Back to the Moon

by Travis S. Taylor

  The room remained silent for another minute as all who had held their breath released it and erupted in smiles. Spontaneous applause broke out and then almost everyone in the room stood up so that they could clap even louder.

  “Alright!” Chow heard one of his colleagues a few chairs to his right proclaim. “America’s back on the Moon. No more boring robotic landers and ridiculous rovers. By God, we’re going to put boots in that dirt!”

  Chow smiled and nodded in agreement but was lost in his own thoughts at the moment—his boot steps would be among the first ones back there. His feet would be on the Moon sometime within the next year. The bad dream didn’t even cross his mind.…

  Chapter 6

  “Paul, come in.” Gary Childers sat back and propped his feet up on his desk. The Bluetooth earbud on his left ear was blinking. Gary touched the side of the apparatus and motioned for him to wait a second and to have a seat. Paul Gesling looked around the office and saw the video-teleconference monitor was on. The familiar red hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and ever-cheerful face of Caroline O’Conner was smiling back at him from the other side of the digital screen. He smiled and waved back.

  “Hi, Paul. Looking forward to seeing you two out here tomorrow,” she said.

  “Right. I’m taking my trainer out this afternoon and should fly in sometime tonight.” Paul sat down and angled his chair where he could see both Gary and Caroline. Caroline was the media-relations liaison, public-relations expert, and general all-around marketing guru for Space Excursions. “What’s this about?”

  “Not sure. He called this a bit ago, but my BlackBerry doesn’t show a subject for the meeting.” She shrugged.

  “Okay. I guess we wait.” Paul turned and watched Childers, who was rocking back and forth in his chair and talking a mile a minute about buying something short. Paul guessed there was a broker on the other end. Finally, Childers tapped his earbud and hung up the phone.

  “Paul, glad I caught you before you left for the airport.” Paul grunted and nodded. “Caroline, is everything set up for the press conference tomorrow?”

  “Yes, sir. No hitches as far as I can tell.”

  “Very good. We need to talk about our demeanor tomorrow. Not sure if you two have had time to watch, but NASA just did the automated landing on the lunar surface.” Gary looked over at Paul and then at Caroline. Paul guessed it was to judge his reaction. As far as Paul was concerned, he didn’t really care. If he had sixteen billion dollars a year, he was certain that he could land a pickup truck, a marching band, a full-fledged circus, and a swimming pool equipped with synchronized swimmers right in the middle of the Sea of Tranquility. He wasn’t that impressed. Apparently, his expression showed it.

  “That right there, Paul. That expression! You can’t make that face when NASA and the Moon missions are brought up.” Childers didn’t frown at him, but he didn’t smile, either.

  “I understand what this is about,” Caroline said. “We’ve talked about this, Paul. No matter how you feel about NASA and how they are performing their mission, we must show unified and enthusiastic support for it. We cannot afford to look like naysayers, pessimists, or anti-space in any way. It will hurt us and everything we’ve worked for.”

  “What? I wouldn’t say anything.”

  “Paul, just stop. We’re not accosting you for your opinion.” Gary held up his hand and started in. “Hell, I agree with you. The best success NASA has had since Apollo has been unmanned. Oh, sure, the shuttles were successful, at flying up and down and round and round in low Earth orbit. The public doesn’t really care, or we’d still have shuttles. And all these stupid little robotic controlled rovers rolling around on Mars? Give me a break.”

  “Gary,” Caroline said, “The Pathfinder/Sojourner was a great public relations success for NASA. We studied it in graduate school. The thing had over a million hits a day to the mission Web site for the first couple of weeks.”

  “Nonsense.” Gary laughed.

  “It is a fact, Gary. You can look that up.”

  “Oh, hell, I know it is a fact. The nonsense part is that the million hits meant a damned thing. How many kids are in the public-school system in the U.S.? Hmm? Do you know that statistic?” Gary tapped his knuckles on his desk when he asked.

  “Uh, no, Gary. I don’t.” Caroline looked perplexed, as if she didn’t see the relevance.

  “Well, I do. I’ve studied this industry long and hard. The public doesn’t give a damn about the robot rovers. The so-called success was due to every science teacher in every public school having the fifty-four million students in the U.S. log on to the Web and write a homework essay about it. That is how the thing got so many hits. And clearly, less than one fiftieth of the students managed to do this. But the fact that the hits lasted a couple weeks probably accounts for a lot of them.” Gary wrapped his knuckles against the desk with each point he made.

  “I agree with Gary on this. And look where they chose to land!” Paul finally joined in. “They landed in the desert, for God’s sake. You know what the official NASA mission description for the rover mission was? Rhetorical question. Don’t answer. I can tick them off one at a time. Let’s see…Number one, to prove that the development of faster, better, and cheaper spacecraft is possible for a cost under one hundred and fifty million dollars. Number two, to show that it is possible to send a load of scientific instruments to another planet with a simple system and at one fifteenth the cost of the Viking missions. Those damned things were just under a billion dollars back in the seventies. And number three, to demonstrate NASA’s commitment to low-cost planetary exploration by finishing the mission with a total cost of under like three hundred million dollars or so, I forget the exact number. Oh, and that was including the launch vehicle and mission operations. Do you see anything exciting in that? Oh, and by the way, land in the desert so there will be no way that anything exciting will be found.”

  “This is good stuff, Paul. What else? What about the desert?” Gary asked. Caroline just shook her head at the both of them.

  “Well, they landed in the desert, right? What do kids want to find in space? What do old people want to find? What does everybody want to find? Aliens! Everybody wants to see aliens, dammit all to hell. Don’t lie and say you don’t.”

  “Uh, Paul,” Caroline muttered.

  “Let him finish, Caroline.”

  “So, nobody really believes we’d find aliens on Mars, but what about life? We might find life. At least water, which everybody wants to believe is the key to finding life. Any kid with a good pair of binoculars can look at Mars on a clear night and tell you where you should land your spaceship if you want to find water.” Paul looked around to see if they understood him. The businessman and the marketing major didn’t seem to get it. So he told them. “The polar ice cap. There is an ice cap on Mars. Oh, some of the planetary guys will tell you that it is all dry ice, but others will tell you that it can’t be all dry ice. Some of it must be water. The odds are at least better that we’d find water at the edge of the ice cap, where it meets the desert, rather than in the middle of the bone-dry desert! The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Phoenix, the Opportunity, all of them saw evidence of water. The MRO took pictures of what looked like lakes, the Opportunity took pictures of puddles of water, and the Phoenix actually had water drops form on it and the camera sent back images of the droplets running down the structure on the thing. But how many people in the general public know that? NASA’s PR people suck.”

  “You about done, Paul?” Gary smiled at him. “If you need me to, I can get Burt Rutan on the phone, and you and he can go off on NASA and how they screwed us out of going to space. It would be therapeutic for both of you.”

  “What?” Paul was surprised. “I thought you were on my side.”

  “Paul, I’m on the side of my company making a whole bunch of money,” Gary said, not really tongue-in-cheek. “And if it means we need to cheerlead for NASA for a while, then that is the side I’m on. I don’t real
ly care if they have done what they should’ve done in the past. They are what they are, and they are the nation’s space agency. We are a space company. Therefore, all things space are good! Sis boom bah! Rah rah rah!” Gary waved his arms like he was wielding pom-poms.

  “So, what are we saying?” Paul asked.

  “Don’t be so slow, Captain.” Caroline smiled at him. “This is marketing, Paul. We have to market ourselves positively. Negative campaigns are never as successful as positive ones. All things space are positive. They must be. From now on.”

  “You understand us, Paul? I let you vent for a while. That’s good sometimes. But it must be done in private. Now, forget about all that and start studying the cool things, the unique things, the amazing things that NASA has done and is doing. They are sending four people to the Moon within a year from now. That is pretty damned amazing.”

  “I see,” Paul said, still not really seeing.

  “Make sure you do, Paul,” Caroline added. “Thinking about the cool things when you discuss NASA will change that expression on your face.”

  “You don’t get it yet, Paul,” Gary said. “Focus on the good NASA is doing overnight, and then you’ll see. Have a safe flight out. I’ll see the both of you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 7

  Paul Gesling was glad to be back in Nevada and away from his metaphorical near-death experience at the hands of CEO Gary Childers in Kentucky. The desert was familiar territory and one in which he felt perfectly at home. And he also preferred being on the “engineering” side of the massive facility and not the “passenger training” side. He wasn’t due to be there with the whiny rich brats, aka customers, until tomorrow.

  Gesling, like most Americans, had watched the moderately publicized landing of NASA’s Altair the day before with a mixture of amazement and disappointment. Amazement at what humans could accomplish when challenged and that we were finally on our way back to the Moon. Disappointment with the time it took for America to get back to where it was in 1972. Overall, the landing was flawless—except that there were no human astronauts on board. That in itself was a big enough flaw to keep people from tuning in. Americans, hell, the rest of humanity, could not care less about another robot probe sending back video images of a place that it seemed nobody would ever set foot on. On the other hand, playing it up as the precursor to the very near manned flight did spark some optimism around the country. At least it boosted Paul’s flagging enthusiasm about what he and his crew were soon to accomplish themselves. They were about to take five paying customers on nearly a weeklong fly-around of the Moon. It was to be their own Apollo 8 moment.

  He was on his way to a press briefing. The NASA unmanned Moon landing had boosted interest in all things space related, and Space Excursions was high on the list of many reporters for that “next day” follow-up story.

  Gesling walked into the conference room that had been modified to accommodate the press and was immediately startled by the number of reporters there. He had expected maybe ten or twelve, most of them local, but the room was packed with what he quickly estimated to be fifty or more. There was standing room only in the drab tan-paneled makeshift press room. He recognized the big names like CNN, Fox News, and the networks, but there were others: China Daily, the London Times, and the Times of India, to name a few.

  Already at the podium stood Gary Childers and Caroline O’Conner. Kentucky had come to Nevada. Although he wasn’t late, Gesling was the last one to arrive, and he hoped it didn’t leave a bad impression with Childers. He and Childers were on shaky enough ground as it was. Paul walked briskly to the front of the room and stood behind and to the left of his boss.

  “So, as we can all see,” Childers said, “our brilliant captain has arrived, and so I’ll turn this over to him.” Childers motioned at Gesling to step up to the podium.

  “Ahem.” Paul cleared his throat to buy some time so that he could remember what he had planned to say. “Good morning. Thanks for your interest in Space Excursions. I’m sure we all saw NASA put on quite a show yesterday by landing the Altair on the lunar surface.” There were sounds of affirmation, some heads nodding, but there was little in the way of enthusiastic applause—typical reaction from a press corps only interested in drama to sell advertising time.

  “We’re very pleased with our nation’s success and look forward to seeing the test flight successfully completed. That said, we’re gonna beat ’em to the punch. And”—Paul paused for his own dramatic emphasis—“we’re gonna do it with people. Real live human beings that are customers who paid to train and become astronauts.” Despite what some bloggers had to say, Paul and Childers and the rest of the company did not view the government’s space endeavors as competition, and he only wished them well. Hell, Childers had originally begged NASA to sell them a seat on their mission, but NASA had for all its existence resisted sponsorship and commercialization. The original space tourists used Russian flights. The Russians understood capitalism, or at least commercialism, better than NASA. That was a funny bit of historical irony in Paul’s mind. But in the end it came down to dollars. Space Excursions was in the business of making money and commercializing space. It was the government’s job to explore and do the costly endeavors of space science. It was industry’s job to follow and turn the public investment into profit through commercialization wherever it could.

  “So, you’re all here to learn about our company, Space Excursions, and we’re here to answer whatever questions you may have.

  “As Mr. Childers said, I am Captain Paul Gesling. I’m a former Navy pilot, and thanks to Mr. Childers I am proud to have been chosen to be the captain and pilot of Dreamscape for its maiden voyage to the Moon.”

  “There isn’t a person I trust more with my ship than Paul Gesling,” Childers interjected. From the press’s point of view, these two appeared to be more like brothers separated at birth instead of a boss and his employee—especially not a boss and employee just past a rough patch in their working relationship.

  Childers then launched into a short history of the company. He explained why he had founded it and how it was going to revolutionize and commercialize space exploration. He took a couple of questions and then gave the floor back to Gesling. “And now, I’ll let Paul explain a little bit about Dreamscape and how he’s going to get our customers to the Moon and back again. Paul?”

  Gesling stepped back to the podium and promptly picked up the telescoping aluminum pointer Caroline had made sure was ready for him. Though not technophobic, Gesling very much preferred the solid aluminum pointer to its jittery laser cousin. He never trusted that those darned things were eye-safe. He then picked up the remote control from beneath the podium and turned on the projection system.

  Immediately behind him, the projection wall came to life with an image of the Dreamscape on a runway. The camera’s view was from a helicopter that circled the parked space plane to allow viewing from several angles. Paul tapped the screen, pointing out parts of the spacecraft as he talked.

  “Dreamscape itself is the reusable-spaceship part of a two-stage-to-orbit rocket. The first stage of the rocket is a supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet. Based on the technology work conducted by NASA through the early 2000s, Space Excursions picked up where NASA left off and perfected the technology. Lifting off from the Nevada spaceport, test flights of the scramjet first stage reached upwards of twelve times the speed of sound, flying to successful landings at Space Excursions’ alternate landing site in Australia in just under two hours. Instead of carrying both rocket fuel and oxidizer, as do most conventional chemical rockets, a scramjet scoops oxygen—hence the term oxidizer—from the atmosphere to mix with the propellant to make the rocket go. Without having to carry all that heavy oxidizer, the rocket is much lighter and very, very efficient.”

  The image behind him came to life with a video of the Dreamscape flying indescribably fast from one end of the frame to another. The video appeared to have been shot from a chase plane that was quickly l
eft behind by the supersonic Dreamscape.

  “Instead of having to be carried to a high altitude and using rockets to achieve high airspeeds before the scramjet begins operating, as was the limitation of the NASA design, Space Excursions found a way to throttle the engine at low airspeeds. Our design begins flight as a conventional jet aircraft, starting its journey from a dead stop in the Nevada desert. Once airborne and above twenty thousand feet, the scramjet fires and our ride to orbit begins.”

  Another video began to play at this point. Clearly an animation, the video showed the separation of the Dreamscape from its scramjet first stage and its ascent into space.

  “This is where the fun begins.” Gesling was clearly in his element and enjoying every minute at the podium. “At an altitude of about twenty miles and a speed of Mach twelve, the rocket engines on the Dreamscape will ignite, pulling the passenger-carrying rocket away from its scramjet first stage and into a trajectory that will take it to a three-hundred-mile low Earth orbit. That’s just above the altitude of things like the International Space Station and low-flying satellites. Following in the footsteps of Virgin Galactic and doing it one better, we’ve already taken flights not only into space, but also into orbit—a much harder task. Getting into space is comparatively easy. Accelerating to the orbital velocity of seventeen thousand miles per hour is another task altogether. And Dreamscape’s two stages accomplish this nicely.”

  The animation continued. Seemingly floating high above the Earth, the Dreamscape maneuvered close to a large cylinder that was also in Earth orbit. As Gesling resumed speaking, the two were moving close together.

  “Once in Earth orbit, the Dreamscape docks with a fuel tank launched by an unmanned rocket to refuel. After tanking up, the Dreamscape again lights its engines and begins its journey to the Moon.”

  The video at this point shifted to the interior of the vehicle, showing a computer-animated crew cabin and then the small passenger compartment. Sitting in what appeared to be tailor-made and very comfortable seats were five passengers eagerly looking out the windows and into space. One of the passengers unclipped from his seat at this point and pushed off to experience zero gravity.