Back to the Moon

by Travis S. Taylor

  His brother, like many other engineers working on China’s military and civilian rocket programs—the two were almost indistinguishable—was on a CIA “watch list,” and all of his communications were intercepted. This particular call was no exception.

  The entire call was recorded and analyzed by the supercomputers at the National Security Agency (NSA). The call was flagged for follow-up by a human reviewer since it originated geographically near a recently reported act of espionage involving a certain private space company with compromised computer chips and now-stolen technical plans for a hypersonic rocket and potential global-strike weapons system. The fact that at least one of the participants on the call was a rocket scientist was the bit of data that ensured the message was flagged.

  Within a few hours, an assessment team was poring over the transcript of the call, looking at its originating Internet service provider in the United States, and identifying the hotel on the Los Vegas strip from which it had originated. Shortly thereafter, they had the room number of the hotel and the name of the renter to whom the Internet service was being provided for a “nominal daily fee of $11.95.” They were in the MGM Grand.

  Taking a little longer, but not too long, voice-print-identification algorithms positively identified the brother of the Chinese rocket scientist and, based on other intelligence sources, had him firmly linked with his current employer—the Chinese equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency. His photograph was now displayed on the NSA conference-room monitors as the assessment team again examined the intercepts and weighed what, if any, connection there might be between him and the recently stolen plans for the Dreamscape. According to the computer, and readily accepted by the team, the two must be linked. It was time to call the FBI.

  By the time the Dreamscape was entering the atmosphere, and while Zeng was watching the event unfold on Fox News while his teammates intercepted telemetry from the Space Excursions facility only a few miles away, the FBI team was moving into place around them. High overhead, an unmanned surveillance drone had confirmed that the Honda was alone on the mesa. Twenty FBI agents in full-body armor were getting into position.

  Gary Childers and Caroline O’Conner were waiting on the landing in the VIP viewing area near the end of the runway. Instead of the dozens of reporters that had been present at Dreamscape’s launch, the number of reporters was now well over two hundred. All of them were anxious to get the story from the people who had been to the Moon and found the stranded Chinese taikonauts. In addition to the reporters, there were at least fifteen book agents looking for an opportunity to speak with one or more of the passengers in the hopes of securing their stories for a sure-to-be-bestselling book. It was turning into a great day for commercial space exploration.

  Glancing frequently at the overhead status boards, which showed a cartoonlike schematic of the Dreamscape and its reentry trajectory, Childers and O’Conner looked like expectant parents. Their baby, however, was returning from a journey to another world.

  By squinting in the bright Nevada sun, it was O’Conner who first spotted the Dreamscape on its flight path back to the spaceport runway. She could not contain her excitement as she literally squealed and began to clap. Childers soon followed, as did all the VIPs and most of the assembled reporters. None had forgotten the Columbia space shuttle tragedy and all were relieved when they saw that Dreamscape had made it through its fiery reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. The ship was right where it was supposed to be and not a minute too soon or too late.

  The Dreamscape grew in apparent size as it neared the runway. Like a glorious and noble bird it soared toward them, and, moments before touchdown, the landing gear sprang from within its body to provide the cushioning required for a soft landing.

  “Three, two, one—touchdown!” came an anonymous voice from the PA system in the VIP area. The same voice was used as a voiceover by all the media broadcasting the landing, including the channel being watched in the Honda minivan just a few miles away.

  “Three, two, one—touchdown!” said the voice of Space Excursions through the small speaker on the monitor that Zeng was watching intently while his colleagues were collecting telemetry from the Dreamscape as it rolled down the runway.

  “Go! Go!” said the FBI team leader in charge of the raid. He spoke into the radio microphone wrapped around his head that allowed him to communicate with all twenty members of the team about to storm the van parked just ahead of them. The leader, Mike Brown, was a veteran of many drug raids and even a few counterterrorism raids. This was his first counterespionage raid, and he was not sure what to expect. His experience taught him that drug runners were the worst, often choosing to fight even when faced with overwhelming odds. The few terrorists he’d engaged hadn’t suspected they were about to be raided, and they had simply rolled over without a fight. The drug runners, on the other hand, always had their guns at their side and seemed to relish using them.

  Thanks to the drone flying directly overhead, the team determined that those in the van were alone and there was no sign of any remote-detection devices in the brush alongside the road leading up to it. With luck, the van’s occupants would not have any warning of what was about to happen.

  Like horses out of the gate at a racetrack, the highly trained members of the FBI’s Southwestern Division counterterrorism squad moved toward the van from all directions. Each member of the team wore a helmet equipped with the latest communications system as well as the most advanced concussion protection available—should they be near a bomb blast. Head injuries from bombs were among the most difficult to prepare for. They all wore full-body armor, a hard lesson learned during their many drug raids over the years. More than one of this team had been saved from a bullet by their armor. And, of course, they had their guns out and ready for whatever might happen.

  Simultaneously, the five SUVs that had carried them moved into position on the road in front and behind the van to block any chance of its escape.

  The Dreamscape had been on the runway no more than five seconds when one of Zeng’s team abruptly leapt from his seat near the front window of the van and began shouting in Chinese, “We have been discovered! Erase! Erase!” The man who shouted these words had just seen the FBI team swarm out of the brush, seemingly from nowhere. There was no other warning.

  Though they were well trained in what to do in the event of discovery, there was simply not enough time to begin the process of erasing all of the data they were collecting—though Zeng certainly tried. As soon as he heard the shouting and realized what was happening, he moved quickly to the console that would allow him, with just a few keystrokes, to begin erasing everything on the computers in the van. The erasure would be complete, randomly overwriting all the data multiple times in a process similar to that used by the Central Intelligence Agency for getting rid of information they didn’t want exposed.

  Zeng’s hands were poised just above the console when the door to the van was thrown open.

  Brown shouted, “Raise your hands! Now! This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and you are all under arrest!” Within seconds, Mike and three FBI men had entered the van with guns pointed at Zeng’s team.

  Zeng paused and looked Brown in the eye, his fingers just inches away from the keys that would delete everything. With his many years as an intelligence officer, he had learned to read people, including Westerners—whom he considered relatively easy to understand. He often told his team, “Westerners wear their intentions on their faces. They cannot help it.” In this case, Zeng could tell that it was Mike Brown’s intention to shoot him if he didn’t immediately comply and raise his arms.

  Though he momentarily considered performing his duty and lunging for the key that would erase the data, his instinct for self-preservation won out and he slowly raised his hands above his head. He never took his eyes from Brown’s. Had he sensed a moment’s hesitation, the data would have been erased. There was no such moment.

  Within a single minute, the van wa
s secure—not a shot was fired.

  The Dreamscape rolled smoothly to the end of the runway and waited for the ground crew to bring the portable stairway that would allow Gesling, Thibodeau, Mbanta, Singer, Wells, and Graves to exit. For another few days, they would be the only American astronauts to venture beyond orbit since 1972.

  After determining that the vehicle was safe for the passengers to exit, the door opened and the passengers slowly made their way down the stairs and onto a red carpet, where a jubilant Gary Childers met them. They had been in space for almost a week and were now in the middle of getting used to the tug of the Earth’s gravity. For some it was a welcome relief; for others, it was a reminder that their adventure was truly over.

  With handshakes to the exiting men and hugs to the women, Gary Childers was again in his element. Speeches followed, and then the entire group awaited Paul Gesling’s egress from the vehicle. As in the dress rehearsals, Gesling had to take care of his post-flight checklist before he could make his exit.

  When Gesling appeared in the doorway, the crowd erupted into applause. And the applause was not limited to those in the VIP area. The throngs of people outside the gates that had turned out for the launch six days ago were back; they too clapped and cheered. And more than a few people watching on television did so as well.

  Gesling, somewhat taken aback by the whole spectacle, raised a hesitant arm and waved back to the crowd. With a little more confidence in his land legs than the passengers who had exited before him, he made his way down the stairs and received an approving handshake and welcome from Childers when he arrived there.

  “Well done, Paul,” Gary exclaimed as he pumped his hand and patted him on the shoulder. “Well done!”

  “Thanks” was all Paul could think of to say as he returned the handshake and smiled in Gary’s general direction.

  “Smile for the people, Paul. This is our payday.”

  “I knew you would do it!” Caroline O’Conner shouted and cheered as she brushed past Childers and threw her arms around Gesling, greeting him with a more than collegial “Welcome home, Paul.” There wasn’t time for the close contact to continue, but it was clear to all that neither O’Conner nor Gesling was quite ready for it to end.

  “Payday? We lost money on this flight,” Paul said under his breath to Childers.

  “Did we, Paul? I’m not so sure.” While the flight in particular lost money, Childers considered it an “investment.” The bookings on the next ten flights were firm, and by number eight he would be in the black. And he’d been thinking about the rescue mission. He’d heard one of the talking-head science experts on the news claim that all of the American and Chinese astronauts could reenter in the Orion space capsule and that they would likely be dropped off at the ISS. The wheels were turning in his dollars-oriented brain. Of course, his company could use the write-off provided by the first seven flights as “losses” if they needed to. And of course they would do that. With good accountants, losses could be a good thing. But Gary liked making money and planned on doing just that.

  Chapter 21

  Astronauts Bill Stetson and Anthony Chow were swiftly and accurately stepping through procedures and checking off items on their checklists. Their Orion space capsule sat roughly thirty stories atop more than a million pounds of highly explosive ammonium perchlorate composite propellant and another fairly large volume of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. If things were to go awry, there would be plenty of fuel for that fire. But Bill and Tony were far too busy to ponder the ramifications of such an unlikely event when the solid rocket motors of the Ares I first stage ignited. Unlike the space shuttle, which sat lazily on the launch pad for the first few seconds after igniting its main engines, the Ares I leapt off the pad, the resulting acceleration pushing the two men solidly into their couches with more force than that experienced on any other human-rated rocket.

  Selected for safety and not comfort, using solid rocket motors for a rocket carrying people had been controversial from the beginning. Many astronauts, including Stetson, had been skeptical. Unlike a liquid-fueled rocket, a solid-fueled rocket could not be shut off once lit. A solid rocket motor would burn until it ran out of fuel. And it was precisely because of this that the Von Braun team had designed the Saturn V rocket with liquid-fueled engines and refused to use solid rocket motors. But, being beholden to data, Stetson eventually became a fan of the approach when he reviewed the reports showing that solid rocket motors failed far less often than their liquid motor counterparts.

  “T minus four minutes and holding.” The voice of the launch director sounded deadpan and emotionless over the intercom, on television, radios, and inside Bill’s helmet speakers. “This is a scheduled twenty-minute built-in hold. The countdown clock will resume in nineteen minutes and forty-seven seconds from now.”

  “Getting close, Tony!” Bill couldn’t hide his excitement. “Put your game face on, buddy.”

  “Damn close, and put me in coach!” Tony replied then keyed the com after looking at his checklist. “Launch control, we are starting the interior launch cameras and telemetry recorders.”

  “Roger that, Mercy I. Be advised that we’ve got launch weather verification, and it looks like all is go at this point.”

  “Control.” Stetson added his checklist items to the conversation. “The launch computer is showing green and is configured for launch.” Bill thought about the action taking place back in the launch control center or LCC. The director was probably polling the various console drivers to see if they were ready to continue with the launch. Were Bill a fly on the wall, he would have heard a query of “Launch Authority Team go, no-go?” Which would usually be followed by “Go for launch.” And then “Guidance and Control go, no-go?” “Go for launch!” And the process would continue through all the Ares 1 launch systems until the launch director was assured that, indeed, the Ares 1 launch vehicle was cleared to leave Earth.

  “Launch control shows first-stage igniter heater power removed. Mercy I, please verify.”

  “Uh, roger that, launch control. We show green light on first-stage igniter heater breakers,” Stetson replied. Bill and Tony responded to what seemed like an endless list of items to be checked until the twenty-minute hold was complete. Finally, the word was given.

  “This is launch control. We have final launch status verification and are now resuming the countdown. Start the clock now at T minus four minutes and counting.”

  “Roger that, control. Mercy I shows flight-termination system and solid rocket motors are armed.” Bill looked over at his colleague and flashed him a grin. “We’re almost there now!”

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” Tony replied.

  “T minus one minute and forty seconds. We show the rocket’s flight-control system is enabled for launch. Mercy I, please verify.”

  “Flight-control system is green.” Tony tapped the green icon on his computer screen to verify. At that moment the flight-control system software switched the entire flight-control system from land power over to internal rocket systems power and started counting off seconds to ignition.

  “T minus one minute and counting.”

  “We ready, Tony?”

  “A-OK, Bill.”

  “Roger that.” Bill tapped another icon on his checklist. “Auxiliary power units are running, and Mercy I shows solid rocket motor thrust vector control gimbal test is good.”

  “T minus eighteen seconds. Ignition and hold-down bolts are armed and ready. We have sound suppression active and launcher flood is initiated.”

  “Roger that, control.” Stetson pushed his body into his couch as best he could, preparing for the upcoming thrust.

  “Launch inhibits are removed and vehicle is armed. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, ignition!”

  Bill and Tony held on and tried not to grit their teeth.

  “We have liftoff! Start the clock as Mercy I clears the tower for America’s return to the Moon!” The launch director’s voice s
ounded excited and enthusiastic for a brief moment.

  NASA was through simply sending astronauts around and around the Earth. It was finished sending only robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. Americans were going into space, and they were on their way to the Moon.

  As the Ares I cleared the launch tower, it began its ascent into Earth orbit, and its characteristic vibrations began shaking the teeth of the two astronauts perched on top. During its design, engineers had discovered that the vibrations caused by the firing of the solid rocket motors would be jarring enough to cause brain damage in its passengers. After considerable effort, a system was devised to dampen the vibrations, making them merely annoying rather than lethal. To those riding on the beast, the difference was a matter of academic debate.

  The solid rocket motors had just burned out when eighteen mini-explosions occurred—jarring the veritable heck out of the astronauts and causing them to fall forward into their chairs. The explosive bolts connecting the rocket’s first stage with its second stage had just fired. And the sequence was just as violent, as exciting, and as exhilarating as Bill had remembered from his previous two flights. Though still exciting, to Bill it was just another day at the office. To Tony, on the other hand, who had only participated in simulation flights thus far, it was all new and very scary. Very. Scary.

  “Hang on there, Tony,” Bill said. “Second-stage engines are about to kick in, and it is a kick in the pants!”