Launch (7 page)

On Monday, January 4, 2048, Claire and David
were seated at a table with two other couples in the NASA Space Center in
Houston. A man standing at the front of the room and facing them said, “Good
morning. I’m your instructor and immediate supervisor.
During the next thirty months, we’ll become family, so our
first order of business is introductions. To you, my name is Jim. If anybody
needs to know, my last name is Baldwin.

“On my left is Eagle Flight: Air Force Major Leah
Taylor and Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Taylor. Leah was a fighter pilot, and
Matt was a senior flight surgeon. I say
was
because now you are all NASA
astronauts in training and members of Team Thunder.

“In front of me is Wolf Flight: Navy Lieutenant
Commander Susan Wolf and Dr. Paul Wolf. Susan was a test pilot. Paul was a
flight surgeon when he was in the Air Force.

“On my right is Cougar Flight: Air Force
Captain Claire Archer and Major David Archer. Claire was a flight surgeon, and
David was a fighter pilot.”

Jim continued with basic information and a
course outline for most of the first hour, and then the class was given a
break. Coffee was in a corner of the room.

During the break, Leah asked Claire, “Didn’t
you rescue a cougar cub in the Grand Canyon about two years ago?”

“Yes,” Claire said.

Paul was surprised. “That was you!”

Claire nodded. “I thought everybody would have
forgotten that by now.”

“What did your commanding officer have to say?”
Susan asked.

Claire shook her head. “I was in medical school
at the time. The only comment from anybody in authority was from one of my
instructors. He said he was no pussycat, and I believed him.”

The team laughed.

▼

When the class resumed, Jim introduced Perry
Wright, PhD, administrator of NASA. He said, “Good morning ladies and
gentlemen. You’ll have a very demanding schedule for the next 30 months. So I
won’t take much of your time, but I do want to welcome you to NASA and Team
Thunder.

“The potential value of your mission is beyond
measure. You will demonstrate fusion power: a clean, safe, economical, and
abundant source of energy that can stimulate the world economy. You will gather
new data about our universe, and you may also discover a planet where people
can live. That could save the human race from extinction when the Sun makes our
planet Earth too hot for life.”

After Dr. Wright left, Jim continued with a
detailed technical briefing. Just before lunch, he said, “The primary crew will
not be able to fly
Origin
before May of 2050. Therefore, each of you
will be assigned a plane to maintain your real-world flying skills. Much of
your flying awareness will transfer to flying the starship, and we want you to
stay sharp.

“You have all flown Winddancers, and you will
begin refresher training starting next Monday. NASA wants you to fly as much as
you can when you’re not busy with your other training duties. That means most
of your flying will be done on weekends. You will be authorized to use the
planes for your personal transportation and to carry passengers.”

Eyebrows around the room went up. Jim smiled
and said, “I know, I know. That’s not the way things are usually done. But the
question was: if we can’t trust you to use good judgment with planes and
passengers, how can we trust you with a multibillion dollar starship? And vice
versa: If we can trust you with
Origin
, shouldn’t we be able to trust
you with planes and passengers? Giving you free rein to use the good judgment
we know you have should result in more flight time. And that will be to the
advantage of the mission.

“One of the three separate control panels on
the starship is called a shirtsleeve control panel. It’s the largest and most
elaborate of the panels and it’s designed to be operated in a comfortable cabin
environment. Four shirtsleeve control simulators are in the classroom next
door: one for me and one for each flight. Most of your training time will be
spent there learning everything about the ship except how to fly it. You will
get breaks for survival and other training from time to time to keep you
,
and me
,
from
becoming blithering simulator idiots.

“A special dining area has been assigned in the
cafeteria where you will be served meals from the ship’s planned menu. These
meals will also be available in your individual crew quarters, which are
replicas of
Origin
’s cabin. Since these meals are part of the
development costs, you will not be charged for them. You are not required to
eat them exclusively. But when you are two hundred and fifty light years from
Earth, there may not be many restaurants or supermarkets. So try to perfect
your menu before you leave. If you have any recipes, suggestions, comments,
observations, or complaints, I’m your guy. The same goes for any issues with
your quarters, and you will not be charged for them either.

“Are there any questions?”

Matt Taylor asked, “My family lives in
Anchorage. Is that too far for a weekend trip?”

Jim said, “The rule against routine supersonic
flight over land is in effect, even for NASA. But flying just below the speed
of sound should do it.”

There were no more questions and Jim said,
“Okay team, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty with your first
Origin
lunch.”

▼

 “This is terrible,” Paul said. “If this is
meatloaf, I’m a supersonic dodo bird.”

“What kind of sound does an extinct supersonic
bird make?” Susan asked with a grin.

Paul blushed. “This is a polite table.”

“I have a recipe that has received good
reviews,” Leah told Jim. “I’ll email it to you.”

After lunch, Jim drove the team van along the
back of the Team Thunder training complex. Six parking spaces were marked
“Reserved for Team Thunder Astronauts.” Three doors were in front of each pair
of parking spaces. The one on the left was marked Cougar Flight, the middle
door was marked Wolf Flight, and the door on the far right was marked Eagle
Flight. “Private, Do Not Disturb” was under each flight’s name.

Jim parked in the last parking space and led
the team to Eagle Flight’s door.

“This will be Eagle Flight’s living quarters
for the next 27 months or so. Quarters for Wolf Flight and Cougar Flight are identical.”

He opened the door to a short passage that led
to a small round floor at the bottom of the ball shaped cabin. On it was a
laundry area, a compact gym, stairs to the floor above, and the bottom of a
fireman’s pole. Jim led the team up two stairways to the top floor, which was
the same small size as the bottom floor. It had two work stations and a large
video screen. He called it a study.

Jim showed them how to use the fireman’s pole,
and the team followed him down to the middle floor. It was at the widest part
of the round cabin, and on it were the command center, kitchen, pantry, dining
area, and lounge.

The command center extended from the cabin wall
to beyond the center of the cabin and occupied most of the space on the middle
deck. It contained seven compartments with four doors that opened to the cabin.

The shirtsleeve control panel occupied the
space along the full width of the front of the command center. Video screens across
the front wall of the compartment above the panel would show space in all
directions around the starship.

On each side of the shirtsleeve control
compartment was a door that opened to the cabin.

As Jim led the team into the compartment, he
said, “The control console and video screens in this compartment are painted
plywood. The live shirtsleeve-control-console simulators I showed you this
morning are where you will learn every detail about the ship.”

He then led them through doors at the back of
the shirtsleeve compartment into two compartments, which were connected by a
door between them. A reclining couch mounted in what looked like a gimbal
structure was in the center of each compartment. Screens and controls were
mounted surrounding the couch.

“This is a maneuvering control simulator,” Jim
said. “The real starship will be flown from the real maneuvering controls for
launch and landing and during all critical maneuvers. And this is where the
beast meets the butt, where you will learn to fly
Origin.
The screens
and controls are live and will duplicate the performance of the starship.

“The gimbal mounting here is bolted to the
floor, and it will not move. In the maneuvering controls in the real ship, and
in the advanced simulator we are having built at Vandenberg, the gimbals are
live. It will almost instantly spin you in any direction to offset
g
loads applied to the ship. It will be like riding all of the wildest roller
coasters in the world at once.

“Be grateful for the time you will have here
with this simulator. It won’t snatch your hair off while you are trying to deal
with a dozen problems at once.

“One of you will be in one maneuvering control compartment,
and your spouse will be in the other. All doors will be closed and sealed
during flight, including the door between these compartments.

“You will spend at least five hours per week in
your maneuvering simulator. Your standard work day will be one hour shorter to
give you time to spend in here. A NASA computer will assign training tasks and
monitor your progress. Your simulator flying scores will be part of the primary
crew selection process.”

Doors led from the back of the maneuvering control
compartments to the sides of a king-size bed. After the group had arranged
itself around the bed, Jim said, “This is the bedroom compartment. As you can
see, off to one side of the bed is a medical treatment area with an examining
table. The ship’s medical supplies will be stored in cabinets built into the wall
nearest the table.

“Three doors are at the end of this
compartment. The one in the middle with frosted glass is the shower. Like all
doors on the ship, it can seal air tight and can be opened or closed from the
control panels. In the event of a pressurization emergency, you can stay alive in
there until your spouse can re-pressurize the bedroom compartment. Communication
facilities are built into the shower and every compartment in the ship.

“The other two doors lead to toilet
compartments that also have doors to the cabin. A toilet, wash basin, a mirror,
and storage for toiletries are in each.

“In the event of a cabin pressure emergency,
the command center can be sealed. You can live in it and fly the ship from it.
The shirtsleeve control compartment and each of the toilet compartments can be
used as airlocks to allow access to the rest of the ship. Space suits will be
stored in the maneuvering control compartments in
Origin
.

“That is the end of this tour. You will become
very familiar with your quarters as you live in them, starting tonight.

“Are there any questions?”

Claire felt like she had just had a tour of a
travel trailer, and she felt as stunned as the other astronauts looked.

Are we supposed to spend three years in
space confined in an oversized beach ball?

After Jim’s question was met with silence, he
led everybody down the fireman’s pole to the bottom floor and out of the cabin.

Jim took the team to headquarters to sign
official papers and get ID badges. The rest of the day was spent to moving in.

▼

Before Claire and David went to sleep that
night in their new king-size bed, she said, “I’m not an experienced fighter
pilot or test pilot like Leah and Susan, and I’m the lowest ranking member of
the team. Do you think we have a real chance to be Primary Crew?”

David kissed her. “From here on, it’s how we
perform in training that counts. I think the rest of us on the team will have
to work hard to keep up with you.

After a typically hard day during their fourth
week of training, Claire and David returned to their quarters to find a message
from David’s grandmother. When they returned her call, Karen Sands invited them
to have an early dinner at her home and to go to the opera with her.

He raised an eyebrow about the opera as he
asked Claire. She nodded her head vigorously and said, “Yes!”

After he accepted and put the phone down, Claire
explained. “She’s the only family we have. I liked her very much when I met her
at our wedding, and I’d love to go to the opera.”

▼

That Saturday afternoon, David drove Claire’s
car: It did not leak whereas the snap-on windows on his MG were little better
than a sieve in heavy rain. She was surprised as the GPS led them ever deeper
into an exclusive Houston neighborhood. They arrived at classical wrought iron
gates, which opened immediately.

David drove through and stopped the car in the
curving driveway at the front of a mansion. A butler was there to open Claire’s
door and offer his hand.

Karen met them at the open front door and greeted
them enthusiastically. She took Claire’s arm and escorted her and David to a
large, lavishly-furnished drawing room that was perfumed with the scent of fresh-cut
flowers. There she offered appetizers, champagne, and sherry before dinner.

After Claire was served a flute of champagne,
she said, “This is a magnificent room.”

Karen said, “Thank you. My husband and I used
it often when we were in the social whirl surrounding the oil business. This
house is much too big for me now. I would sell it, but it’s been my home for so
long I would feel homesick if I lived anywhere else.”

“Did David’s mother grow up here?”

“Oh no. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We
were much younger, and poorer, then. But Eric had high hopes for Erica.” After
a pause she said, “He was very disappointed when she dropped out of college to
get married—as was I. But she had a very happy marriage, and Eric would have
been delighted to know his grandson.”

She took a sip of her dry sherry and smiled.
“He would have been especially pleased to meet you, Cougar. You have achieved everything—and
more—that we hoped for our daughter.”

With a bit of a blush, Claire said, “Thank you.
I would like to have met him, too.”

Karen asked David, “Did you really give her
that call sign?”

He grinned. “Yes.”

Karen looked at Claire and said, “From what
I’ve read about you, Cougar fits.

As David told Karen about his and Claire’s
training, she felt her tummy rumble and she eyed the delicious looking hors
d’oeuvres, including baked brie. But then Claire noticed a fantastic cooking
aroma. She decided to save her appetite for whatever it was that smelled so
good, and she put her glass down.

Flanked by Claire and David, Karen sat at the
end of a long dining room table. The food was Cajun style: lobster bisque, a mixed
green salad with roasted pears, roasted pecans, and crumbled blue cheese were
served before stuffed pork chop and side dishes of asparagus with hollandaise
and twice-baked potato.

Claire thoroughly enjoyed all she could eat.
She and David both passed on the offer of dessert and thanked his grandmother
and her chef for a superb meal.

Karen’s limousine took them to the Houston
Grand Opera where they were escorted to Karen’s box by ushers who seemed to be
glad to see her.

They saw
Show Boat
, which included songs
such as “Old Man River,” “Make Believe,” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.” At
the end, Claire noticed David was smiling with moist eyes. She thought he had
enjoyed it as much as she did.

It was nearly midnight when Claire and David
got back to their quarters. As they were getting undressed, she told him that
he was very lucky to have Karen as his grandmother.

He said, “Yes, and since she’s your
grandmother-in-law, you’re lucky, too.”

Claire nodded. “That I am.”

▼

NASA’s public relations office received
requests from all over the country for appearances by astronauts. After the
team finished Winddancer refresher training, they were encouraged to use their
spare time to satisfy as many requests as they could. Claire and David frequently
made weekend trips to visit children in hospitals. Their faces lit up to see
and talk to astronauts in their NASA blue flight suits.

On one such trip, David asked Claire to buy
some toothpaste while he took the luggage to their room. Near the checkout
counter in the hotel gift shop, she found artificial bunny ears mounted on a
plastic headband. Later, when she and David were at the hospital, she slipped
the bunny ears on his head. Some of the sick children enjoyed their first laugh
in months.

▼

Just after takeoff on another weekend trip, a
fire warning light for the right engine lit up in Claire’s Winddancer. She
punched the light. It was a switch that discharged the fire extinguisher and
shut down the engine.

“Tower, Cougar One is declaring an emergency
for a right engine fire warning,” she transmitted calmly. “I have discharged
the fire extinguisher and secured the engine. I am returning to land.”

David had taken off immediately behind Claire
as part of a two-plane formation flight. She put out the fire before he could
tell her about it.

“Roger,” the tower transmitted. “Cougar One is
cleared to land. Cougar Two remain in the pattern.”

Claire landed and was followed down the runway
by fire trucks. David was cleared to land after the runway was cleared.

In accordance with Team Thunder procedures, Cougar
Flight continued the trip in David’s plane with her, as the junior pilot,
flying from the front seat. They had to leave some luggage behind, but space
was found for the bunny ears.