CHAPTER 17 – SPACE STATION AURORA
09:48 (California Time)
Thursday, June 3, 1976 ‘C’
Soviet intelligence gathering auxiliary ship (AGI) SSV 480
Sailing in international waters along the coast of California
Thirty kilometers northwest of Vandenberg Space Base
California, U.S.A.
Nikolai Zubov completed yet another visual tour of the horizon with his binoculars, concentrating first in the direction where the Vandenberg Space Base was situated on the coast, then looking at the U.S. Coast Guard seagoing tugboat which had been shadowing his ship from a distance. While the SSV 480, a 78-meter-long ex-salvage tug, was in international waters and simply going up and down the American coast, the Americans were no fools and perfectly knew why it was cruising close to Vandenberg, thus had assigned a Coast Guard ship to watch it from a distance. Not that this would stop the SSV 480 from listening to the electronic signals emanating from Vandenberg, a job for which the ex-salvage tug was well equipped to do. The Soviet second officer picked up his mug of hot coffee, which he had put in an improvised holder along the front windows of the wheel house in which he stood, and raised it to his mouth to take a sip from it. His eyes barely had time to register a big flying object coming at his ship at an incredible speed before it passed overhead, as fast as a lightning bolt.
BOOM
The sonic boom, as loud as a bomb going off, shook the whole ship and shattered nearly all the windows of the wheel house, while Nikolai jerked because of the boom and splashed half of his coffee over himself.
‘’AMERIKANSKI ZHOPA! POYDI K CHERTU{14}!’’
The furious Soviet naval officer was still toweling away the coffee covering his sweater when his captain erupted on the bridge, half-dressed.
‘’Kakogo chyorta{15}! What just happened? I was shaving myself and nearly cut open my throat!’’
‘’An American idiot coming from Vandenberg went supersonic at low altitude right over us, Captain. It was extremely fast and was gone in an instant.’’
Captain Rusenski glanced around his bridge, noting the shattered windows and the shaken face of the sailor manning the wheel, then walked quickly to the bridge telephone and called the small compartment where electronic warfare specialists were listening to and recording American radio transmissions and radar and telemetry signals.
‘’Hello, Piotr? We just got buzzed by an American zadnitza{16}. Did you intercept any radio transmission from Vandenberg in the last few minutes?’’
‘’Uh, make it an American bliatz{17}, Captain: that pilot was a woman and she in fact just called us to say that she was sorry, but I bet from her tone that she was not sorry one bit.’’
‘’CHYORT VOZ’MI{18}! What the hell are we going to do with all our bridge’s windows shattered? We don’t have spare window panes aboard! We’ll get soaked like fish in the next storm! SVOLOCH{19}’!’’
On the U.S. Coast Guard tugboat, the high-speed passage at low altitude had caused about as much consternation to its American crew than to the Soviet crew of SSV 480, but without causing damage. Contrary to the Soviet captain, the American captain had been on his bridge when the unknown aircraft from Vandenberg had passed over the Soviet AGI. Lieutenant Commander George Freemont’s first reaction was to call his radar operator, situated two decks down.
‘’Radar, an aircraft from Vandenberg just overflew that Soviet snoop ship at supersonic speed. Were you able to clock its speed?’’
‘’Uh, you may not believe me, sir, but that thing left Vandenberg while already doing Mach 3 and it is still accelerating.’’
‘’It left Vandenberg at Mach 3? But that’s impossible!’’
‘’I am sorry, sir, but that is what my radar said. That thing is now out of our radar range but it was doing about Mach 4 as it flew away.’’
Freemont was left speechless by that and looked in the direction of the coast, where Vandenberg was located.
‘’What kind of new magic have they developed in Vandenberg to attain Mach 3 just after takeoff?’’
09:51 (California Time)
U.S. Space Corps cargo orbiter SHOOTING STAR
Climbing away from Vandenberg Space Base at Mach 4.4
Despite being pushed hard in his copilot’s seat by the 1.3 Gs of acceleration of their new orbiter, Major Stuart Roosa laughed briefly and glanced at Ingrid, who was piloting.
‘’That was a great idea to buzz those Soviet snoops, General. It surely pissed them off but without really hurting them.’’
‘’Well,’’ replied Ingrid, a big smile on her face, ‘’those Soviets better move away before Shirley Slade takes off after us in about one hour. Now, let’s concentrate on achieving orbit along our planned parameters. I must say that this huge disc we are carrying piggy-back is giving us a tremendous amount of extra aerodynamic lift: we are climbing like a bat out of Hell.’’
‘’Still, to fly off your new mass driver ramp at Mach 3, and that before starting to burn our first pound of fuel, that is impressive as Hell, General.’’
‘’Well, that was exactly the reason why it was built, Major: to save on both fuel and complexity, so that we could finally lower drastically the cost of bringing cargo and passengers to orbit. With our mass driver ramps and new cargo orbiters, space travel within Earth’s orbit will soon become something every American will be able to enjoy.’’
‘’And when can we expect the mass driver ramp at Cape Canaveral to be completed, General?’’
‘’In about a month. However, it will be oriented for eastward launches along the Equator, while the Vandenberg ramp was built for northward launches, to put loads in polar orbit. Our orbiters can of course turn to a new heading after launch, but those two ramps will give us the most economical launch profiles for the two main types of orbits we use. I am still toying with the idea of adding a third ramp, oriented towards the Northeast, in Cape Canaveral. That way, we would also cover launches to highly inclined orbits. If we could get the money approved for that project, I will be as happy as a pig in shit.’’
‘’Maybe you could grease the wheels a bit for our space budgets by inviting a bunch of Congressmen to spend a few days on our space station once it is completed, General.’’
Ingrid grinned at Roosa on hearing that.
‘’Major, you are a genius! Maybe we could add a few Hollywood stars to that lot: they could favorably influence the American public a lot after experiencing a few days in orbit in luxury and comfort. I can already see a list of names forming in my head. Well, enough dreaming: we first have to build our space station, aren’t we?’’
‘’Correct, General. However, the way you designed our space station to be built with modular sections fabricated on Earth and then brought to orbit with our new orbiters and mass driver ramps should make the job a quick one. Thank God that the Congress voted us new funds to compensate for the gift of three billion dollars you gave to the Hawaii relief budget.’’
The mention of Hawaii cooled down Ingrid at once, who couldn’t help then think about the unfortunate people of Hawaii. Only the most northerly islands of the archipelago were still livable, but the contamination by radiations of the waters around Hawaii had basically rendered it non-viable in economic terms, with fishing around Hawaii now strictly prohibited. A strict naval and air quarantine also had to be established in order to prevent looters stupid enough to go ashore in Hawaii with the idea of looting objects of value left behind. Unfortunately, past recent months had demonstrated that there were more than a few such bastards willing to try their luck. However, with Hawaii having been placed under permanent martial law, those looters who had been caught had quickly ended up in front of firing squads, something Ingrid had applauded, like most Americans. As for the traumatized surviving citizens from Hawaii, they were now rebuilding their shattered lives as best they could in the continental United States.
Some ten minutes later, their orbiter achieved its planned polar orbit at an altitude of 320 kilometers and an inclination of 86 degrees. By the time that they had completed two orbits and regulated it to turn it into a circular rather than an elliptic one, the second cargo orbiter, piloted by Major General Shirley Slade, had launched from Vandenberg and was approaching the SHOOTING STAR. Like the SHOOTING STAR, it carried piggy-back a 180-meter-diameter disk, in addition to more modular elements transported inside its big internal payload bay. Ingrid had sparkles in her eyes as she watched the POLAR STAR approach slowly her own cargo orbiter. With the two large disks, each containing a rotating habitat carrousel, and with the other modules carried inside the two orbiters, they were going to be able to quickly assemble and make both operational and livable a sizeable portion of the future AURORA space station.
16:23 (Universal Time)
Friday, October 29, 1976 ‘C’
Lander-Rover Number Three, Korolev Crater
North Pole region of Mars
‘’I believe that we just reached the bottom of the crater, Olaf. Stop the drill, so that I can check with the seismic radar.’’
Olaf Christensen obeyed at once and patiently waited while Gerald Proctor went to check with Youri Gretchko the display screen of their ground-penetrating radar. After discussing a moment with the Soviet geologist, Gerald looked back at Olaf.
‘’We’re at the bottom, some 2,460 meters down under the surface ice. Let’s reverse the drill and bring back our bottom core sample…carefully and cautiously. That ice sediment from the bottom is easily worth its weight in gold in terms of scientific data.’’
‘’Damn right it is!’’ replied in his accented English the big Danish ice geologist, as he put the drilling derrick in slow reverse. ‘’To have been able to come here with the right equipment for this was simply fabulous. This bottom sample should be able to tell us a lot about the geological and meteorological past of Mars.’’
Aboard their rover, parked a few meters away, Lilya Litvak felt satisfaction on hearing the exchange between the two ice geologists: her team was now about to complete one of its main tasks: to explore the 84-kilometer-wide Korolev Crater and its water ice lake and collect deep ice samples from it. The huge expanse of water ice of the crater had also allowed her rover to fully refill its propellants tanks and its air and potable water reserves, making her rover ready to explore further the surface of Mars during the coming last ten weeks of their surface exploration mission. Still, she had one more thing to do before leaving the crater and its icy lake. Leaving the cockpit on the upper deck after putting Denise Bateman in charge of monitoring the radio communications, Lilya went first to her cabin, to retrieve a long, flat box there, then went down to the lower deck. There, she went to the support stand of her spacesuit and, opening its rear access hatch, grabbed the overhead handle bar and bent her knees upward before sliding her two legs inside her spacesuit, which rested at the near vertical. Then, before entering completely her spacesuit, she put on her padded skull cap and plugged its integrated headset to the internal connector of her suit. Next, bending a bit her head while inserting her two arms in the spacesuit’s sleeves, she fully entered her spacesuit and made sure that she was well positioned inside it before turning around and closing its rear access hatch by leaning against a partition, forcing the hatch to close and lock with an audible ‘click’. Using the instruments and controls panel attached to her torso, near eye level, she activated her suit’s breathing and temperature control systems. With Richard Raleigh helping her by doing a last external check of her suit and by going to the control panel of their nose airlock, Lilya grabbed the box taken from her cabin and entered the airlock, letting Richard close and lock the door behind her. Soon the noise of the air being pumped out was replaced by near silence, as there was no more air to transmit sounds, just the structure of the spacecraft. Leaving the airlock with her box and closing the exit hatch behind her, she then climbed down the steep ladder to the icy surface of the crater. Her three team members working around the drilling derrick looked at her and her box with curiosity, with Gerald Proctor finally calling her on the radio as she walked away from the rover.
‘’Hey, Lilya! What are you carrying? What are you doing?’’
‘’I am going to plant a permanent memento on the lake. Youri, could you come with me, please?’’
‘’Right away, Lilya!’’
The Soviet geologist quickly joined her in a few large bounds and stopped with her at a point some twenty paces from the rover, well clear from the drilling derrick. There, she opened her box and extracted from it a large, framed portrait with a brass plaque fixed to the top of a 1.2-meter steel pole. The portrait showed a mature civilian man posing for a formal picture while wearing multiple medals and decorations. Youri recognized at once the man in the portrait and came instinctively to attention as Lilya planted deeply the pole in the ice, leaving about a meter of the pole out. Lilya also came to attention and spoke briefly.
‘’May this be a fitting tribute to our greatest rocket designer and space pioneer: Sergey Korolev.’’
She and Youri then saluted the framed picture, after which Lilya took a few more steps and, going around the picture, took a few photographs of it from various angles, including one in which their rover was visible and with Youri at attention and saluting, his Soviet flag visible on his spacesuit. With that done, Lilya looked soberly at Gretchko.
‘’Our job is done here, Youri. I will help you guys to pack away the drilling rig once you have your bottom samples, then we will leave this crater for our next point of interest.’’
19:03 (Universal Time)
Crew facilities area, lower deck, Lander-Rover Number Three
Korolev Crater, Mars northern polar cap region
Eight of the ten members of the rover’s team were finishing to eat their supper when Donald Slayton approached the communal table with a number of envelopes in his hands.
‘’Time to do your civic duty for the American citizens here, folks! We just got from the U.S.S. LIBERTY the candidates lists for the Presidential and Congress elections of November the second, along with your bulletins to vote by anticipation.’’
Donald then gave a smile to Lilya and Youri, who were sitting at the table.
‘’Sorry if you can’t participate in that election.’’
Lilya giggled a bit at that gentle barb from Donald.
‘’A Soviet officer voting in an American presidential election… That would be something.’’
‘’Hey, maybe we will one day be all able to vote for a worldwide government.’’ Quipped Olaf Christensen, a grin on his face.
‘’Yeah, don’t hold your breath on that, my friend.’’ replied Donald before distributing envelopes to the Americans sitting around the table. ‘’Please read carefully the electoral list that pertains to your respective federal districts, then go mark your choices in private before returning to me your voting bulletins inside their envelopes. I will then send by encrypted message to the LIBERTY your choices, which will then be compiled with the choices of the other American citizens of this expedition. That compilation will then be sent to Earth as votes by anticipation. The LIBERTY will rebroadcast to us the results of the elections once it will get them from Earth, hopefully on the same day as the elections.’’
Lilya gave a guarded smile to Donald as the four Americans at the table started opening their envelopes.
‘’May I, as a Soviet officer and good Communist, ask you who is running as candidates for President of the United States, along with their political views about the American relations with the Soviet Union, Donald?’’
‘’I don’t see any problem with that, Lilya: the whole World will be able to follow those elections on radio and television. While you have a one-party political system in the U.S.S.R., we Americans have basically a two-party system, with votes normally split between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. On rare occasions, a so-called independent candidate may run for president, but I can’t think of any such independent candidate who even got close to winning the presidency. In general terms, Republicans are described as being more conservative in their views and to favor less influence from the federal government over our fifty states, while Democrats are viewed as more liberal and more progressive and favor more social programs to help the less fortunate of our citizens.’’
‘’I already like your Democratic Party better.’’ said Lilya, making Donald grin with amusement.
‘’Don’t say that in Washington, Lilya: many Republicans think of Democrats as being quasi-Socialists. Our actual president, Robert Kennedy, is a democrat but, having served two terms, is not eligible for reelection. For this election, the democratic candidate to the presidency is Senator Henry Jackson, while the republican candidate is Ronald Reagan, an ex-actor and ex-governor of California.’’
‘’An ex-actor is running as President of the United States?’’ exclaimed Youri Gretchko.
‘’Yup!’’ answered Donald, smiling, to which Lilya added a question.
‘’And those two presidential candidates, what are their views and attitudes towards the U.S.S.R.? I understand that your present president was pro-détente, right?’’
‘’President Robert Kennedy was effectively considered a pro-détente president, which is a big part of the reason why you and other Soviet citizens were invited to participate to this Mars Expedition. As for the two main candidates for this incoming election, you may not like them as much, though. While a Democrat, Senator Henry Jackson is known as an anti-communist and is no friend of the Soviet Union…or of China. As for the republican candidate, Ronald Reagan, he is also known as an anti-communist and is partisan of a hard line towards the Soviet Union.’’
Lilya made a grimace on hearing that.
‘’Chyort{20}! Should we expect to be spaced out without spacesuits after your elections are over?’’
‘’Naaah! We like you too much to do that to you, Lilya. Besides, the candidate who will be elected on November 2 will not be sworn in and take office before the third week of January. So, you will have nearly three months to work on your escape plan, you and Youri.’’
Seeing the collection of grins around the table, Lilya understood at once that Donald had made a joke, so she smiled and did a joke of her own.
‘’Hum, three months… that should be enough to work out plans for a good communist revolution aboard this rover. I am the rover’s commander after all.’’
‘’Yes, but beware of a crew mutiny!’’ said Richard Raleigh, starting a round of laughter around the table.
21:56 (Universal Time)
Tuesday, November 2, 1976 ‘C’
Crew facilities area of Lander-Rover Number Three
Chasma Boreale region, southwest of Mars’ North Pole
‘’Should we break out our reserves of chips and other munchies for the occasion, guys?’’ asked Denise Bateman as she was about to sit with the others at the communal table in order to watch the television set of the lower deck. That prompted Donald Slayton into getting up from his seat and go to the locker holding their ready reserve of food items.
‘’Excellent idea, Denise! Give me a second.’’
He was soon back at the table, on which he put the used rations container in which they had accumulated the unused snack items from their daily rations.
‘’Here you go, guys and girls: time to eat some junk food. What could be more appropriate than that while watching a political event?’’
The collection of small bags of potato chips, pretzels or nuts and of chocolate and cereal bars was quickly raided by the nine persons around the table. Once they had all served themselves, Donald switched on the flat screen television set facing the table and called up the video recording received only a few minutes before from the U.S.S. LIBERTY. They were then able to watch the last hour of the ABC television show consecrated on reporting the results of the presidential elections of the day. Lilya, who was also watching while munching on her favorite type of chocolate bar, stayed quiet during the show, evaluating mentally the reactions of her American team members to the results being announced district by district and state by state by the ABC panel of political analysts. While the counting of results was quite straightforward for her to understand, she had much more difficulty in figuring out this business called ‘Electoral College’ votes. Thankfully, a remark and lengthy explanation by an analyst on the significance of some of those votes helped her to better understand the concept.
The five Americans around the table reacted in a mixed fashion when the final results were announced by the ABC show host, who declared Ronald Reagan as the winner of the elections, with Robert Dole as his Vice-President. Three of them applauded, while the two others, Denise Bateman and Jennifer Hamilton, were notably less enthusiastic. Bending sideways, Lilya whispered into Denise’s ear.
‘’I gather from your reaction that Reagan was not your favorite candidate, Denise.’’
Denise smirked in response and also whispered back to Lilya.
‘’In truth, none of those two candidates appealed much to me. Senator Jackson, despite being a Democrat, is an old-fashioned guy with rigid beliefs who thinks little of women as equal partners. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan has made a few pro-women equality remarks in the past. It could have been worse for American women, but we may have to wait a few more years to see a president who will embrace women’s full equality of status and rights.’’
‘’And what do you think that General Dows will think of these results? From what I know of her, she strongly believes in the equality of women with men.’’
‘’Oh, that she does! However, the President is our Commander-in-Chief: we will have to follow his orders and directives like the good soldiers we are. I suppose that the same would apply to you, Lilya, if a new Soviet leader would come to power?’’
‘’Indeed, Denise! Indeed!’’ replied Lilya, not wanting to say more.
10:45 (California Time)
Saturday, December 4, 1976 ‘C’
Passenger terminal, Vandenberg Space Base
California, U.S.A.
Ingrid, in full dress uniform and with Shirley Slade at her side, came to attention and saluted as Robert Kennedy emerged from the jetway with his wife, four of his younger children and a large mixed group of Secret Service agents, military officers, members of Congress and media reporters and photographers.
‘’Mister President, welcome to Vandenberg!’’
‘’Thank you, General!’’ replied formally Kennedy, who was accustomed to call Ingrid by her first name when in private. He then shook Ingrid’s and Shirley’s hands as the rest of the passengers from Air Force One stepped out of the jetway and inside the passenger terminal of Vandenberg Space Base. Ingrid and Shirley then exchanged salutes with General George Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was following closely the Kennedy family. Ingrid then concentrated her attention on Robert Kennedy, as protocol requested.
‘’If you will now follow me with your family, Mister President, I will guide you to the spacesuits fitting room, where you and the members of your delegation will be fitted with passengers’ spacesuits. Every person traveling to or from orbit must wear a pressurized suit as a general precaution.’’
‘’Uh, how do you plan to fit my four children with spacesuits, General? They are still either preteens or young teens. I was meant to believe that fitting a spacesuit to a specific person was both expensive and costly.’’
‘’Normally that’s true, Mister President. However, we have developed a new model of spacesuit intended for short term wear by occasional visitors to Space. That new model is less flexible and less performing than our standard astronaut’s spacesuit, but it is way cheaper and easier to both produce and fit to a person. You will soon see what it is like, Mister President.’’
‘’And I suppose that we will be travelling in that racy-looking space shuttle parked next to Air Force One?’’
‘’You normally would use that MERCURY-Class shuttle, which just entered service and was designed to ferry passengers and fresh supplies to orbit at the most economical cost possible, using our mass driver launch ramp, but today’s group is too large to all fit in it, so we will use a much larger cargo orbiter that was going to bring to orbit a large tank of liquid hydrogen.’’
Robert Kennedy stopped for a moment to look at the fifty-meter-long shuttle parked outside of the terminal, then looked back at Ingrid, confusion on his face.
‘’But I came with less than thirty other people from Washington. Your shuttle appears to be big enough to easily fit us all.’’
Ingrid replied to him with a malicious smile.
‘’Aaah, but that’s because your Washington delegation is not the only one to go up to orbit today, Mister President. You remember that you had authorized our new space station to be a multi-purpose one, with a section of it used to promote the commercial use of space, so that we could recoup some of the construction cost by charging rents? Well, that commercial section will be inaugurated today at the same time as the rest of our orbital station and the commercial manager has invited a large group of V.I.P.s and reporters to visit it, in order to generate some publicity.’’
‘’I see! And what kind of commercial establishment have you managed to convince to rent space on our national orbital space station, General?’’
‘’The Sheraton Hotels and Resorts Corporation, Mister President. While on our space station, you will be lodging at the brand-new Sheraton Aurora Hotel.’’
‘’You mean that the United States now operates a hotel in Space?’’ asked Robert Kennedy, his eyes wide.
‘’Yes, Mister President! It will add to our country’s prestige around the World, while proving to all that we are the leaders in space technology.’’
From the collection of wide grins her remark got from the group following the President, Ingrid knew that she had just marked a major point, especially with the members of Congress who were part of the presidential delegation. Hopefully, this was going to make her fights for bigger space budgets much easier in the future, which was exactly one of the results she had been hoping for when organizing this inauguration trip to orbit. She thus started walking again, leading the President’s delegation down a wide hallway, then inside a sort of large anteroom with four doors, where she turned around and addressed the small crowd.
‘’If you may listen for a moment, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to go in the spacesuit fitting rooms, where women and men will separately get fitted for a suit. There is however a very important point that I want to make right now: there is no smoking allowed aboard our space station, and that for very good reasons. The air that you will breathe on the space station is constantly being filtered and recycled, so we have to avoid as much as possible all pollutants. Tobacco smoke is such a pollutant and, as you certainly know, its odor clings to everything. The air in a free-smoking space station or spaceship would thus quickly become next to unbreathable. For those of you who can’t live without their daily dose of nicotine, our medics will distribute nicotine patches which will help you go over your urge to smoke for the two days you will be in orbit. Please don’t cheat and find a hiding place to smoke aboard our station, as the smell will give you away quickly. Those who will be caught smoking will be booted off the station by me personally, and I won’t care if you are a general or a senator. Such persons will also be banned for life from using spacecraft and space installations of the Space Corps. I will be very severe on that subject, thus ask for nicotine patches and don’t cheat! Now, we will split in two groups, with the men and b