CHAPTER 20 – U.S.S. PROMETHEUS
09:28 (Washington Time)
Thursday, March 24, 1978 ‘C’
Office of the Director of the Office of Management and Budgets
The White House, Washington, D.C.
U.S.A.
‘’FOUR POINT THREE BILLION DOLLARS FOR A SPACESHIP? IS GENERAL DOWS NUTS?’’ exclaimed David Stockman, the young congressman from Michigan who had been given by President Ronald Reagan the position of Director of the Office of Management and Budgets, or OMB in short. Looking up from the file Secretary of Treasury Donald Regan had handed him, he eyed Regan critically.
‘’And you are ready to accommodate this supplementary budgetary item request in your federal budget, Donald? You must have had owls of protests from the other military service chiefs about Dows grabbing such a big piece of the military budget, no?’’
‘’Yes, but their arguments are actually irrelevant in this case: this demand is made by Dows in her quality of Director of National Space Programs and is not part of the Defense budget. That future spaceship, to be called the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS, while it will be manned mainly by Space Corps personnel, will be a civilian exploration ship, and not an armed ship. Its main purpose will be the exploration of the outer planets of our Solar System, meaning Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. It will thus leave our two present interplanetary spaceships, the CONSTITUTION and the LIBERTY, free to continue the exploration of Mars, Venus and Mercury, along with the objects in the Main Asteroid Belt. This demand may look excessive at first glance, but I and the President discussed at length this project with General Dows and her arguments are quite compelling and convincing. For one thing, the PROMETHEUS will incorporate new, highly advanced space engines which will allow it to do the trip to Jupiter in less than two years. It will also be able to land on small planets and moons in order to refuel itself by collecting water ice from their surfaces and turn that water into fuel. In terms of pure scientific interest, this ship’s potential is huge, while in terms of national prestige a successful space mission to Jupiter and Saturn will boost worldwide the reputation of the United States as the most advanced nation on Earth. The Soviets will in turn end up looking like badly trained monkeys. That alone was enough to convince the President to support this project.’’
‘’I see! Still, I can already hear the howls of outrage from the Congress about this supplementary budget request.’’
‘’Maybe, maybe not, David. Don’t forget that, while General Dows is apolitical, she has a very positive reputation with Democratic Party members. As for the Republican Party members of Congress, some may hate her for her anti-segregationist views but her past service record has gained her a lot of admiration with many members.’’
‘’And which states will end up profiting the most from this ship construction project? Congressmen and lobbyists will throw themselves at this project like a pack of wolves on a deer carcass.’’
‘’Many sub-systems will be produced by various aerospace firms around the country, but the ship construction itself will take place at the Space Corps Spaceship Assembly Hall in Muroc Air Force Base, in California. The ship will also be launched from there, using the vast, flat expanses of the Muroc Dry Lake.’’
David Stockman didn’t reply to that, instead looking again at the document in his hands and reading it quickly. While many of the details of the proposal were quite technical in nature, he could see that there were no obvious instances of ‘gold plating’ or political favoritism, something that was unfortunately too common with military budget requests and large civilian infrastructure projects.
‘’Very well! If the President really wants this project to be done, then I will do my best to convince the House of Representatives to accept it.’’
‘’Thanks! I know that you will be convincing, David.’’ replied Regan before walking out of Stockman’s office, leaving the OMB director to read in detail the budget request.
09:12 (California Time)
Monday, April 02, 1979 ‘C’
Base theater, Vandenberg Space Base
California
Walking on the theater stage and taking position behind the lectern which had been set in the center of the stage, Ingrid visually scanned the large crowd of hundreds of Space Corps servicemembers, civilian employees and family members, including young children, before speaking in the lectern’s microphone.
‘’Good morning to all, ladies and gentlemen of the Space Corps. I have asked you to come here with your families today so that I could present to you the main outlines of our future mission to Jupiter and Saturn. After you will have listened to my presentation, you will then be asked to take a personal decision concerning that future mission. When I say ‘you’, I mean to include your spouses and children in that decision.’’
There were some whispers around the vast hall as the service persons and civilian employees exchanged surprised looks with their families. Ingrid waited for near silence to return before continuing.
‘’Yes, I did say ‘to include your spouses and children’. Before most of you joined the Space Corps, or its predecessor, the Military Space Command, your families had to deal as best it could with the way the American military typically threats the families of its personnel: mostly as an afterthought. Yes, the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps all claim loudly that they have your welfare in mind while moving you around or shipping you away from your family for months on end. Part of that was due to simple practical considerations, but too often your family was taken for granted by those services. Sometimes, and I personally saw that too many times, some service people passed their career advancement above their marital and family wellbeing, a state of affair that often resulted in divorces and broken families. Well, I don’t want to see that in my Space Corps. I want my people to be happy, both at work and at home, and to see that their families are also happy and prosper. Avoiding long marital separations is one important way to keep everybody happy. This is especially critical now for us in the Space Corps, as we have started to engage in deep space missions where a ship’s crew can be months and years away from Earth. In the case of our future mission to the outer planets, that problem will become even more critical, as our U.S.S. PROMETHEUS, which is presently being built, may well be away from Earth for a full five years or even more. Now, to any married service person here that would tell me that he or she could live with such a long separation from his or her family, I would reply ‘BULLSHIT!’. You may feel like it would be an acceptable price to pay to further your military career and live a great adventure, but the odds are that you would return home only to find a divorce or separation notice nailed to your door. And I wouldn’t blame one second the spouse who would put up such a notice.’’
Ingrid paused again for a moment to let her words sink in, as the atmosphere in the theater suddenly became a lot somber.
‘’When the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION made its first trip to Mars, I did my best to alleviate this problem of family separation, notably by offering working positions aboard our spaceship to service spouses who had some needed skills and who were willing to go to space in order to accompany their loved ones. Unfortunately, we did not have proper facilities aboard the CONSTITUTION to lodge children as well, so only childless couples could profit from that arrangement then, even though some of these couples did not stay childless for very long. Despite what many busybodies may have said since, that policy proved to be a great success, with the morale of our crew benefiting greatly from it and with life aboard our ship appearing a lot more normal with the presence of these young married couples. Of course, the fact that the personnel facilities and living accommodations on the CONSTITUTION and on the LIBERTY are vastly superior to the triple bunk bed arrangement which is standard for enlisted personnel aboard Navy ships may have helped as well. Name me a U.S. Navy ship where a simple sailor has his own cabin!’’
Laughter greeted her last sentence, as many members of the Space Corps were ex-Navy members.
‘’Well, I had a few years since then to think about that problem and I can say that our future U.S.S. PROMETHEUS has benefited from that thinking, ladies and gentlemen.’’
Ingrid then pushed a button on the remote-control unit of the theater’s slide projector, making a schematic drawing of the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS appear on the big projection screen situated behind her.
‘’This is the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS as it will be once completed in about a year’s time. While it is hard to appreciate how huge it truly is, suffice to say that it will be twice as long as our biggest aircraft carrier and three times as wide. One main reason for its size is that it was built to accommodate two large contra-rotating habitat carrousels which will provide a normal, constant gravity living and working environment to its crew and passengers. That crew will also be large, over 400, in order to incorporate the armies of astronomers, astrophysicists and other scientists who have been assaulting the door of my office, clamoring to get one of the planned guest scientist positions aboard the PROMETHEUS when it will depart for Jupiter. Since that mission will go on for around five years, the accommodations and personnel facilities on the PROMETHEUS will be particularly refined, not to say deliciously decadent, as a Soviet guest scientist told me recently about the facilities he experienced aboard the U.S.S. LIBERTY during its mission to Mars. However, I have given the order to temporarily put a pause to the final interior touches of the PROMETHEUS, and this until I could come up with a finalized list of the crew and passengers planned for our mission to Jupiter. That finalized list will in turn depend a lot on what you and your families will decide between yourselves after listening to me today. Basically, my question to you and your spouses this morning is this: do you wish to travel as a family to Jupiter and live that adventure together, even though that mission will not be without risks? To the spouses who would like to answer ‘yes’ to my question, I would further ask them if they would be both capable and ready to fill the following support staff positions aboard the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS.’’
Ingrid then pressed again the button on the remote-control unit, making a list appear on the giant screen. The wives present in the theater bent forward as one to better read the list, with more than a few letting their jaws drop wide open as they saw such positions as ‘janitors’, ‘teachers’, ‘secretaries’, ‘barmaids’, ‘store clerks’, ‘daycare workers’, ‘cooks’, ‘gardeners’ and ‘farm hands’ on the projected list. Ingrid then gave the spectators a good minute to view the list and discuss it with their spouses. From the excited tone of those discussions, she could already see that many of the spouses present would indeed be ready and willing to go. She however had more arguments to present.
‘’If this could help you to take a decision, ladies and gentlemen, know that there will be proper educational and child care facilities aboard the PROMETHEUS. However, keep in mind the fact that, as big as it is, space aboard will be finite, while the number of ship’s personnel positions is limited. Thus, only the persons with the best qualifications and respecting certain parameters will be able to go aboard…if you do want to go to Jupiter. Those who will be selected and who have children who are not adults yet and who could not be left behind by themselves will then be allowed to bring their children aboard with them, within reasonable limits. For those of you who may face special difficulties in this matter, don’t be afraid to come and see me, so that we could discuss this together and find a solution to your problem. My door will always be open for you, so don’t be afraid to ask. I already told my staff not to block access to my office to you and also delegated down most of my day-to-day business, so that I could be free to receive you in the coming days. I will now show you a number of slides with pictures and drawings of the various accommodations and facilities which will be found aboard the PROMETHEUS, while you will be able to pick up on your way out explanation pamphlets about the policies and rules which will govern our staffing requirements for the PROMETHEUS.’’
Ingrid then spent a good hour showing slides, explaining them and then taking questions at the end from the spectators. She was glad to see that many of the questions came from wives of servicemen, who expressed themselves rather than meekly letting their husbands do all the talking and decision-making. She felt good as the crowd filed out of the theater, sensing a most positive general mood in the air following her presentation.
21:11 (New Orleans Time)
Tuesday, October 23, 1979 ‘C’
The CREOLE JAZZ CLUB, Bourbon Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
‘’There’s the place, General. I think that you will like both the club and the musicians in it.’’
Ingrid, who was wearing a very sexy civilian outfit of short skirt, knee-high boots and tank top covered by a light leather coat, gave a side look at Ronald McNair, one of her scientist astronauts who also happened to be a good musician and saxophonist and who was wearing informal civilian clothes, like her.
‘’Please, Ronald, cut the ‘General’ thing and simply call me ‘Ingrid’ in public. I would like to attract as little attention as possible on this visit to New Orleans.’’
‘’Well…Ingrid, your outfit is not very discrete, if I might say so. Every man we passed by stared at your body.’’
Ingrid, rather than being displeased by that, smiled instead.
‘’Good! Then they didn’t pay much attention to my face.’’
She then looked at the front of the CREOLE JAZZ CLUB, with its bright neon sign.
‘’It certainly looks and sounds like a lively place. Let’s go in!’’
Ingrid, closely followed by Ronald, walked to the entrance door of the club, only to be stopped by the raised hand of the doorman, a big black man wearing a number of gold necklaces.
‘’Excuse me, missy, but I would need to see some identity card with picture.’’
Having experienced many times in the past being ‘carded’ like this due to her youthful appearance, Ingrid took that in stride and took out of her fanny pack her wallet, then extracted her driver’s license and showed it to the doorman. However, instead of assuaging him, that license only earned Ingrid a suspicious look.
‘’You were supposedly born in 1925? Is this a joke?’’
‘’No, it is not. Here is my military identity card from the U.S. Space Corps instead: it mentions my present rank as a general officer.’’
The skeptical look of the doorman quickly changed to awe and deference when he finally understood who he was facing.
‘’General Dows? Our first astronaut? Come in! We will be greatly honored by your visit.’’
‘’Thank you, my good man!’’ replied Ingrid before entering the club with Ronald. The club, while noisy, proved to be rather small, with only two dozen tables and a small stage supplemented by a bar counter. However, the room was nearly packed, mostly with black or Hispanic persons in their thirties and forties. Only a handful of the customers were white persons. Right away, many of the men in the room stared lustily at Ingrid, making her smirk.
‘’It’s nice to see that I can still attract men’s eyes at the age of 54.’’
‘’Are you kidding, Ingrid? You barely look to be twenty.’’
‘’Pah! Detail! Let’s find a table.’’
That actually proved a bit of a challenge, as the club was close to full. They finally had to ask to share a table with a lonely black man with graying hair who accepted to let them sit with him. That man waited until Ronald had ordered two beers to a waiter before smiling to Ingrid.
‘’Have you been interested in Jazz for long, miss? We don’t see near teenagers too often here.’’
‘’Oh, I like all kinds of music, mister. By the way, I am Ingrid and this is my friend Ronald.’’
‘’And I am Joshua, Joshua Purdue.’’
‘’Pleased to know you, Joshua. Say, this young female singer on the stage sounds quite good. Is she a well-known artist in New Orleans?’’
‘’Germaine Lapierre? Not really. She is a fairly new face around here. I heard that she had a few rough years lately, which is too bad: she really is a talented singer and guitarist.’’
Looking closely at the young black woman singing on the stage, accompanied by three black Jazz musicians, she noticed that the said Germaine Lapierre looked quite skinny, as if she had been on a near-starvation diet. Hoping that her skinny look didn’t mean that Germaine was either sick or a drug-addict, Ingrid listened to her singing and nodded her head in approval when her song was finished.
‘’She is indeed very good, Joshua. With proper professional and managerial support, she could go quite high in the music industry.’’
‘’Well, all the musicians and singers who have been performing in this club in the past and present are talented people, miss. Unfortunately for them, music can be a cutthroat business and few of them become rich and famous.’’
‘’What about those three Jazz musicians accompanying her? Are they regular performers here?’’
‘’Tom, Richard and Francis do perform often here, but they are not the only ones hired on a part-time basis by this club. Why do you ask? You nearly sound like a music impresario searching for new talent.’’
‘’Maybe I am!’’ replied Ingrid, giving Joshua a warm smile. ‘’If you will excuse me for a moment, I will go intercept Germaine before she disappears from sight.’’
Getting up from her chair and walking quickly to the small stage, she lightly touched the singer’s forearm to attract her attention as she was about to leave the stage via a back door.
‘’Excuse me, Miss Lapierre. Could we talk for a minute or so at my table?’’
The young singer eyed her with some surprise mixed with a bit of suspicion.
‘’What for, miss? I have to return to my baby son, who is being watched by a babysitter right now.’’
‘’I promise you that it won’t be long and that you will be interested by what I have to say, Miss Lapierre.’’
‘’Alright, but I really can’t stay too long.’’
The singer then followed Ingrid to her table, where she was offered the last empty chair, facing Ingrid. While Germaine sat down, Ingrid discreetly looked at her arms for possible multiple needle pricks that would indicate chronic drug use. Fortunately, there were none to be seen. Taking out again her military identity card, she slipped it on the table to Germaine, so that she could look at it, while speaking in a low voice.
‘’Let me present myself properly to you, Germaine. I am General Ingrid Dows, Commander of the United States Space Corps, and I am 54 years old. My youthful appearance is due to a past miracle I benefitted from.’’
While Germaine looked with shock at her card, then at her, Joshua Purdue opened his mouth wide from the surprise.
‘’You are ‘God’s General’? Holy…!’’
‘’Yes, I am, Joshua.’’ replied Ingrid before returning her attention to the singer.
‘’Germaine, I am looking for a number of musicians and singers who could help entertain the crews of my spaceships. I find your voice to be really nice and you also proved quite good with a guitar. I am thus interested in hiring you as an entertainer.’’
‘’Me, singing for your astronauts? Would it be on a temporary basis, for a couple of gigs, General?’’
‘’It would be for a good five years or more at first, Germaine. Furthermore, I am offering you a basic yearly salary of 21,000 dollars, plus meals, lodging and full medical coverage, and this for both you and your baby. Since you use a babysitter this late in the day, may I infer that you are not married?’’
Germaine lowered her head in embarrassment at that last question.
‘’I am not! In fact, I am a single mother. The man who fathered my son disappeared the moment I told him that I was pregnant. I have since taken care of my son by myself, which was hard at times: club managers don’t like to hire young single mothers and I had to live on a meager income in the last few months.’’
‘’Well, if you accept my offer, those hard times will be over for you, Germaine. I however have to tell you that, if you take the job, you will be traveling in space for five years, non-stop: you will be traveling aboard the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS, which is presently being built, while on a five-year mission to the Jupiter and Saturn Systems. Before you would refuse because you think that you would be traveling aboard a cramped sardine can, let me reassure you about that. The PROMETHEUS will be a huge ship, with very comfortable and comprehensive living facilities for its crew and passengers.’’
‘’Passengers? You want to have passengers present on a five-year space mission?’’
‘’Yes, Germaine! Those passengers will actually be the spouses and children of our astronauts, plus a large number of foreign scientists who were invited to participate in the mission. Your little Thomas will not be the only child present aboard the ship, Germaine.’’
‘’And you would provide me with lodging and food, on top of that salary of 21,000 dollars a year? Will you deduce the cost of that lodging and food from my salary?’’
‘’No! You will be fed and lodged for free, plus you will be allowed to collect tips on top of your salary. Right now, I am expecting to have over 500 people of all ages, including at least 400 adults, aboard the PROMETHEUS during this future mission. There will be comprehensive medical and educational facilities aboard for children and babies.’’
By now, tears of joy were coming out of Germaine’s eyes.
‘’Then, I accept your offer. You will however have to make a deal first with the owner of this club, who hired me on a part-time basis for a year.’’
‘’Don’t worry about that, Germaine: I will talk to him. What about the three Jazz musicians who were accompanying you on the stage? Do you think that they would also be interested in my offer?’’
‘’Most probably, General. While Duke Winston, the owner of this club, is not a bad man, the music business is very competitive in New Orleans and he can’t really afford to give out high salaries to his performers. The mother of Francis Marshal, one of the three Jazz musicians, is in fact the babysitter I use for my son Thomas.’’
‘’Then, I will definitely have to speak with those three guys. Can anyone of them play the piano?’’
‘’Oh, certainly! Thomas, the older one, is an excellent piano player, on top of being very good with clarinets, saxophones and trumpets.’’
It was the turn for Ingrid to smile, quite pleased by Germaine’s answer.
‘’Excellent! I believe that you will all be fine additions to the crew of the PROMETHEUS, along with your families.’’
10:13 (California Time)
Tuesday, May 6, 1980 ‘C’
United States Space Corps’ Spaceship Assembly Hall
North Base, Muroc Air Force Base
California
The American First Lady couldn’t help open her eyes and mouth wide when she had her first glimpse at the gigantic spaceship filling the vast assembly hall she had just entered with her husband.
‘’My God! I have never seen anything this big! It is even bigger than an aircraft carrier.’’
Ingrid, who was escorting President Ronald Reagan and his wife on this visit to the newly completed U.S.S. PROMETHEUS, smiled at her wonderment, which was most understandable. On his part, Ronald Reagan looked questioningly at Ingrid after eyeing the spaceship from end to end.
‘’Was it really necessary to build this large a spaceship, General Dows?’’
‘’Yes, Mister President, and for three main reasons. First, we needed to incorporate into its design a set of contra-rotating habitat carrousels, so that a large-enough crew for the mission to Jupiter could travel for up to five years in space without having to suffer through the effects of prolonged zero gravity on the human body, effects that would be quite debilitating and even dangerous after such a long trip. Such habitat carrousels need to be of a certain minimum radius in order to provide a sufficient level of artificial gravity, and this without using rotation speeds that would be too high and would make people sick as they move around the ship. Second, this spaceship will mostly use cryogenic liquid hydrogen as fuel during its trip to Jupiter, and lots of it. Because of the very low density of liquid hydrogen, which is over twelve times less dense than water, that amount of fuel takes up a huge internal volume. In fact, as big as this ship is, Mister President, it is at this time mostly an empty flying fuel tank, with an empty mass much less than what its sheer size would suggest. Finally, the nearly 2,000 feet length of this ship was dictated by basic aerodynamic laws. Since this ship is designed to take off like a normal aircraft and is going to fly at supersonic speed through the Earth’s atmosphere during its climb to orbit, it needed to have both enough aerodynamic lift to make it fly and be of the appropriate shape in order to minimize aerodynamic drag at supersonic and hypersonic speeds. Thus, I went for our now standard design solution of shaping the ship like a big supersonic flying wing body, which is the best solution to both minimize drag and optimize lift. The huge length of the ship is the result of applying a satisfactory average thickness-to-chord ratio of 5.5 percent to the profile of our flying wing body while keeping it thick enough to house our habitat carrousels, whose pressurized housings have a height of 95 feet. I am sorry to serve you such techno-babble, Mister President, but there is no simpler way to accurately explain the size of our spaceship design.’’
‘’That’s alright, General: your explanation was actually to the point and easy to understand. So, how big a crew will travel in this to Jupiter?’’
‘’We are still refining that number, Mister President, but this ship was built with a total of a bit over 400 cabins, all of which could accommodate at least one or two persons each.’’
‘’One or two persons?’’ said Reagan, frowning in surprise.
‘’Yes, Mister President. You remember our conversation over three years ago in the Oval Office? I then talked about the need to consider the social requirements of a crew confined to space for up to five years. One of those prime requirements was the need for a person for companionship. Just imagine what would be the effects on your psyche if you had to separate yourself from your wife for five years, Mister President.’’
On hearing that, Nancy Reagan glued herself to her husband’s side, while Ronald Reagan passed a protective arm around her, with his expression becoming much sober.
‘’It would probably kill me, General. I fully understand and share your concerns about this point.’’
Ingrid nodded once at that, relieved to see that the President understood her point of view.
‘’Thank you, Mister President. In truth, I could not in all conscience send off to Jupiter a crew of over 400 persons while knowingly condemning them to debilitating loneliness and depression. Those crewmembers are human beings after all, not machines, something too many generals, politicians and aerospace designers tend to forget or ignore. What we are doing right now is selecting spouses who are in good health, fit and willing to accompany their partners on the Jupiter mission while being able to fill a useful, non-technical job aboard our spaceship. I am talking about jobs like cook, janitor, store clerk, stewardess or administrative secretary.’’
‘’Janitor?’’ asked Nancy Reagan, obviously surprised. Ingrid nodded once and explained in a calm voice.
‘’Yes, madam! While most of the volume of this ship consists in fuel tankage, the volume inside our habitat carrousels is still substantial and it will be essential for basic sanitary reasons to keep the inside of those carrousels clean. Now, a science-fiction writer would imagine an army of robots to act as janitors, a solution I would gladly adopt if I could. Unfortunately, our level of robotics technology is still far behind such a dreamy concept, so we will need persons to do this cleaning. I certainly don’t want to force a highly-trained astronaut or a PhD in astrophysics to spend some of his time mopping floors, as they will have more important things to do during their mission, so I decided to use dedicated janitors for the job. In that case, if those jobs could be filled by spouses of our crewmembers, then why not combine those two requirements of cleaning the ship and providing companionship to our crewmembers?’’
Ingrid’s explanation made Nancy Reagan smile in both amusem