by Eric Flint
He nodded once more, to tell Jackie to continue. Gupta liked to distribute explanations among all his engineers, rather than be the sole source of information.
"Publicity," Jackie said. "This project is going to get rammed through no matter what people think, but the better we can make it look, the better it will go over. And the ship itself is going to be one of our biggest advertisements. We want everyone who's got a shred of imagination to be able to visualize themselves aboard her. And . . . well, some of them would balk at a spaceship that looked like it was put together with an Erector set, even if it was perfectly safe and practical."
Ken looked up. "Believe me, I'm not complaining. That, my friends, is a ship. We've been sending out little rowboats up until now, but this time we are going in style. Does she have to be quite that large, and can she be that large—that is, can she be built that large fast enough?"
"Well, like we said, diameterwise the living quarters have to go out that far. The rest of the body is actually—relatively speaking— easy to build. It's going to be mostly storage space for equipment and consumables, and of course the main drive systems. Currently we have plans for one reusable orbiter/lander to be carried along, depending on our cargo capacity—we're going to want to bring a hell of a lot of instrumentation and analysis equipment to Phobos, so I don't know how much spare capacity we'll have."
She pointed to another part of the image. "The habitat ring will have some small attitude drives on it. The leverage advantage will allow you to adjust direction, or spin up the ship, efficiently from that point. But most of the drives, both main and secondary, will be on the main body. It's not something you can whip up in your garage, no, but the real complexities will be in designing the living spaces to hold the people, give us all lots of flexibility in what we see and do and where we can go during months in space. Even after we get to Phobos, it's going to be quite a while before we can live there. So I figure we've got to have living space that'll be comfortable for at least a year or two. Even with the rotation shuttle idea."
Ares' engineers, following up on their own designs, had pointed out that once they got several return modules sitting on Mars, they could easily set them up to return to Phobos and then continue to Earth. That would make it possible to literally keep up a rotation of people on Phobos Base, with people spending a few months to a year on Phobos and then ending up back on Earth in a few months. The returning launches of supplies could be alternated with replacement personnel, keeping Phobos Base fully staffed.
This was a far preferable alternative than to have to use Nike to go back and forth. Nike's vast power and resources were much more likely to be needed at Phobos. NASA had agreed with the basic concept, but added that the proper design approach should allow them to have reusable vessels which could act as orbital ferries. The first of these would be produced for Nike to take with her to Phobos; others would follow.
"Six engines? Are we talking about six like the prototype? Six million pounds of thrust?"
"And with a delta-vee of about twelve KPS."
"Holy . . ."
"That makes her mass ratio about four to one—3.89 and a smidge, actually," Jackie continued smugly. "Basically, if we take the trajectory we intend to, you'll be starting with about two KPS extra delta-vee. We wanted a lot of safety margin in there. Until we get safely established and the Ares processes kick in, there's no refueling for us."
"But why the hell so overpowered? I'd think a tenth that thrust would be enough. More than enough."
"Oh, undoubtedly." Jackie laughed. "It's overkill, sure—if our purpose was simply to move Nike from Point A to Point B. But this is also another political maneuver to satisfy at least three different purposes."
"Three . . ." Ken studied the design. "I get it. The five exterior engines and reactors can be unshipped, can't they?"
"Give the man a cookie. Exactly. Take them all off and Nike still has one big-ass engine that's a bit of overkill, but a little extra power never hurt anyone. The NERVA fanboys and fangirls, of which I confess to being one, wanted to play around with possible nuclear rocket landers. With Mars' weaker gravity and no real environment to worry about, it's an ideal test location for things like that. More importantly, separate nuclear reactors of that size offer the chance to have a lot of power—and even redundant power—available on Mars or Phobos. It's also a showoff maneuver. Nike will be a powerful ship, and we can design the ship to take that level of stress."
"In addition," Gupta chimed in, "if one such engine is sufficient for a vessel such as Nike, consider: We have here the chance to get several such engines built and sent into space. But only now—only now. The political winds are fickle, are they not? If we already have the engines—nuclear engines, which are the sort most likely to cause fear and caution to delay the launch—it makes it much, much more likely that additional large interplanetary vessels will be built. Would it not be desirable to have several Nikes, several large research and exploration vessels, while we indeed have the chance?"
"I see. Very clever, Doctors. Build a really impressive ship and put in incentives to build more just like her." A broad grin spread across Ken's face as he contemplated the possibilities.
"Sooo . . . if I floor her, am I going to make everyone black out?"
Gupta's rich laugh rolled out. "Alas, I feel that this is extremely unlikely. We are using nuclear reactors, which have so very much shielding, and must have multiple redundancies and failsafes, and are taking so very, very many people and equipment . . . Were we using Orion, ah, then we could promise to give you accelerations of such magnitude. But I do not believe, even with our best efforts, that we could give you much more than a gravity or so, even when the vessel is nearly empty. Still, when you do, as you say, 'floor her,' I guarantee that it will be felt by all aboard, and felt for quite some time."
To a space engineer or astronaut, these were numbers that weren't seen in real life; they were fantasies. Oh, Ken knew that any science fiction buff could dream of a "reactionless" drive that allowed one to tool about the solar system as if driving a car. But in real life a "burn"—the firing of an engine—was measured in seconds, the change in speed in a few hundred meters per second, and the transition from one planet to another measured in many, many months.
To save weight and space, energy and thrust budgets were worked out to the greatest precision possible. A spacecraft was generally hoped to arrive at its destination with just a tiny bit of reserve left in its fuel tanks for final positioning, as every ounce of fuel taken to the destination was an ounce of payload wasted.
The "mass ratio" was perhaps the most telling statistic. It was the ratio of the mass of the fuelled ship compared to the mass of the "dry," or unfueled, ship. By way of comparison, a chemical-fueled ship with the same "delta-vee"—which meant the potential to change the velocity of the ship, the power to speed up and slow down, measured in absolute total speed change—of twelve kilometers per second would have a mass ratio of fourteen or more.
Colonel Hathaway was pretty sure his face now looked like that of a child at Christmas. Jackie and Gupta both smiled back at him.
"You seem to approve," Jackie said finally. "Then would you like to get into details? We've got a lot to cover in this overview."
"Yes, please!"
Chapter 24
"It's been a few months, now. Still having no problems?" asked Hughes. The Director of the HIA leaned back a little further in his chair. Since the swivel chair was something of an antique, it creaked a bit ominously.
Madeline shook her head. "That would be putting it too optimistically. On the positive side, everyone associated with NASA for any length of time takes it for granted that someone will be assigned to do security. So having me show up was expected, even though I think they're still sometimes startled at the extent of my authority. But that's probably working in my favor. I have a pleasant personality and knowing they don't have to wade through the usual security-inquadruplicate suits them just fine."
Hughes smiled. "'Pleasant personality.' So modest! Madeline, I believe I could drop you into a mob of devils in the Pit and you'd have them fawning all over you inside of a week. I assume the problems you're hinting at are coming from the non-NASA people. Of whom, unfortunately or not, we have a considerable influx. Many of them aren't even U.S. citizens, unlike the Ares crowd."
Madeline returned the smile. "Actually, the foreigners—so far, at least—are less cantankerous than some of the Ares people. A.J. Baker, in particular, has somewhat mystical notions concerning the spiritual essence of information."
"Ah, yes. The innate yearning for liberty possessed by data bytes. I've always wondered what Plato or Kant would make of that, from a philosophical standpoint."
"Plato would say that the actual information is a pale shadow of the Real Truth, so who cares if it gets suppressed? And if you can figure out two sentences of Kant, you're way ahead of me."
Hughes chuckled. "What about the other leading Ares figures? Friedet and Buckley, I mean."
"Friedet's practical enough. I've had no problems with him and don't foresee any. In any event, he won't be going on the voyage, so it almost doesn't matter. The real security problems will come after Nike reaches Phobos."
"True. That means Baker and Buckley. Baker is something of a given. I assume you've already figured out how to handle him if necessary."
Madeline nodded.
"And Buckley?"
"Joe?" Madeline considered. "He's less radical than his friend, but he's also the considered action sort. I think he's much more likely to follow along with rules so long as they don't violate some threshold of his, but if he decided to act would do so with a carefully worked-out plan. His apparent predisposition toward spectacular accidents appears to have made him more cautious when he does take action. Baker will act like the hero in a bad 'genius against wicked government' movie, which makes him easy to predict. I would actually be more concerned with Dr. Gupta."
"Due to foreign influence? Indian government ties?"
"Rather the opposite," Madeline contradicted. "He's certainly not someone who rejects his country of origin or its cultural traditions, but he seems firmly committed to his work and to the country he's become a naturalized citizen of since he emigrated. But his younger record is of a man with very techno-anarchistic leanings, and I do not think he has changed much in that regard. If he thinks information is being overcontrolled, he is not only capable of considering action, but as the chief designer and engineer of Nike, will be in a better position than just about anyone except possibly Baker to arrange information leakage without anyone catching him at it. Jackie Secord . . . I find her harder to read. Because of her longstanding and close association with Baker and Buckley, I have to keep her in mind as another potential risk. On the other hand, she's been with NASA for several years now and is accustomed to working under tight security restraints. And it's become clear to me that, at least on political issues, she doesn't share many of Baker and Buckley's attitudes. Especially Baker's."
"Do you think any of these people are security risks in general, or just risks of informational leaking?"
"Oh, the latter. I really don't think anyone on the project poses any sort of general security risk. The least enthusiastic people involved see it as a good job; the most enthusiastic are essentially religious about space travel. The problem isn't patriotism; not even with Baker, notwithstanding his penchant for making outlandish remarks on the subject. It's simply that—like most scientists—they chafe at the idea of knowledge being locked up. That problem is compounded, of course, with those of the scientists who aren't even American to begin with."
"Yes, naturally. What about Glendale?"
Glendale's addition to the staff of the Project had been something of a surprise, given that Helen Sutter had taken the xenobiological slot. "I was concerned about him at first, sir. We have little leverage of any legal sort we could use on him, especially with his reputation and high visibility. But, fortunately, it looks like he will be remaining on Earth, which means that he won't get access to the raw data at all. He will probably continue to be the project's science liaison—a position he's admirably suited for and which allows him to directly participate without going into space. Which he may be physically questionable for, even if he wanted to go, simply because of his age."
"I trust you had no problems with qualifying?"
"No. My official tolerances are well within range. I did my own orbital this week, in fact."
"What sort of indications do we have on what we might expect out of the venture? Anything more concrete?"
"Several things. Some of the materials the aliens used are clearly superior to ours in a number of areas. We're trying some reverse engineering, but if it's microstructure more than composition that makes it work we probably won't be able to actually derive the formula by remote sensors. Baker is confident that we'll get better stealth and screening materials, at least. Possibly stronger alloys for some purposes, and a number of nanotechnological hints which could be very useful. Their larger equipment he's not sure of. It will depend on how well we can study it without breaking something."
"What about the weapon?"
"The side arm was a disappointment. It isn't really all that different from our own weapons. But perhaps there are some things in which applying higher technology is mostly a waste."
She glanced through the notes showing in her VRD. "Overall, I would say that our original assessment holds. There is so much potential to learn in that base that we will almost certainly find something there which is of military significance. More likely many things."
The director sat up straight. "All right. All in all, everything sounds like it's going well, to me. Anything else to raise? Any other possible problems?"
"No, not that I can think of."
Madeline spent most of the flight back to Albuquerque staring out the window. Pointless, that, in a way, since night had already fallen and there was nothing much to see beyond the moon over cloud banks. But she found staring at nothing helped her focus her thoughts.
Doing her work while they were still here on Earth had been easy for her. It was going to be a lot harder in space. The most difficult task she'd face would be finding a method to arrange secure control as well as secure communications on a ship where there would be limited space, limited supplies, and every resource supposedly accounted for. That was going to require a number of tactics, all of which carried some element of risk.
She wasn't, of course, concerned about physical danger. Her mission wasn't likely to run into that level of threat. Even if it did, she had no doubt she could handle the matter. She was simply concerned at the risk of failure itself.
At first, she had thought it might turn out to be simple. The initial crew had all been American and, as such, subject to American laws. More important, in practice, was that half of them were military and the other half were civilians long accustomed to working in NASA's normal high-security environment. Unfortunately, with Nike being drastically enlarged, various political forces both at home and abroad had seen the opportunity to either enhance the international reputation of the United States or take advantage of it. Or both, for that matter.
Most of the expansion had involved bringing in scientists who were not in the least accustomed to considering security as an aspect of their work—a paleontologist, two linguists, several planetologists, and so on and so forth. Even many of the engineers added had been, from a NASA standpoint, outsiders. The military component of the crew was now fairly small—probably not more than one-fifth, when all was settled. Fortunately, those would all be Americans except for the Australian pilot, Bruce Irwin.
To make the situation still more difficult, a number of slots on the crew, about thirty percent, had been allotted to scientists or engineers to be selected from other countries. These people, obviously, were not subject to following the United States' rules and procedures with respect to security. Some of them, in fact, woul
d be doing their level best to send as much information as possible back home.