by Mike Jenne
Without question, the Navy had more experience handling nuclear reactors than any other entity in the free world. Moreover, they just happened to possess a mission-validated device—the diminutive reactor carried about the NR-1 research submersible—that could be readily adapted to the ocean surveillance MOL.
Finally, the fifth factor that led to the MOL’s evolution was that the White House was occupied by a president who had served as a naval officer during World War II. While he had not risen to great rank or prominence in the Navy, and had not participated in any heroic actions, he did comprehend the strategic necessity to maintain dominance over the seas. So it didn’t take much for Admiral Tarbox and his coterie of determined confederates to convince him of the pressing need to keep an unblinking eye on the world’s oceans. Consequently, control of the MOL program was quietly transitioned from the Air Force to the Navy, and with its well-publicized cancellation, it disappeared from the public consciousness altogether.
And so it was that the MOL came to be in orbit on that August day, but Russo was aboard more or less by accident. The MOL’s first flight should have been a purely Navy effort. Two Navy officers—Commanders Chris Cowin and Jeff McKnight—had been slated to fly it, but in the week prior to the flight, McKnight had broken an ankle during a launch pad evacuation exercise.
Russo was the sole Air Force officer still assigned as an MOL astronaut; the remaining five were Naval aviators handpicked by Admiral Tarbox. Russo was designated as the right-seater on the mission’s back-up crew. At the time, he and McKnight were the only men on the roster who had successfully completed the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion School; as such, with McKnight grounded, Russo was the only MOL astronaut fully qualified to manage the station’s nuclear reactor.
Although the Navy wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of an Air Force officer rising into space on their hallowed chariot, they could either send him up, delay the mission for several months, or fly one of their own guys with minimal reactor training.
Despite their reluctance, it was entirely logical to send Russo; he was intimately familiar with the reactor’s workings, and no one could argue his competence with the ocean surveillance systems. Besides, he was arguably the most proficient Gemini pilot in the entire MOL program. Like the Air Force’s Gemini-I, the Navy’s Gemini-B reentry vehicle was equipped with a paraglider rather than a parachute. As a result of his Blue Gemini liaison stint at Wright-Patterson, Russo had more time in the paraglider simulator and more hours flying the actual paraglider than all of the Navy astronauts combined.
Cowin petitioned adamantly to avoid flying with Russo. Despite his prowess with the reactor and other systems, Russo wasn’t well received in the Navy clique; the other men resented him as an opportunistic interloper who exploited his relationship with Tarbox. Over Cowin’s stringent objections, the Ancient Mariner decreed that Russo would occupy the right seat to orbit.
But after a perfect night launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, the MOL’s maiden voyage had been far from uneventful. In addition to the malfunctioning heat exchanger, the synthetic aperture radar proved to be chronically temperamental. Their radios had been failing intermittently; as of this morning, it had been over four days since they had communicated with their mission controllers. While Cowin had consistently tried to cast Russo as the scapegoat for all their technical woes, the nuclear reactor—Russo’s exclusive domain—was the only system aboard that had consistently operated without any difficulties.
To say that the two men were incompatible would be a tremendous understatement. Russo despised Cowin, and the feeling was certainly mutual. From the very outset of the mission, they quarreled constantly, over even the most seemingly insignificant details. Besides a cramped spacecraft and helium-oxygen atmosphere that grew increasingly more foul with every passing day, the only thing they shared was a festering hatred of one another.
The communications outage drew them ever nearer to the breaking point. Russo argued that they should cut their losses and abandon the mission. Cowin countered that while the failure was a distraction, it wasn’t a mission-stopper, and that they should dutifully remain on station—collecting essential data—for the planned duration of the flight. As the mission commander, Cowin had the final say in the debate. Besides, while Russo desired little but to pack up and head for home, Cowin thrived up here and would remain indefinitely if granted an opportunity.
Three days ago, their animosity and lingering distrust came to a violent head. Cowin became enraged with Russo’s vocal insistence on cutting the mission short. The Navy astronaut took a swing at the Air Force pilot, landing the only solid blow in the scuffle, and then the confrontation quickly deteriorated into an awkward wrestling match in zero gravity. Shortly after the fray, nursing painfully tender ribs and a badly swollen black eye, Russo gathered his personal belongings and withdrew to the far aft of the outpost, where he hung his cocoon-like sleeping restraint next to the reactor control console.
Cowin kept his quarters in the wardroom at the stern end, just aft of the Gemini-B reentry vehicle, where their sleeping compartments were located. When the circumstances dictated, they grudgingly met in the operations module just forward of the reactor control area. The operations module was home to the monitoring station for the ocean surveillance system, as well as the overall controls for the MOL.
Yesterday, even the stoic Cowin had to admit that the comms outage was more than a passing nuisance. But instead of curtailing the mission, he decided to resolve the situation. He spent the entire day traversing the station from one end to the other, meticulously tracing cables and painstakingly examining every communications component that was accessible from the MOL’s interior. When he failed to locate anything out of proper kilter, he impulsively announced that he planned to don an EVA suit to venture outside today to physically check the antennas and antenna connections.
Waiting for Cowin to appear, hoping that he had ditched his EVA scheme since yesterday, Russo loitered in the galley. The galley space was just aft of the wardroom; the two spaces, approximately a third of the MOL’s pressurized compartment, comprised the living quarters for the astronauts. To remain stationary and keep his bearings relatively fixed, he wrapped his legs tightly around the metal post of a table-like fixture bolted to the “floor” of the galley and then wedged himself against the adjacent bulkhead. The MOL’s designers had apparently gone to great lengths in a futile effort to render the station as homey and as familiar as possible, but the “furniture” and similar appointments became little more than annoying obstacles once gravity fell away.
He watched the sharp-pointed northern coast of Madagascar drift by in a viewport. Although he wasn’t hungry, he sampled a food bar made of dehydrated apricots; although it sounded appetizing, the wafer had the consistency and taste of compressed sawdust. He forced himself to nibble half of it and then stuffed the remainder in a waste bag. He had no sooner swallowed the last bit before he felt an unsettling wave of spasms in his gut. He snatched a waste bag and vomited into it. So much for a quick bite, he thought, stashing the bag in a trash receptacle.
He heard a noise from the stern end and glanced that way to see Cowin casually soaring from the wardroom into the galley. Cowin had already donned the white suit liner that was worn underneath the bulky EVA suit. He nimbly floated into the galley and foraged through a food locker until he located one of his favorite entrees: roasted chicken and enriched rice.
Using a pair of blunt-tipped scissors, which he had thoughtfully tethered with a strand of nylon cord, he snipped off a corner of the meal’s plastic envelope. Holding the transparent envelope to his mouth, he carefully kneaded it to squeeze out chunks of rice and chicken. The Navy MOL rations were experimental ready-to-eat “wet-packs” which didn’t require reconstitution or special preparation. Ironically, the two men had initially squabbled over the choicest morsels, at least until Russo’s appetite had completely abandoned him.
“Yum, that’s mighty tasty,” declared Cowin, sma
cking his lips with gusto. “I don’t know if I’m going to be content with my wife’s cooking after munching all this good chow. Too damned bad you can’t enjoy this.” He intentionally squirted some globs of rice into the air; jeering at Russo’s obvious discomfort, he snorted and laughed as he caught the white clumps between his teeth and quickly gulped them down.
“Chris, are you absolutely sure that you want to go outside?” asked Russo, desperately hoping to reason with his argumentative cohort. “You don’t think it’s too dangerous to go EVA if we can’t make contact with the ground?”
If the truth be known, Russo was far less concerned about Cowin’s safety than he was about his own personal and professional survival. Although it was highly unlikely that Cowin might become injured or otherwise incapable of reentering the station, it was still certainly a possibility, and Russo wasn’t absolutely sure that he could successfully return to Earth by himself. Besides that, even if he did somehow make it home, he knew that he would face months and possibly years of classified inquiries, rumors and innuendo. It would be bad enough if Cowin survived, but if he was inexplicably lost overboard, Russo would be compelled to account for the MOL mission’s failure. His military career would be over, since the Navy would be swift to latch onto him as a scapegoat, and he had already torched most of the bridges that might otherwise return him safely to his Air Force roots.
“I think we’ve discussed this topic ad infinitum, Ed,” stated Cowin, scowling as he dug a large chunk of chicken from the plastic packet. He jammed the scrap in his mouth, chewed noisily, swallowed, and licked his fingers. “And there is nothing left to discuss. Besides, I’m the mission commander, and since there’s no one on Earth or in space with the authority to override me, I call the ball. I’m going outside. Period. You stand watch on the airlock, just like we rehearsed. Everything had better go smoothly on the lock-out and lock-in. If it doesn’t, you’ll be due to draw another pummeling. Got it?”
“Aye aye,” grumbled Russo, furtively rubbing his puffy eye. “Got it.” Watching Cowin eat, Russo’s stomach seemed even more queasy than normal.
“Good. I’m glad that we could reach an understanding.” Cowin finished the ration and discarded the bag into a waste receptacle. “Hey, what’s that damned sour smell?” For dramatic effect, he poked a finger down his throat and feigned retching. “Did you puke again, flyboy?”
Gagging as acrid bile surged up in his throat, Russo groped in his thigh pocket for another airsickness bag, but was too late. It was yet another mess to clean up.
3:05 p.m.
After sponging splotches of vomit from the galley bulkheads with a damp cloth, Russo assisted Cowin with the time-consuming process of suiting up. Cowin then entered the airlock for pre-breathing. The MOL’s atmosphere was a fire retardant mixture of helium and oxygen, but the EVA suit provided oxygen only, which necessitated the lengthy ordeal of purging residual helium from the body.
Right now, Cowin was outside. In accordance with their EVA procedures, Russo remained at the stern end of the spacecraft, functioning somewhat like a topside tender for a hardhat diver. He vigilantly monitored Cowin’s vital statistics on the life support panel next to the airlock, and kept in fairly constant communications. Cowin had been outside for over two hours, and had successfully removed a series of protective panels that allowed access to the suspect antenna connections.
The EVA session was proceeding so smoothly that Russo was on the verge of falling asleep from boredom. Almost hypnotized by the pulsing light that represented Cowin’s respiratory rate, he half-wanted the foray to succeed just so they could converse with someone on Earth. On the other hand, he wouldn’t mind if the abusive hothead failed to fix the radios, since even Cowin had conceded the need to scuttle the mission if they couldn’t make communications.
Russo briefly went to the operations module to verify—once again—that the synthetic aperture radar was powered down; located on the “bottom” of the MOL, the SAR emitted so much energy that it could be extremely hazardous to Cowin.
Returning to the airlock, Russo was taken aback by a glimmering dazzle in his eyes. It was almost exactly like the transient sparkles that frequently disturbed his sleep, except considerably more severe. The bright flashes lasted only a few seconds, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with an inexplicable feeling of dread.
Momentarily paralyzed with fear, he heard a warbling sound and knew immediately that it was the distinctive alarm associated with the MOL’s radiation detectors. Spurred to action, he instinctively keyed his headset and spoke to Cowin. “Chris, I’ve got radiation alarms.”
“No kidding,” replied Cowin through his earpiece. “They’re blaring in my left ear out here. Can you not squelch that damned alarm tone?”
Russo turned around and threw a switch that disabled the shrill alarm that fed into the intercom and communications circuit. “Better?” he asked.
“Yeah,” answered Cowin. “So what the hell happened? Did you accidently trip something?” Even through the intercom loop, there was a skeptical hint to Cowin’s voice, as if he insinuated Russo was intentionally sabotaging the mission.
The cabin alarm still sounded; the warbling was growing progressively louder. “I didn’t trip anything,” declared Russo defiantly. “I think the reactor may be going south.”
“Damn it!” snarled Cowin. “Well, we have to assume the worst case. Hustle aft and check it. If it’s crapping out, go ahead and scram it. I’m not done out here, but I have to replace these covers. The sun will fry these components if I leave them exposed to the elements.”
“Got it. I’m headed aft.” Russo’s heart pounded as he unplugged the jack for his headset. Normally, he would work his way to the reactor control station at a virtual snail’s pace, maintaining a constant handhold. Instead, he planted his feet on the forward bulkhead next to the life support panel, gripped a nearby rail, and pulled his body into a deep squat.
As he had watched Cowin do at least a thousand times, he tilted his head up and picked an unobstructed trajectory that would take him all the way through to the aft compartment. Unimpeded by gravity, he kicked hard and launched through the air like a comic book hero.
Almost as soon as he had sprung off, he realized his error; just a gentle push would have been plenty sufficient, but now he was moving much too quickly. Instinctively preparing for impact, he unconsciously extended his right hand. As he smashed into the aft bulkhead, he heard an ominous snap and felt immediate pain in his wrist. Crying out in pain, he seized his hand as he careened off the bulkhead and rebounded back into the operations module.
Clasping his injured hand close to his chest, he slowly worked his way back to the reactor console. He examined the radiation alarm display; the indicator needle registered a dose-rate of ten rems per hour, which was commensurate with a serious reactor incident.
The “rems per hour” was a shorthand notation on how much radiation they might absorb. The actual dosage depended on several variables, such as where they were physically located in the MOL’s cabin. The greatest potential exposure risk was at the point closest to the reactor, where Russo was presently located. Even then, over half of the MOL—a service module that contained water, fuel, radar equipment and other items—shielded him from the reactor.
Since roughly five hundred rems was considered a lethal dose, he would have to physically remain at this spot for fifty hours to soak up that much radiation, if the reactor continued to emit at a constant rate. If he moved forward, especially if he climbed into the Gemini-B and closed the circular hatch cut through its heat shield, his exposure would be significantly less.
If the detectors indicated ten rems per hour here, it was a sure bet that the situation was vastly different on the far side of the service module. An indicator placed at the reactor would likely peg out at a couple of hundred rems per hour. He didn’t think that they were experiencing a catastrophic meltdown, but the situation could be swiftly deteriorating in that direction.
The
corrective action for a serious incident was an emergency reactor shutdown, also known as a “scram.” Locking his leg around his sleeping restraint, Russo flipped up a safety cover and poised his finger over the SCRAM switch. When he threw the switch, a series of electromagnets would be de-energized, freeing several spring-loaded control rods to slide into the reactor core to smother the fission process. Simultaneously, a dense liquid solution containing boron would also be squirted into the reactor to further impede the nuclear reaction. The process was not unlike closing the damper on a chimney.
Even after the faulty reactor was scrammed, it would still generate heat for several hours, if not days, until the fission process finally abated. The residual heat was plenty sufficient to continue driving the steam turbine that generated electricity, so they would still have plenty of juice for the MOL’s life support and other essential functions long after the reactor had sputtered out.
In even the worst case scenario, where the reactor core might generate sufficient heat to be swiftly rendered into a glob of liquid metal and highly radioactive steam, he had the option—if he reacted swiftly enough—to push a red plunger labeled EMER JETT. When he mashed the big plunger, several explosive bolts would simultaneously fire, followed shortly by the ignition of a small solid rocket motor, which would physically jettison the reactor vessel from the MOL.
That contingency was available if he reacted quickly enough. Of course, if he didn’t respond swiftly enough, their only option was to pile into the Gemini-B and hope that they were able to power up and flee before the MOL’s cabin was breached by the disintegrating reactor.
Virtually every scenario—short of a catastrophic meltdown—called for a measured response. Depending on the magnitude of the emergency, once they scrammed the reactor, they still had roughly forty-eight hours to execute an orderly retreat. That entailed a very laborious process of physically transferring tape cartridges—which contained the raw data from the SAR and signal intercepts—from the operations module to either the Gemini-B or a data reentry pod. In any event, even though they would likely sop up a lifetime’s dosage of radiation in the process, they would not wantonly abandon ship and leave the invaluable findings behind.