CHAPTER 4 – BUREAUCRATIC INFIGHTING
09:04 (Washington Time)
Monday, December 3, 1973 ‘C’
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff conference room
The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia
U.S.A.
As she had grown accustomed to along the years, Ingrid found herself to be the only woman in the Joint Chiefs of Staff conference room at the Pentagon, with all the other ten participants being graying men. Apart from the service chiefs, the Secretary of Defense and his deputies for each of the services formed the group of participants for this meeting. All of them eyed her with anticipation mixed in with a detectable bit of sexual lust as she took her place at the conference table. Then, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, who was directing the meeting, spoke up.
‘’Welcome all, lady and gentlemen. This meeting is meant to introduce to the Joint Chiefs of Staff its newest member, General Ingrid Dows, Commander of the soon to be officially formed United States Space Corps. As Secretary of Defense, I have been briefed by President Kennedy about what he expected of this new armed service. He also told me that he expected your full collaboration in helping General Dows to form her new command and in transferring to her Space Corps the personnel she will need to operate it.’’
The service chiefs had noticeable reactions to that last sentence, most of them stiffening in their chairs or throwing a wary glance at Ingrid. On her part, Ingrid’s face stayed inscrutable as she displayed Olympian calm on this meeting, on which so much counted for her. The service chiefs’ reactions didn’t escape as well the attention of Harold Brown, a scientific prodigy with a PhD in physics and an extensive background in nuclear systems. However, he did not comment on it at that time and decided to let Ingrid deal with that herself.
‘’Thus, without ado, I will let General Dows present her exposé on her new command, its organization and its goals. General Dows…’’
‘’Thank you, Mister Secretary!’’ replied calmly Ingrid while pushing a button and switching on the slide projector which equipped the conference room. ‘’First off, let me emphasize that my new Space Corps will evolve directly from our existing Military Space Command and will need only a few minor changes to the latter in order to be formed, if you except of course the new name and new uniforms intended for its personnel.’’
Those words seemingly calmed down most of the apprehensions around the table. Ingrid then made a slide appear on a wall projection screen. That slide showed a map of the United States, on which a number of locations had been highlighted with symbols.
‘’What you see now is a map of the various facilities and bases which will either belong to the Space Corps or will share the use of with another service. Those are the Vandenberg Space Base in California, Cape Canaveral and Patrick Space Base in Florida, the North Annex of Muroc Air Force Base, which will be shared with the Air Force as we already do presently, the White Sands Research Facility in New Mexico and the Wallop Space Station on the coast of Virginia. Not shown here but still a vital installation in its own right is our Moon Base Alpha. Add to that the various constellations of artificial satellites in place around Earth and our two planetary spaceships, the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION and the U.S.S. LIBERTY. As of now, I have no need for any other extra base for my command. What I will need, though, is to add a few additional facilities and capabilities to my present bases in order to boost the performances and efficiency of our space systems and in turn reduce the cost and time needed to launch items in orbit.’’
Ingrid then made a second slide replace the first one on the viewing screen.
‘’Those additional facilities will be a space systems research and development center, to be built in Vandenberg; a Space Corps Academy in Cape Canaveral, meant to form my personnel; and mass drivers launch systems, which I hope to have built in the next coming years at both Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral.’’
‘’And what the hell is a ‘mass driver launch system’?’’ asked the commander of the Air Force, General George Brown, a man known for his often brutally direct talk. In response, Ingrid switched to another slide showing what looked like a giant inclined ramp.
‘’This is a concept drawing of what my mass driver will look like, General Brown. During my trip to Mars and back, I had plenty of time to think about ways in which I would be able to make my space systems more performant and also less costly to launch in Earth orbit. What you see here is a concept that was contemplated in the future as Nancy Laplante knew it, but which was never realized then for political and financial reasons. In our case, I believe that this concept could save us billions of dollars in the long run and could make orbital trips both cheaper and easier. Basically, it will be an electro-magnetic launch ramp which will function a bit like the launch catapults found on our aircraft carriers. Presently, the bulk of our satellites and all of our manned spacecraft are launched at high altitude by a C-2000 heavy transporter, then climb on their own ramjet and rocket engines to orbit. While that procedure is both very reliable and much less costly that using single-use rockets as used still by the Soviets, it takes some time to react to a launch order, while the mass of the craft launched is limited by the lift capacity of the C-2000. This new mass driver system, which has started to be researched and developed a year ago at my request, will essentially be a long launch ramp on which various craft and payloads will be accelerated to a speed of close to Mach 3 or more before they leave the launch ramp. That will allow those craft’s ramjet engines to light up and propel by themselves their craft up to the stratosphere, attaining a speed of over Mach 5 before pure rocket engines will take over and push the craft into Earth orbit. This launch ramp will thus eliminate the need to use a heavy transporter aircraft and will also eliminate the need for solid rocket boosters, which presently push our spaceplanes to supersonic speeds after they drop from their C-2000 transporter. The only thing we will need to do apart from building those mass driver ramps will be to modify our spaceplanes so that they could use those launch ramps.’’
‘’But, this slide of yours shows your launch ramp to be close to eight miles long.’’ objected Brown, making Ingrid nod once.
‘’Correct, General. That will be the length required of it to allow it to launch payloads from the ground at a speed of Mach 3 while using accelerations of no more than 3 Gs, weak enough to avoid damaging the payloads or unduly stressing human crews. Think of it as a half-minute-long carrier catapult launch. In return, I am hoping for this new launch system to nearly cut in half the present cost of launching satellites and spaceplanes into low Earth orbit, while also accelerating greatly the rhythm at which we could do space launches.’’
The men around the table exchanged bemused looks, except for Harold Brown and for Acting Deputy Secretary for the Air Force James Plummer, an aeronautical engineer by profession, with the two men grinning with enthusiasm on hearing Ingrid’s concept. Ingrid was however far from finished and put up a new slide which made the others bend forward for a better look.
‘’One other major innovation I want to introduce in the next few years is a brand-new spacecraft: a space interceptor.’’
‘’A space interceptor?! exclaimed General Creighton Abrams, the head of the U.S. Army. ‘’You are squarely jumping into science-fiction, Dows.’’
‘’I would rather call that ‘vision’, General Abrams.’’ replied Ingrid while staring at Abrams, using a tone that apparently displeased the 59-year-old army general.
‘’Are you trying to look smarter than us, Dows?’’
‘’No, General Abrams: I am simply embracing the future. I just came back from leading a two-year mission to Mars and I intend to continue advancing the United States through innovative technologies and science. When I start a project, I always have a clear path to what I want to do and I use feasible solutions, not pipe dreams. If I propose something here and now, then you should take me seriously.’’
Abrams reddened a bit in anger but, seeing the warning look from Admiral Moorer and from Harold Brown, did not reply to that and kept quiet as Ingrid resumed her presentation.
‘’This proposed interceptor will be a multi-mission spacecraft launched by my future mass driver and able to attain orbit by itself. Its missions will include the interception and destruction of hostile artificial satellites and spacecraft; space rescue of human crews stranded in orbit; the repair in orbit of artificial satellites and spacecraft; strategic orbital and stratospheric photo-reconnaissance and strategic strikes from orbit. However, I intend to keep the last mission confidential, in order not to unduly alarm the Soviets or the Chinese. It will have a small crew of two to three persons but will have a seating capacity for up to six persons. It will also have a limited space cargo capacity and a few weapons bays for missiles. I expect its development to be costly and complicated, but only a limited number of these interceptors will be built, to be used as a rapid-reaction space component.’’
‘’What about your two big interplanetary spaceships, the CONSTITUTION and the LIBERTY? What are your future projects for them?’’ asked James Plummer.
‘’They will be devoted mostly to space exploration under the direction of the civilian division of my command, sir. Eventually, we will want to return to Mars to better study it, while I envision a return mission to the Jupiter System, once our two ships will receive some improvements to their propulsion systems.’’
‘’And exactly what kind of improvements to their propulsion systems are you thinking about, Ingrid? I believe that our nuclear rocket technology is still superior to anything else we know.’’
‘’Exact, sir, but not to what the scientists from Nancy Laplante’s era knew. Again, I have been plundering the data available in our Athena files and found technical descriptions of a new type of space engine called a VASIMR, or Variable Specific Impulse Magneto-plasma Rocket, a type of engine that ionizes a plasma propellant and accelerates it with a magnetic field. While the actual thrust of such an engine will be minuscule compared to our present chemical rockets, it will be able to burn for very long periods, with a specific impulse of up to or even higher than 10,000 seconds, making them about eleven times more efficient than our present nuclear rockets. With such engines and with our present nuclear engines modified to also be able to provide electricity to these plasma engines, scientists in the future had calculated that a flight to Jupiter or Saturn could be cut in length from six years to fourteen months, while a trip to Mars could be done in 39 days. However, all these nice ideas will stay simple ideas without the proper budgets and research facilities. I am thus hoping to gain approval for supplementary budgets for my Space Corps, over and above the present budgets assigned to the Military Space Command. You can also add a much smaller extra budget which will be consecrated to acquiring new, distinct uniforms for the personnel of my command.’’
‘’Can’t you just keep the basic Air Force uniforms you already use and simply add a few new patches and insignias to them?’’ proposed General Brown. Ingrid shook her head at once.
‘’Would the Commandant of the Marine Corps be happy to be told to use basic Navy uniforms and simply put Marine Corps patches on them? I very much doubt so.’’
General Robert Cushman Junior, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, emphatically shook his head at that.
‘’Not in a million years! You deserve new uniforms of your own for your Space Corps, Ingrid. Go for it!’’
‘’Thanks, Bob!’’ said Ingrid, grinning, before becoming serious again and looking at Harold Brown. ‘’That’s basically it for my stated projects for my Space Corps, Mister Secretary. However, as they say too justly, the devil is in the details. We would now need to discuss those details and get to a consensus on what will be done and with what budgets.’’
‘’Indeed! Let’s get down to brass tacks{2}, gentlemen!’’
When the meeting was finally called off at the end of the afternoon, Ingrid felt exhausted but also happy. With the enthusiastic support of the Secretary of Defense and of the Deputy Secretary for the Air Force, plus the sympathetic ears of the Marine Corps Commandant and of Admiral Moorer, she had been able to gain approval for her projects, along with a majority of the extra budgets she had requested. She did not win all of her demands but hoping so would have been unrealistic. Now, she only wanted a good meal, followed by a shower and eight hours of sleep. Tomorrow, she planned to start arranging for the new uniforms needed for her Space Corps. She already had a fair idea of what she wanted but finding a good clothes designer with enough bold vision to produce something both striking and practical was not going to be easy. An idea then suddenly struck her mind, making her smile to herself as she walked towards one the exits of the huge building, intent on catching a taxi outside and return to her hotel in Washington. She now knew where to look, or rather when to look.