Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (69 page)

The congressman
nodded. “I see. But, why go all that way and not land?”

“Any number of
reasons. One big one would be that our ascent vehicles don’t make it. They’re
on their way now and will be arriving shortly before we do. If, God forbid,
they should crash land and be unserviceable, we’re not going to land because
we’d have no way of getting off the planet. Another reason not to land would be
if our Trans-Earth Injection booster doesn’t make it – say, fails to make an
orbital insertion, or ends up in an orbit that we can’t reach.”

“Trans-Earth
Injection?”

“Yes sir, the trip
home. Without that booster we couldn’t get out of orbit around Mars, so we
wouldn’t go
into
orbit around Mars. We’d just come straight home.”

“I see. But, what
would nineteen months in space do to you?”

“Well, it probably wouldn’t be fun,
but it would sure beat the alternative. Sue?”

“Congressman, the
Russian cosmonaut, Valeri Polyakov, spent 437 consecutive days – a little over
fourteen months – aboard the Mir space station in 1994-95 without any long-term
ill effects. Based on Polyakov’s experience, our assessment is that we would
have to work hard and maintain a good attitude but, in the long run, we would
be fine.”

KSC
PAO, “The countdown to launch of
Ares
Juliett
has recommenced. We are at T minus nine minutes
and counting.
Ares
Juliett
is Go for launch and automatic Ground Launch
Sequencing has initiated.”

“Sounds
like we’re about ready to go,” said Jeff. “Shall we adjourn to the balcony and
see this thing off?”

The four of them, with Congressman Delano hot on
their heels, made their way out onto the balcony, meeting and greeting as they
went. The congressman shouldered in between Jeff and Gabe, a little too cozy
for Jeff’s liking and, from the expression on her face, Gabe’s also.

Jeff
smiled politely. “Excuse me, Congressman.” He stepped around him and squeezed
back in next to Gabe. “I’d like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my crew for
this. Anything goes wrong this morning, and we’re not going to Mars.”

The
congressman smiled apologetically. “Ah, of course. Sorry. It’s just that all of
this is so fascinating. Captain, I don’t read Latin. What does the motto on
your patch say?”

“
Deficio
est non an bene
. It’s the title of the autobiography of the famed NASA
Flight Director, Gene Kranz – Failure is not an option.”

“I
see. Sounds like a good idea.” He pointed toward the LC-39 pads. “Now, which of
these rockets will launch today?”

Jeff
raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t been here before, have you?”

“Uh,
no.”

“Okay.
Well, the one on the left, that’s 39B. The one on the right, 39A, is the one
we’ll be riding tomorrow.”

“Ah.
So, what is it you’re launching today?”

Jeff
raised both eyebrows. “Our EDS.”

“EDS?”

“Earth
Departure Stage. A booster. A very big booster.” He cleared his throat.
“Congressman, please forgive me for asking but, what are you doing on the Space
Subcommittee?”

He
grinned. “That’s probably a good question. I took the seat at Senator Landers’
suggestion. He thought it would be a good place for me to get my feet wet. And
Captain, that’s why I’m here, and why I’m asking questions.”

Jeff
nodded. “Alright, sir, fair enough.”

“I
also thought I might be in a good position to help if you encounter difficulties
and NASA needs to launch a rescue mission.”

Gabe
glanced around Jeff at the congressman, eyes wide. “Rescue mission?”

“Yes,
Dr. Frederick.” He shrugged. “If, for example, something goes wrong and you get
stranded on Mars.”

Jeff
looked at Gabe and rolled his eyes. “You want to explain it?”

She
nodded. “Congressman, the next launch window from Earth to Mars is in late
April, 2018. The soonest a mission could arrive would be early November, by
which time a rescue would be pointless, as all of us will have been dead for
five months.”

The
congressman appeared startled. “Why? You haven’t thought of this?”

Jeff
frowned. “Of course we’ve thought of it. But to last that long would require
another four tons of provisions, meaning we would have to leave four tons of
something else we need behind. Sir, there is a finite mass of… stuff, that we
can send to Mars. Congressman, we’ve been working on this for four years, I
can’t explain it all to you in ten minutes.”

The
congressman hung his head and nodded. “I guess I have to lot to learn.”

KSC
PAO, “T minus seven minutes and counting.
Ares
Juliett
is Go for
launch.”

“You
said ‘a very big booster’, Captain. How big?”

“Fully
fueled, 467,000 pounds.”

“And
how does that compare to other… boosters?”

Jeff
pointed his thumb behind them. “Sir, on your way in, did you see that Saturn V
downstairs?”

“Uh,
yes. Very impressive.”

“The
Apollo EDS was the S-IVB, the Saturn V’s third stage. The mass of this EDS is
57 tons more than an S-IVB
and
Apollo Command, Service, and Lunar modules…
combined.”

The congressman nodded. “Alright,
that’s big.”

“Yes sir.”

“Captain,
may I ask you one more question? Then I promise to leave you alone.”

“Shoot.”

“Why
two launches?”

“Actually,
eleven.”

“Huh?”

“This
is our tenth launch. Tomorrow will be our eleventh… and last.”

“Why
so many?”

“Because, sir, to pull
this mission off, we’re launching nearly 1.9 million pounds of payload,
including the five boosters necessary to get it all to Mars. Now, the Jupiter
rocket can lift an awful lot, but we were limited in terms of how many we could
build by the number of SSMEs available – Space Shuttle Main Engines. There were
sixteen left over from the shuttle era, and we’ve used all sixteen of them.
After that, all that’s available is conventional heavy lifters: Atlas V, Delta
IV, Falcon Heavy, and etcetera. Getting nearly a thousand tons of material into
Low Earth Orbit is neither easy nor cheap. It’s not as though we have an
elevator. Our transit ship actually required three launches. The first was our
space habitat – living quarters and provisions – that launched last November
and has been in orbit since then. Our EDS is launching this morning, and we,
along with our CSM, Command/Service Module, are launching tomorrow. That’s the
way it is because that’s the way it has to be. Limits of technology.”

“I
see. I didn’t know.”

“Oh,
and that doesn’t include the other three launches that weren’t ours: the two
MAVs from NASA, the greenhouse from the Europeans, and the joint Sino-Japanese
launch of the track loader/backhoe, which should prove useful, if it works.”

“If
it works?”

“Yes. On paper it looks like a
good idea, but we have concerns about reliability. It may require an awful lot
of work just to keep it running on Mars, and that level of maintenance effort
is not built into our flight plan.”

“What’s
the problem?”

“It
has a lot of hydraulics. That could be a problem in Mars’ environment. The
builders don’t think so, but we’re not so sure.”

“I’m
sorry, Captain, one last question. Why
Ares Juliett
?”

“Did you serve in the military,
sir?”

“No
I didn’t, a fact that I frequently regret.”

“Ah.
The phonetic alphabet goes Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf,
India, Juliett, Kilo, etcetera. ‘J’ or Juliett is the tenth letter of the
alphabet, and this is our tenth launch. Tomorrow’s launch is
Ares Kilo
.”

“Thank you for your time, Captain.
I sincerely appreciate it.”

“You’re
welcome, sir.”

KSC
PAO, “T minus four minutes and counting.
Ares
Juliett
is Go for
launch.”

Jeff
turned to Gabe and rolled his eyes.

She
smiled.

“How
are you doing?”

“I’m
nervous.”

“Yeah.”

They
stood silently for a minute staring across Banana Creek at the launch pad,
three and a quarter miles away.

KSC
PAO, “T minus three minutes and counting.
Ares
Juliett
is Go for
launch. SSME gimbal checks are complete, the main engines are now in their
start position, and the Ground Launch Sequencer is initiating external fuel
tank liquid oxygen pressurization.”

Jeff
felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced left to see Abby peeking around Gabe at
him. “How are you doing, boss?”

He
smiled nervously. “Okay, I think.”

She
nodded. “We’ve come a long way.”

“Yeah.”
Jeff glanced past her at Susan who stood, leaning against the railing, staring
east toward pad 39A. “What are you looking at? That’s not this morning’s
launch.”

Susan
sighed. “I know. But it’s not this morning’s launch that kept me awake all
night.”

He
stared at her for a moment, then looked at Gabe.

She
bit her lip, then whispered, “Me too.”

KSC
PAO, “T minus two minutes and counting. Go for launch.”

Jeff
glanced at his watch. “Looks like we’ll be right on time.”

Gabe
nodded.

He
looked east. “Nice day.”

“If
you start talking about the weather I’m going to smack you.”

“Okay,
sorry. Was there something else you’d like to talk about?”

She
slowly shook her head.

Jeff gave her a concerned glance
but said nothing. It suddenly occurred to him that watching this launch might
not have been such a good idea. For the next minute and a half Jeff felt like
he was fighting sleep apnea, constantly having to remind himself to breathe.

KSC PAO, “T minus 31 seconds, Go
for auto sequence start.”

Gabe grabbed his hand and
squeezed, hard.

Except for the KSC PAO’s voice
over the loudspeaker, the room was dead silent.

KSC PAO, “T minus 15 seconds, we
are Go for launch.”

Jeff stared intensely across the
creek and the brush and swamps of Merritt Island, and held his breath, again.

KSC PAO, “T minus 10 seconds, 9,
8, 7, main engine ignition…”

An enormous plume of steam
billowed southward from the base of the launch pad as the Jupiter-241’s four
main engines ignited and instantly vaporized tens of thousands of gallons of
sound suppression water.

“How long till the sound arrives?”

Gabe whispered, “15 seconds.”

KSC PAO, “… 2, 1, SRB ignition and
we have liftoff of
Ares Juliett
at 11:29:49 Eastern Daylight Time.”

A cloud of smoke belched northward
from the pad, exhaust from the SRBs reflecting from the flame trench.

Jeff saw it coming and heard Gabe
gasp as the sound pressure wave rippled across Banana Creek. When it struck, he
winced.

Six seconds later, the sound level
was punctuated with the addition of the roar from the SRBs. The building shook.
Gabe covered her ears with her hands, her jaw dropping.

Jeff stood in awe, frozen in
place, as the roar quickly approached its peak of 115 decibels and the Jupiter
cleared the tower. “Good god!” Shortly after clearing the tower, the Jupiter
began to roll, pitch and yaw, heading for its equatorial Low Earth Orbit. In a
minute, all that Jeff could see was the contrail. He glanced at Gabe. “Wow.”

She slowly removed her hands from
her ears, tightly closed her eyes and whispered, “I wish it had blown up.”

Jeff raised an eyebrow. He knew
she was scared, but only then did he realize just how scared. He didn’t even
wait for SRB separation, he just leaned around Gabe, glancing at Abby and
Susan. “Let’s get back to the O&C.”

They nodded.

Jeff quickly thanked the crowd and
made excuses about a busy day ahead, that weren’t really excuses, and ushered
his team toward the waiting van.

As they climbed in, Molly said,
“Did you want to stop by the Firing Rooms again.”

Jeff shook his head. “Later. Just
get us back to the O&C, please.”

During the 15-minute drive back
down to the KSC Industrial Area, not a word was said.

As they exited the
van, Jeff said,
“Would y’all come with me?” He led them upstairs and
into the O&C astronaut lounge. “Have a seat.” They all took seats around a
small table. Jeff sighed and tapped his fingernails on the table. “I think it’s
time we had a little chat.” He glanced at each of the women in turn. None of
them met his eyes. He was pretty sure they knew what he was thinking. “Abby,
yesterday at the beach house you said it’s not too late, that we could still
forget the whole thing and go lay on beach in Bermuda.”