by Jim Melanson
Man had gone from Terra to the Moon, but never ventured farther. Conspiracy theorists surmised humans were warned off by aliens, but in fact it was merely economics and the lack of political will; or so I thought. As this was a private corporation and not a political entity, political will was not a factor. All that remained would be funding.
I guess the thing that really drove me the most was that I was a sci-fi fan since childhood. In saying that, most sci-fi involves Earthlings becoming an interplanetary species. I remembered old movie classics like Mission To Mars, Journey to the 7th Planet, Kronos, Buck Rogers (the original, and the remake with Gil Gerard). These, and many others made childhood exciting, with dreams and imaginings of incredible adventures beyond the bounds of Earth’s orbit. As an adult, shows like Firefly, Andromeda, and Farscape fueled my imagination. Perhaps the most powerful one for me was Star Trek. The crew of the good ship Enterprise, on its five-year mandate to explore strange new worlds. As much as these fictional stories and characters drove my imagination, and were probably the fuel cell for my desire to go, there were also the very grown-up and practical considerations of my adult mind.
The only way we were going to be an interplanetary species was if we went to another planet, period.
Someone had to get off their lazy ass and go. Someone had to make the first step. Someone had to step up. That was going to be me: I was going to step up. Besides, I knew in my heart that if I was selected to go to Mars, it would be because God intended me to go: and that would be enough confirmation for me that it was the right thing to do. No matter what challenges, dangers, and difficulties I faced, I had full confidence walking with the Lord at my side. American astronaut Col. Mike Good seems to have expanded upon wartime columnist Ernie Pyle when he said, “They say there are no atheists in foxholes, but there are probably no atheists in rockets”.
It was time for humanity as a species to move forward. It was time to take another giant leap off of Neil Armstrong’s “small step for man”. We were going to move forward by standing on the shoulders of giants like Alan Shepard, Neil Armstrong, and Yuri Gagarin. It was time for humans to begin their interplanetary existence. Sign me up.
Jayden’s Pitch
“We had a visit from the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs a few days ago. The Minister himself came to see us. He wanted to express some concerns about the Corporation’s plan. Why this is coming five years into the program, we can’t say for sure, but it’s something we have to deal with.”
Jayden adjusted his seating, looked at Hamish and Clarissa, and then continued on.
“Bottom line Mike, is that they want to shut us down. The Minister said we were recklessly endangering human life, and that there was no proof any of our technology, or any of our systems would get a person safely to Mars; and if it did, he had very little doubt they would perish from system failure in a very short time. He says that unless we abandon this project ourselves, or at least scale it back to a research project, his Ministry was going to shut us down.”
I was shocked. I had given up my entire former life for this, and here Jayden was telling me it was for naught. “Isn’t this exactly why you spent so much money lobbying for the changes to the Outer Space Treaty?”
“The Minister isn’t claiming primacy of the space endeavour; they are going to shut us down for more mundane violations. He didn’t specify which, but it doesn’t really matter. They are the government of the country in which we reside. They can do whatever they want. Legal department has assured me that yes, they can shut us down for just about any reason they want to; but we would have a very good chance of having that overturned by the courts.”
I smiled.
“Unless the government issues a parliamentary decree that is notwithstanding the court’s ruling.”
The smile faded.
“Fighting this would be successful in the long run, but our chief advocate says it could be tied up for as long as the government wants to tie it up. It could be tied up for years. He also said that we should find out what is really behind this move by the Minister.”
Until now, the Swedish government had been fully behind us. They were proud we were based there, and happy to ride the publicity coat tails. What Jayden was telling me was coming as a shock, and a surprise.
“We know the Americans, the Chinese, the French, and the Russians are all actively pursuing a Mars colony program, but they are pursuing it with a ‘return the crew’ mentality; they are not committed to one-way voyages. The board has been talking about this, and we believe that one of these governments is behind the move by our Minister. Only the Chinese or the Americans have the clout to do this, but even still, Sweden has always been a neutral power, so we still can’t figure out why they are playing along.
“We did corner his Excellency on one important point though; we got him to agree that if we could offer irrefutable proof that a human colony could survive on Mars, they would then remove the barriers. He expressly agreed that given irrefutable proof, the government would not stand in the way. For now though, they said we both scale down operations and give up the plans to go to Mars, or they would come in and shut us down.”
I was stunned. I sipped my coffee and looked at Jayden. Everything I was working for and wanted, was being taken away. The “man” was going to step in and screw things for the little guy. Part of me wanted to cry; part of me wanted to hit something. Clarissa started to talk, but I got up and walked over to the coffee maker. I poured another coffee, turned and waved the pot at them. Hamish lifted his cup. I topped it up, and then returned the coffee pot, setting it down a little too hard - but not hard enough to break it. I added some powdered Coffee Mate (I preferred it over cream or milk in preparation for a 100 million mile trip to the corner store), and went back to the table. I sat down, looked at Jayden and said, “Go on.”
“We’ve come up with an idea to work around this. To be honest Mike, it’s illegal given the Minister’s direction, it could get us thrown in prison, and it all hinges” he paused, “On you”.
“Me?” Suddenly confused I said, “Why me?”
Jayden set his pen down, leaned forward in his chair, tented his fingers in front of him and said, “Mike. I need you, we need you,” He paused, took a deep breath and continued, “We need you to go to Mars alone. We need you to go as a proof of concept mission. We need to do this in secret; you need to leave in twenty weeks, and we need to start today.”
May 1st, 2018 09:06 GMT: Mission Time 29 Hours, 12 Minutes
I looked over all the readings in front of me for the umpteenth time. I had been sitting here patiently for hours. I didn’t really have to “do” anything now that the Lander had docked nose first with the Command Module. Still though, I couldn’t enter the Command Module again until after the Trajectory Engines finished their trajectory burn. I had been in it once after the turn around, I had to power it up and make sure all the life support systems were working; and I had to run a local hardwired diagnostics program. Everything was good to go. After shutting down the non-critical systems, I floated back to the Lander and resealed both hatches. I turned my flight couch in the opposite direction, so I would be facing relative forward when the Trajectory Engines fired for the transit orbit insertion, and the eventual trajectory burn.
Getting me to Mars was a little more complicated than the old Apollo missions. In the last twenty weeks the Corporation had prepped, loaded, and lifted six supply missions; all successfully launched, and then sent on their way to Mars in the last two weeks. The two Habitats had gone two months ago, along with the AtmoGen plant, all in separate launches and transit profiles. Those systems were still six months from landing, and if there was a problem with them, it would be pucker time.
I had to travel to LEO (Low Earth Orbit) with another supply mission. My Lander piggybacked the supply mission on top of a Boeing Delta IV Heavy. The last-minute nature (yes, 20 weeks is very last-minute in the space program), and rush of this mission had caused the need for some c
reative and outside the box thinking. It also required our mostly silent benefactors in pulling some strings, and I’m sure, doing some leaning on people and businesses.
I was riding right now, in the Lander which was also the nose cone of the supply mission, which had been carried up by the last of the Delta IV Heavy launches. We were using the Dragon Lab 5, from the Falcon Corporation, as the Lander. It was roomier, a full metre wider than Dragon Lab 2. It had been modified heavily, of course, to land on Mars. We couldn’t use a simple parachute retrieval in the ocean because: a.) there are presently no oceans on Mars, and b.) there was no one on Mars to retrieve me from the ocean, had an ocean presently existed on the red planet.
This version of the Dragon Lab 5 had been modified with a proper airlock and a three stage RAD (Rocket Assisted Descent) assembly to keep the capsule from crashing into the surface while under parachute. The airlock had been installed because once on Mars, the Lander was going to be my lifeboat in case anything happened to the Habitats. Because this was going to be an option for an extended mission, they also did a last-minute installation of an enclosed Head in the Lander, opposite the airlock. I guess the Head also served to balance out the weight profile of the craft.
The Lander was on top of the PDV (Payload Delivery Vehicle). The PDV was basically a big tin can that you could put stuff in. It also had a parachute, and RAD system - but it was a big tin can; so it had bigger parachutes, and a bigger set of landing rockets. The PDV also had a set of Trajectory Engines to get it into Geosynchronous Transit Orbit (GTO), and then on its way to Mars from High Earth Orbit (HEO). The PDV was the standard supply delivery system the Corporation was using for supplies and equipment to Mars, this one was just a bit bigger. Each of those flights to Mars cost approximately US$185 million. Its useable internal size was just over 3 metres in diameter, and almost 6.8 metres in length. It was the largest payload system ever launched that was capable of landing on a planet. The composite MTV (Mars Transit Vehicle) was larger; however, the MTV could not land, so I guess it was semantics.
I’m afraid I may be making something complicated, seem overly simplified; but it really was quite complicated. Personally, I think it was more amazing that we went at all, rather than just that we went. How everything was pulled together was a salute to human ingenuity, dedication, perseverance, and American intimidation. The rush to get this Mission on its way was what had made it more complicated than it needed to be; but when someone else takes you to a dance, you don’t usually get to choose the music. It was far more complicated than a routine supply and colony mission would be in the future, as future missions would not have the US Air Force having any sway over them … we hoped. For today, however, they did have a stake in this particular launch, yet oddly no stake in our colony mission itself. Future supply and colony missions would only need the Falcon Heavy; they wouldn’t need the Delta IV Heavy.
Getting the mission on the road had five parts to it. First we had to get all the necessary parts (Payload Delivery Vehicle, Lander, Command Module, Support Module, and two sets of Trajectory Engines) into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Second step was to re-assemble the parts in the right order. Third step was to enter a Geosynchronous Transit Orbit (GTO), to get the two flights to a High Earth Orbit (HEO). Fourth step was re-alignment and orientation for the final trajectory burn. Finally, the fifth step would be the trajectory burn itself, which would accelerate the PDV and then the MTV into coplanar heliocentric (around the sun) orbital trajectories: delivering us to the red planet. Not surprisingly, it was the fourth step - the re-alignment and orientation - that was the most critical and sensitive part of this process.
As I said, the first part of this was getting all the necessary parts into LEO. This required three separate launches from Vandenberg. The third launch was the Lander on top of the Payload Delivery Vehicle (with one set of Trajectory Engines). This launch was brought to LEO by a Delta IV Heavy. The second launch was for the oddly large Support Module, also lifted by a Delta IV Heavy (I should point out here, that both of the Delta IV Heavy rockets and launches were secretly paid for by the U.S. government). The first launch had been the other set of Trajectory Engines and the Command Module or more precisely, the living module. This first launch was lifted to LEO by the Falcon Heavy. This Command Module is where I would spend all of my time while in transit to the red planet.
The order of the launches facilitated the second step, the re-assembly of the Mars Transit Vehicle (MTV) components. The Lander, the Command Module, and the Support Module were, collectively, the MTV.
The Trajectory Engines were like a mini-version of the Falcon Heavy. It was just the nine Merlin engines and fuel tanks in an open framework (no cowling). The fuel tanks only burned for five minutes and the Trajectory Engines didn’t have to lift anything off the ground. This allowed the fuel tanks to be significantly smaller than the original, but the engines were no less powerful. This Trajectory Engine only had to get us out of HEO, and up to speed. Mass, momentum, Newtonian physics, and a properly calculated heliocentric transfer orbit would get us to Mars. While the whole Mars Transit Vehicle had significant mass, it had very little gravity to overcome from High Earth Orbit. Naturally, there was also no atmospheric drag to compensate for either.
The Support Module had to be a separate launch because of its size. Its surprising size was due to the U.S. Air Force, and hence why the U.S. Government paid for it, but more on that later. After all three sections were in LEO, they had to be “reconfigured”. This was when I might have the opportunity to do the only real bit of “flying” I was going to do in the mission. The computer made it way easy, but I still had to punch some buttons (just call me Yorick). I had a joystick for manoeuvring so that the human luggage could take over in case the computer failed, but it didn’t.
After I attained LEO in the third launch, I spent half a day waiting for the orbits of the three lifts to get into close proximity. It was a relief when the orbits synchronized, and the Delta IV Heavy’s cowling was jettisoned. We could now separate the Lander from the top of the PDV. The Mission plan had programmed a few hours during this time for me to get some sleep, but really, would you have slept?
After separating from the PDV, the Lander used manoeuvring rockets to move forward about forty feet, turning one hundred and eighty degrees, so the nose of the Lander was oriented to the rear. Small thruster rockets moved the Lander fifty feet to the port side of the PDV. This all happened as the other half of the reconfiguration was taking place.
The Command Module (the first launch), had the Support Module (the second launch), approaching it from behind. As retrorockets on the top end of the Command Module fired short bursts to slow it down; the Support Module fired manoeuvring rockets and attitude rockets to align the two immense bodies. Over the space of about an hour, the two modules drew closer and closer together until finally, in a minutely controlled ballet of retrorockets, attitude rockets, and manoeuvring rockets; they hard docked together. The mechanical male/female connection points fit together perfectly. The internal mechanics of the hard dock points immediately drew the two Modules tightly together, becoming inseparable. There was an airlock collar that also aligned between the two, so that I could enter the Support Module if necessary. With much breath holding, and a really big collective sigh afterwards, this docking and connection of the two modules went flawlessly.
As this ballet in space was playing out, the PDV, with the Lander as a sidekick, travelled abreast of the partially assembled MTV. Then it was my turn to join up. The Lander used thrusters and attitude rockets to move another four hundred and fifty feet to port from the PDV, putting it directly in front of the Command Module. With some more minutely controlled firing of retrorockets, attitude rockets, manoeuvring rockets, and a bit of breath holding; the Lander flawlessly hard docked with the Command Module, nose first. The nose of the Lander contained the pressurized tunnel that would allow me to move back and forth between the Command Module and the Lander.
The Command
Module and the Support Module made up the MTV proper (Mars Transit Vehicle). The Lander was considered part of the MTV; operationally it was just really big luggage on the roof-rack. The MTV is where I would live for the next eight and a half months, rarely entering the Lander prior to descent day. Once all three sections were securely joined, and remote system checks performed, I entered the MTV Command Module to do the full system power-up, local status checks, and then return to the Lander for the GTO burn.
An hour after the in-orbit assembly finished, the PDV and the MTV had a small burn on the Trajectory Engines to put both rockets into an elliptical GTO (Transfer Orbit). A few short hours later, and we were coming up on the GTO apogee. The point of apogee was in High Earth Orbit, and it was from there that we would have the final burn of the Trajectory Engines to get us on our way to Mars.
The transfer orbit burn had been eleven hours ago. After the gentle GTO burn, I was nothing but a tourist again for those eleven hours. I went back into the Command Vehicle to give everything the once over, a second and a third time. I also spent an embarrassing amount of time in the zero gravity doing somersaults, spins, playing with my floating flashlight, and then a small box of Smarties. I had put the Smarties in my flight suit’s pant leg pocket, expressly for this reason. Yes, I ate the red ones last. My mind had ample time to wander, as I floated there; counting down the remaining Smarties, counting down the remaining minutes until I left Terra forever. Such a moment of mental freedom was something of a novelty after the last twenty weeks of non-stop effort.
As I floated there amidst the few remaining Smarties, said red ones, a big smile erupted on my face. I had a flash of Loreena, clapping her hands and smiling, showing nothing but joy and happiness for me. I guess I was lucky that most of my memories of her were good ones. Floating serenely in the silence, I unzipped the breast pocket on my fight suit and pulled out the small plastic folder. I flipped it open and gazed with fondness, and longing at her picture: My red-headed Amazon. She was 193 cm tall, almost 11 cm taller than me. She looked back at me, her soft green eyes peeking out from under her flowing red curly hair; the wild hair that she refused to tie up, falling down over her shoulders; over her one shoulder white dress; she was as radiant in the picture as she had been in person. That picture, taken on our wedding day, in the back of the limo, showed us very happy and very much in love. It was how we lived almost every day, almost. With the military assistance in getting us on the way to Mars, it was natural I would think of her at that moment. She had served most of her career as an Interdiction Specialist on the Restigouche class destroyer HMCS Terra Nova. Loreena spent her last year instructing future officers in Interdiction tactics at the Royal Military College of Canada. That she had been such a fearless and effective warrior, a truth supported by her nightmare screams; the way she died was beyond tragic - it was just stupid. That son-of-a-bitch just had to stop off for a cold one after work. I put that thought of my head, I needed to focus. I gave the picture a soft kiss, and then put it back in my pocket, over my heart.