’
Hanging up, Ingrid then sat in bed and swung her legs out. She then stayed immobile for a few seconds while going over her pain and sadness caused by that tragic news: this was the first time that members of her Space Corps died during a space mission and the news she just got were bound to become top national news when it will come out. Managing that news was going to be nearly as important as directing the response of her Space Corps to this.
17:00 (Washington Time)
Pentagon press briefing room
Glancing around the press briefing room as she entered it from a back door near the speaker’s lectern, Ingrid saw that the room was nearly full, with no less than four TV camera teams set up in the front row. With the Mars Expedition capturing the imagination of the public, any press briefing called by her Space Corps was certain to attract lots of attention. Unfortunately, today it was not to announce good news. Taking place behind the lectern and getting a nod from the public affairs officer who was in charge of projecting images on the wide screen behind her, Ingrid kept a somber face as she started speaking in the lectern’s microphone.
‘’Ladies and gentlemen of the press, you have been called here to receive a news that will sadden us all. Last night on Mars, the entire crew of our Lander-Rover Number Two was killed when their craft, which had been parked for the night next to a cliff, was struck by a small meteorite. While that meteorite was small, its velocity was high enough to make it pierce through our rover’s forward section, which contains the crew quarters and facility. The entry and exit holes produced by that meteorite in turn caused a catastrophic explosive decompression inside the rover. The ten crewmembers of the rover did not have time to react and get to their spacesuits before dying from suffocation, as that decompression emptied the rover of all its air in only seconds. When Rover Number Two did not respond to routine radio calls in the morning, another rover flew to its location to investigate. You are now seeing on the screen behind me a map of Mars indicating the location of our Rover Number Two, plus the path flown by our Rover Number Three, which came from the North Pole region. On arrival, the crew of Rover Number Three found a small entry hole on top of Rover Number Two, plus a larger exit hole under its belly. You can now see pictures taken of those two holes. Our rescue crew then entered Rover Number Two but, unfortunately, found only dead bodies inside. I will now list the crewmembers of Rover Number Two as their pictures will appear on the screen behind me. Commanding Rover Number Two was Navy Captain Allan B. Shepard Junior, a native of Derry, in New Hampshire, and a veteran of the Space Corps and of its preceding Military Space Command. Captain Shepard leaves behind a wife and three daughters. His copilot was Lieutenant Colonel Julia Miller, a native of Detroit and also a veteran of the Space Corps and of the Military Space Command. Colonel Miller was single, but had two siblings. The driver of the rover was Chief Warrant Officer Marcel Renaud, of the French Army, who was a specialist in all-terrain vehicles. A native of Bordeaux, France, he leaves behind a wife and four children. The nuclear engineer in charge of operating the rover’s small nuclear power plant was Navy Lieutenant Thomas Scott, a native from Long Beach, California and an ex-submariner. He leaves behind a wife and a small toddler son. Master Sergeant Roger Meredith was the rover’s communications specialist and electronics technician. He was a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was married and had three children. Doctor Grete Wassermann, from the University of Koln in Germany, was an expert bio-chemist. She was married, with two children. Bennie Vinström, from the Stockholm Institute of Geology in Sweden, was a top-flight geologist of worldwide reputation and was married, with three children. Another geologist who was part of the crew of our rover was Lynda Truscott, from Anchorage, Alaska. She was renowned for her work around Alaska and in Antarctica. Miss Truscott was single but had four siblings. Doctor Armando Peralta, of the University of Santiago, Chile, was a geo-physicist of high reputation. He was married, with four children. Finally, our rover’s crew counted an expert chemist and mineralogist, Doctor Donald Swigert, from the California Institute of Technology. Doctor Swigert was single. We will distribute at the end of this press briefing biographical notes on our ten deceased astronauts.’’
Ingrid then did a short pause before continuing, her tone now firm.
‘’Despite this tragedy, our Mars mission will go on and continue its exploration work on the Red Planet. A technical crew from the U.S.S. LIBERTY has already come down from orbit to our Rover Number Two and has started repairing it. Once our rover will be declared safe and operational again, a replacement crew will man it and will continue the mission of the previous crew. As for the bodies of our ten crewmembers, they have been flown back to the U.S.S. LIBERTY, where they will be kept in a cold room until they are returned to Earth at the end of our Mars mission. I will now take questions from the press pool. Mister Dan Rather, from CBS, you are first!’’
‘’Thank you, General! Can you tell us if the danger from meteorites falling on Mars is a common one?’’
‘’No, it is not, Mister Rather. Actually, the chances of being hit by a meteorite on the surface of Mars is infinitesimal, in the millions to one. You would have more chances of being struck by lightning here on Earth. Our rover crew was simply the victim of a piece of incredible bad luck. Mister Hartz, from NBC, you’re next!’’
‘’General, will the need to find a replacement crew for your rover tax the human resources of your Mars expedition? After all, I suppose that everyone in your expedition had a precise position to fill and a particular job to do.’’
‘’You are correct, Mister Hartz: there were no freeloaders or spare crewmembers aboard the U.S.S. LIBERTY when it boosted out of orbit. However, flexibility and adaptation are two qualities that are practiced in my Space Command. Brigadier General James Mathison, the commander of our Mars Expedition and of the U.S.S. LIBERTY, has already found volunteers, both in Base Alpha and on the U.S.S. LIBERTY, to act as replacement crewmembers for our Rover Number Two. I can already tell you that Major Jack Lousma, who was previously part of our team at Base Alpha, will be the new pilot and commander of Rover Number Two.’’
Ingrid fielded over a dozen more questions after that before declaring the press briefing over. Ignoring the last few questions shouted out by the more persistent reporters, she then left the briefing room, walking back into the Pentagon public affairs office, where she sat down at an empty desk and took some time to control the emotions which had nearly overwhelmed her during the press briefing. She may have looked cool and measured on the outside, but this was the first time that she had lost this many people in a single shot in peacetime. The loss of Julia Miller in particular was greatly affecting her. This was however a reminder to her that space exploration was a risky business indeed and that she could count herself lucky not to have suffered more casualties in space during the past few years.