by Hall, Gerald
“We thought that we would make a short stop here to visit with you before we flew out on a CH-3 helicopter to observe the latest Sea Dragon launch. We have been very pleased with the progress that you have been making with the new rocket and booster combinations for the heavy lift versions of your rocket designs.”
“Ja. It has been working very well. We expect to use it to launch a new large communications satellite within the month. We believe that the combination will be very well suited to launch the new space plane to the space station. Your desire to make as much of the rocket reusable to reduce launch costs has made the design very challenging. But I hope that we will soon have a reliable means of returning the hardware back intact for that purpose.
Together, my rockets combined with the extraordinary giants that you have been using to launch components for the space station will lead humanity into space and eventually onward to the stars.” An obviously pleased von Braun replied.
“I agree completely, Doctor. We are eager to begin launching the new enlarged space plane so that we can fully man the space station. The two man crewed capsules that we have been launching with your earlier rockets simply have not been able to launch enough personnel and supplies for that purpose.” Beatrice noted.
“Ich verstehe, Fraulein. This is why we went with the strap-on liquid fuel booster rockets. It would have taken my engineers far too long to build a completely new rocket and rocket motors to achieve the necessary payload. But we are confident with the four booster rocket modules that we will be able to fulfill your requirements.” Werner explained.
“Excellent! We would like to make a quick walkthrough to see what you have done now. Then we must leave to fly to the Sea Dragon launch site.” Judith finally said.
“Bitte. Follow me if you would.” Werner said as he led Judith and the others through the various buildings in the facility. One of the issues that Werner talked about during the tour was how his team was able to deal with a pogo oscillation problem with multiple rocket motors on the first stage. Judith could see the pride in his face as he described the successful solution to the problem.
Finally, Judith, James and Sarah said goodbye and promptly left aboard a waiting CH-3A helicopter that rapidly flew to the Cavill support ship Shinshu Maru.
Both of Cavill Shipyards’ large helicopter support ships, Hayasui and Shinshu Maru, were in attendance for this latest launch of a Sea Dragon. Each of the ships carried six of the latest CH-3 tandem rotor helicopters on their decks. Shinshu Maru was also supporting the launch with several small craft that had been launched from the former Japanese amphibious assault ship’s well deck. Both vessels had been claimed as salvage by Cavill Industries during the war. After the end of the Pacific War, they were disarmed by order of Australian authorities.
Even though these ships had been officially disarmed, they were both frequently used as trials ships for whatever weapons systems that Cavill Industries happened to be working on. Along with these vessels, there were a pair of tugs that had just finished towing the massive Sea Dragon rocket with its heavy payload to the launch site. Off in the distance, one of the nearly modernized Australian Navy guided-missile destroyers watched to ensure that no one would attempt to attack or disrupt the rocket launch.
This time onboard Shinshu Maru, there were nearly a dozen politicians and other dignitaries from Canberra inside of the launch control center. The visitors were there to observe the launch and get an idea of the many services that Cavill Industries had to offer to Australia as a whole. Judith, James and Beatrice were soon busy answering a myriad of questions.
“Hello, Miss Cavill.” The Australian Minister of Transportation Clive Blakeslee greeted Judith.
“Hello, Minister Blakeslee. I am glad that you were able to take time from your busy schedule to be here to witness today’s launch.”
“I have been fascinated with all of the work that your family has accomplished, even before your father’s death. I am surprised that only two of your siblings came with you today.”
“Sarah had a considerable amount of work that she needed to take care of back at our headquarters in Derby. But we should be able to answer any reasonable question that you might have though, Minister.” Judith confidently replied.
“I certainly hope so.” Clive replied in return.
A few moments later, a group of several other bureaucrats and politicians came up to Judith to ask even more questions. Her responses kept them enthralled, if only because they were so far beyond their ability to truly understand.
“This rocket will be lifting up the second habitat ring for the space station. That will make for a massive expansion of the living and scientific facilities there.” Judith explained to one of the questioners.
“How many people will be able to live on your space station?” A member of the Australian Parliment named Douglas Morrison then asked.
“We currently have fourteen men and women on the space station. This is somewhat less than full capacity though. When this addition is launched into orbit and added to the existing facility, we could support at least forty people at a time. It contains more living space and an upgraded life support system. We are experimenting with an organically-sourced recycling system for the air and water systems.
Ultimately, we want to be able to expand upon this to grow foodstuffs on the station as well. This has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of resupply missions that we will have to launch substantially.” Judith explained.
“How is your rocket able to survive being exposed to the salt water without severe corrosion?” Another Australian Parliament member asked.
“We use a special corrosion-resistant maraging steel alloy for the body of the Sea Dragon. It provides the necessary qualities for this application. In fact, the largest Australian producer of specialty metal alloys is located near Derby. Technically, it is part of Special Metals Wiggin Limited, but is wholly owned and controlled by Cavill Industries.
This alloy was developed by one of the premier metal production firms in the world. Our father had bought a controlling interest in Special Metals Wiggin Limited, the world leader in high-temperature alloys. He also purchased significant interests in other specialty metal producers to provide our main businesses with the necessary materials. We use these facilities to advance the metallurgic state of the art for use by other Cavill Industries products.” Beatrice explained.
“I understand that you are flying some manner of space plane on a different rocket to send people back and forth from this space station. How is that space plane of yours going to withstand reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere? The surfaces on that plane would doubtlessly become exceedingly hot on reentering the atmosphere.” Another visiting dignitary queried.
“We use a special high temperature steel, also produced by Special Metals Wiggin Limited, to build our space plane. The leading edges of the wings and nose have additional protection from supplemental high temperature materials also.”
The Cavill’s continued to answer a myriad of questions from their guests as they all waited for the countdown clock to wind down to time for the Sea Dragon launch. Everything appeared to be going well all the way to the point that the bottom of the Sea Dragon was ballasted down. The nose of the giant rocket and its payload began to point skyward above the surface of the ocean.
Less than twenty seconds before the main engine of the Sea Dragon was due to ignite, the wail of alarms filled the air of the launch control center while simultaneously, a sea of red warning lights filled several of the control panels.
“We have a severe drop in pressure inside the second stage nitrogen tank. It is already well outside launch parameters.”
“Cancel the launch immediately and safe all systems!” Judith immediately ordered, her crisp tone immediately spurring all of the technicians in the launch control center into action.
Scores of electrical switches were quickly flipped while the voices of the technicians confirming with each other that
the systems that they were responsible for had been returned to a safe, pre-launch condition.
“The launch countdown has been aborted, Ma’am. All systems have been returned to pre-launch status.” The head launch technician reported.
Judith breathed a sigh of relief finally before speaking again.
“Very good, ladies and gentlemen. I’m sorry that we were not able to show you the tremendous capability of our primary launch vehicle. We have had an unexpected technical malfunction. Now, we need to send the tugs back out to bring the rocket back as quickly as possible. I want that rocket brought back to the shipyard for a thorough inspection.”
“Are you sure that is necessary, Miss Cavill?” One of the visiting Australian dignitaries asked from the back of the control room.
“Yes, I’m afraid. Every system was repeatedly checked before we left the yards at Derby. We need to know exactly what happened before we dare try again to launch that rocket. The last thing that we need is to have one of our signature launch vehicles blow up in a massive fireball for all to see. That would not be very helpful in convincing customers to want use our rockets.”
“You have customers? I was under the impression that the only payloads that you have been launching on your rockets belonged to your own companies.” PM Morrison asked.
“We have to think about the future, when we have excess capacity, Sir. If you will excuse us, we have a lot of work to do in order to solve this current problem.” Judith replied before turning away from the visiting dignitaries and walking out a hatchway to look out towards the ocean.
A small cloud of white vapor could already be seen rising up from where the Sea Dragon was floating, still upright, in the ocean. After a couple of minutes, Judith was joined by her brother James as they both stood on the Shinshu Maru’s deck watching the rocket with its payload section still pointing straight up in the air out of the ocean.
“We are going to have to recover the rocket and bring it back home for inspection and repairs. We have far too much invested in this rocket and its payload to simply abandon it.” James said.
“It is far too dangerous to bring a fully fueled rocket back into the main assembly dock.” Judith told her younger brother.
“I know. But we can’t afford to completely defuel the rocket until we do our initial inspection at least. It has to be as close to launch configuration as possible so that we can get an accurate picture of anything wrong with the rocket. But we will have to pump out the rocket’s ballast section first so that we can get her back on her side for towing.” James explained.
“But if that rocket should explode, it would destroy the entire dry dock and all of the facilities around it.”
“Then we take to the old salvage dry dock on the other side of the harbor. It’s been empty since we finished scrapping Perth. The area around the dry dock is pretty empty too so if anything happens, the number of possible casualties will be minimized.”
Judith thought about James’ suggestion for a few moments before answering.
“Alright. But we need to make sure the entire area around the dock is evacuated first. Also, I want the number of personnel involved to be the bare minimum. They need to be absolutely trustworthy too. Finally, they all need to be volunteers.”
After a very slow two day journey where the rocket was carefully towed back to Derby and inside the old salvage dry dock. Another three days passed before the inspection was completed and the rocket finally defueled. It was only after all of this was done that the cause of the fault alarm was finally determined.
“We found where apparently someone had drilled into one of the tank pressurization lines and then patched it with a weak solder patch. It looks like it was intended that the line was supposed to fail and lose pressurization in flight but the seas were just rough enough to cause the patch to rupture prematurely.” James explained.
“Did we find anything else wrong with our rocket?” Judith asked.
“No. Fortunately, our inspections found that everything else was clean.”
“That’s good. But it still means that some damned wanker deliberately tried to sabotage the launch by causing an inflight engine failure.” An incredulous Beatrice asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid so.” James replied.
“We were bloody lucky that our instruments picked up the pressure drop before the launch. Otherwise, we could have lost the entire rocket in flight. We will have to go through all of the work and inspection records to see who had access to that particular part of the rocket. Then we have to ask them why they tried to destroy our rocket.” Sarah told her siblings.
“We are going to have to significantly increase the number of construction and prelaunch inspections of each rocket to prevent this from happening again.” Judith replied.
“Security for our entire rocket program is going to have to be stepped up a lot too. We still should have foreseen that some bloody bastard would eventually see our rockets as a threat.” James interjected.
“Perhaps so. But that’s going to including increasing security for von Braun’s group as well. Whoever did this has to know that we are relying on his rockets for most of our personnel flights.” Beatrice added.
“I guarantee you that we’ll do what we need to do in order to keep our rocket program on track. Otherwise, we will endanger our father’s dream of ensuring that mankind survives and begins to spread beyond this one world. Humanity has put all of its eggs in one basket for far too long.” Judith said.
“It was still very embarrassing for us to have a launch failure in front of all of those dignitaries, even though our safety systems prevented the loss of the vehicle. We will still have a lot of ground to make up with the government and any other potential customers as a result of this failure.” James noted.
“Perhaps we don’t have quite so much ground to make up. After all, nothing blew up. We were able to bring the rocket back home to find out what went wrong too. We will come back and launch it a little later. Only this time, we will succeed, of course.” Judith confidently declared.
“We’ll need to find the bastard who tried to sabotage our rocket too.” James growled.
“I will give that task to our Abos. I’m sure that they will find him once we give them a list of everyone who could have done this to us. They will take care of the rest.” Judith confidently replied.
Once the word got out that the aborigines were looking for the people who sabotaged the flight, half a dozen workers suddenly disappeared and never showed back up for work. No further problems were reported for the rocket as it was being refurbished for the second launch attempt.
The second attempt to launch this particular Sea Dragon with its space station habitat ring payload had everyone on edge as they watched from the deck of the Shinshu Maru once again. Judith Cavill paced nervously as the countdown to launch proceeded towards ignition.
There weren’t quite as many dignitaries onboard Shinshu Maru this time. But the ones that did attend were treated to a perfect launch of the Sea Dragon.
“It’s a damned shame that those bloody politicians from Canberra couldn’t have seen this. I am completely stoked about how beautiful this was.” James remarked after the giant rocket finally flew out of sight.
“Perhaps so. But enough of them did return for this launch to carry the message back to our leaders about just how capable we are. If they want to be able to participate in what we are building up there, the Australian government is going to have to decide to help us finance the projected expansion to our program.” Judith commented before beginning to walk from the Shinshu Maru’s flight deck to go below deck. A few moments later, her siblings followed behind.
Judith and her siblings soon returned from watching the launch of the Sea Dragon after flying back to Kalumburu aboard a Hummingbird tilt-wing. They were once again greeted by Werner von Braun.
“Congratulations, Fraulein Cavill. I feel that it is incredible that you, your brother and sisters have achieved so much with the s
atellites that you have put into orbit. Your communications satellites have made a significant impact on the ability for people to instantly talk to each other or watch television images from one side of the world to the other. The optical survey satellites have also vastly improved weather forecasts and allowed the observation of the Earth in ways we have never imagined possible.
Then, there is the ever-expanding space station. With it, you have made several of my personal dreams come true.
But we must take the next step now, Fraulein Cavill. We certainly have reliable rockets that we can trust to launch human beings into orbit. We need to send people to the moon, land them on the lunar surface and then return them safely back home. Once we do that, we can quickly establish a permanent manned presence on the Moon using much of the same technology that we have proven on the space station.” Doctor von Braun told Judith and her siblings.
Judith immediately smiled as she turned and looked at James, Beatrice and Sarah. They quickly returned their eldest sister’s smile. Doctor von Braun was basically echoing what Harold Cavill had told his children after they had cornered him and forced him to reveal the secrets of his origin. They had all read von Braun’s biography and knew what the German rocket scientist had dreamed for the future of humanity.
“Doctor, what do you think that we should do next after setting up a base on the moon?” Judith coyly asked. The question was deliberately meant to lead von Braun to openly reveal at least some of what else he wanted to do.
“Of course, not. We need to keep pushing out beyond the Moon to elsewhere in the solar system and eventually beyond. We also have to find and develop the vast resources that the rest of the solar system has to offer for the benefit of all mankind.”
“It certainly sounds like we all share the same goals, Doctor von Braun. I suspect that you also believe that our next step beyond the Moon will be to send people to Mars and establish a colony there. Am I wrong, Doctor?”
The German rocket scientist was shocked at first. Very few people dared even imagine sending people out to Mars, much less building a permanent settlement there. But there was this lovely young woman with fiery red hair making that suggestion.