by T I WADE
If the military has success with a near blast, or a direct hit,” added Ryan, “the chances of a tsunami or a direct hit on the Earth’s surface is virtually none. Trying to save Earth’s satellite systems will be the next most important problem.”
For another hour several other experts from Los Alamos Laboratories, LINEAR, Spacewatch and other experts from other observatories were invited into the conference call to give their views and ideas.
Finally, a nuclear blast at between 70,000 and 100,000 miles above earth was agreed on that would be safe, and then any other form of laser intervention a good back up. Bill Withers had been perfectly correct in his way of thinking all along.
The next day Jonesy flew up SB III with Maggie as co-pilot and two more crew members to transfer the single fully equipped hospital surgery cylinder to the space station. Ryan also had a busy day ahead of him as the crew heading up was Vitalily and his partner Hans, the last two members of the Russian and European Space team. This meant that the underground cavern was now complete. The two Audis had a new place to park, next to three of the largest diamonds ever seen on Earth, and a million other items that would be stored on hundreds of heavy-duty shelves now installed in the cavern.
Three of the crew members working up at the spaceship had family still at the airfield; these were the younger scientists going into space; the others, older specialists like Mr. Rose, had no immediate family to consider. A much younger Hans was married with a young boy of nine, which meant that the three wives and five children of the crew already in space would join them once the passenger shuttle went up. The passenger shuttle would carry the remaining scientists, mostly working in ground control, the shuttle’s refueling team, family members and Ryan himself.
Fritz Warner was the loadmaster on Asterspace III this time, and he transferred the single cylinder and all its necessary equipment, plus the second laser sealed inside. Again fuel was transferred from the shuttle.
An extra orbit was being completed by the shuttle on this flight to allow Asterspace III to break away from SB III to climb higher and away in case somebody figured out where the laser beam originated from. Bill had explained to Ryan that it would be impossible to figure out the point of fire of the laser.
Ryan called Hal McNealy. “Hal, we will be ready with our test shortly. Are you ready with your video feed to us here?”
“We are going live now,” Hal replied.
“My team needs the exact coordinates of whatever you have there. OK, I have live feed, I can see the target, it looks like an old brown 1980s Ford 150 in the center of Cape Canaveral’s main runway,” Ryan described as he watched the view come up on the screens around ground control.”
“That’s right, we have placed the target on the runway,” replied McNealy. He went on to give Ryan the exact latitude and longitude coordinates. Ryan told Hal that he would hang up and call him back just before the laser beam was initiated.
“Mr. Jones,” said Ryan, “here are the coordinates; you are currently 1,623 miles away from the target, you are over the Rockies, how long before you feel confident in hitting the target? The target is an old Ford truck on the main runway at Cape Canaveral. They want you to hit the vehicle, so you need to be very precise. What do your camera and radar show?”
“The camera shows a dark brown blob on the runway surface. My screen is too blurry to see what the target is, but I have the computer and targeting device set on the vehicle. Rather stupid to leave a target on the runway, the beam could go straight through and damage the surface. Ryan, we have a problem, there is now cloud cover in-between us and Florida; I’m switching over to infra-red and heat. Ask your buddy if the target’s engine still operates, we could pick it up with the heat screen.”
Ryan called Florida back, and they sent a person to go out and start the old Ford’s engine.
A few seconds later and now at 1,289 miles from target Jonesy confirmed that they were picking up the heat source, and they had a clear view of the minute orange glow on the runway. Ryan suggested that Jonesy use a two-second burst, one-third of the power of the lesser-powered laser gun.
“Hal, we are ready, we are aiming for the vehicle from 1,003 miles out. If we can hit the running engine, we should see an explosive reaction, instead of nothing.”
“I got that, just count us down; we have over 200 NASA personnel three hundred yards away.”
“I’m sure my friends Ward, Bishop and Mortimer are also in attendance,” suggested Ryan.
“And several other important dignitaries, Ryan. By the way if you have any power left in your laser, there are three other vehicles to the right of the runway on the grass. I now have their engines running as well if your unmanned craft up there wants to target them.”
Ryan covered his phone with his hand and told Jonesy about the other three targets. “Once you blast the main target, hit only one of the three hot vehicles on the side of the runway with a half-second burst. I want to see what difference the shorter beams have.”
“Roger that,” replied Jonesy. “Ready to begin trial in 10 seconds.”
Ryan got back onto his cell phone and counted down the seconds for Hal, with Jonesy listening in. “Hal, here we go; 10...9…8... 7... 6…5…4…3…2…1…blast!”
Everybody watched as for a spilt-second nothing happened. Then with a blinding explosion, the whole truck, with the gasoline around the engine igniting, literally lifted off the surface of the runway and flew twenty feet before landing just to the side of the tarmac, its gas tank ignited by the flames. Suddenly Ryan’s picture became more colorful as one of the three trucks on the side of the runway went up the exact same way.
“Wow! Ryan, how far did you say your laser is?”
“832 miles out, Hal. How accurate were we?”
“Gee! I would say you hit two engines, two out of four…” the phone could be heard changing hands.
“Richmond, Mortimer here. I want that weapon brought down to Earth immediately. U.S. civilians will not be allowed to have weapons of that strength or capability; otherwise we have no choice but to blast your craft out of the sky!”
“I don’t think so, General. First, it is not a weapon, second, it is not able to be returned to Earth, third, if you shoot it down then we have no defense against the incoming asteroids.”
“I don’t give a crap about what you say or think Richmond, our nuclear missiles will take care of any asteroids out there. You and your project have just become a national threat to the United States, and need to be closed down. I want that laser gun down here, or I’m sending troops in to tear your airfield apart.”
“The president gave me until the middle of January to complete my project, General Mortimer. My laser up there has been designed purely to clear obstacles out of the path of my mining craft in space. It is not a weapon. Also three copies of this live feed NASA has so kindly transmitted to me will be sent to the media, including our current conversation if you so wish. You and the U.S. military have no right to attack my airfield. It is against U.S. law and everything you have just stated is completely illegal and against our U.S. Constitution, and it is about time the American public and the American press see the bully tactics you, and this new government are inflicting on private American business. General Mortimer, I am warning you once only, you set off a nuclear missile, or a military laser blast against my U.S. civilian space vehicle, and the president will have to explain to the rest of the world why he has the authority to launch nuclear missiles and blast civilian spacecraft out of orbit any time he wants. I’m sure the Chinese and Russians will be very interested in the president’s reasoning. General Mortimer, do not threaten me again!”
Ryan hung up the phone and called the media in Las Vegas that he had some interesting feed for them, and that they should come out and get it on disk. A copy of what had just happened, including the conversation, was immediately emailed to the former president, who Ryan thought as his only real backup.
Later that day, the news went viral,
worldwide. Ryan had kept back his cell phone conversation from the media, but the world got their first view of trucks blowing up from a civilian-made laser beam from space.
Ryan’s interview excited television audiences around the world as he described how this weak laser device could be a last resort to prevent incoming meteors or asteroids from hitting Earth. He explained that it was purely in the design phase, but might need to be tested if NASA needed his help with the four asteroids approaching Earth’s orbit. When asked if it could be used as a weapon, Ryan smiled at the reporter and replied that the laser was to be handed over NASA in a couple of months anyway, along with control of his complete project.
For several minutes Ryan described on camera, the theories of long deceased Russian Professor Yarkovsky on how objects in space could be moved out of harm’s way by light, or even painting one side of a rock. Future spacecraft could land on an incoming asteroid months before it arrived, and with their thrusters push it out of harm’s way. If extended time was available, like years, then dangerous asteroids could be moved out of a certain orbit by painting the side of the asteroid closest to the sun and the sun’s radiant energy could deflect the rock over time.
The airfield in Nevada never got its promised visit, and within days of the test, there were heated arguments in Congress about Astermine being a threat to national security. The former president had passed on information to friends and party supporters.
Chapter 17
The last Christmas
Christmas at the airfield was going to be a much smaller affair than the previous year. A dozen people were celebrating their first Christmas in space. Kathy Pringle and Allen Saunders, the next pilots to launch into space three days before Christmas, were carrying 100 pounds of frozen Christmas food and presents to be enjoyed in Ivan and America One.
The team on the airfield had been reduced by more than two hundred scientists plus their family members. Only eight-five scientists and forty family members remained and many of them had only a month’s work left, mostly on the new hydrogen engines.
So far, two thirds of the eighty-one necessary loads into space were complete. With only seventeen flights still to launch, made possible by the Russian and European Space authorities taking cargo equal to eight flights, it was getting near to the time the whole project would come to an end. The airfield still had more cargo it could take up if there was time before the authorities arrived to take over the property. There was more than enough topsoil, water, and extra cargoes of luxuries like frozen meat that could be squeezed in to another twelve flights after the last necessary flight of crew and equipment headed up.
Since Ryan’s threat to General Mortimer a couple of weeks earlier, he had heard nothing from NASA or the government. The television broadcast must have deterred anybody from approaching his airfield.
The real reason that Mortimer and the rest of the world left him alone, was that a manned Chinese spacecraft was launched a week before Christmas. With heavy propaganda and publicity about starting their own space station, this move by China had interested all the people on earth who owned telescopes, and hundreds watched as this craft orbited Earth for its first three days, slowly climbing higher and higher above the ISS.
Also the second Russian launch of Ryan’s equipment went into space the next day after the Chinese launch, only hours before the European rocket, also carrying Ryan’s equipment, erupted out of its European launch station.
Suddenly the American government felt like they were far behind the rest of the world, and those in power in Washington suggested to each other that the Cold War was beginning all over again.
Ryan kept his orbits and transfers away from the path of the new satellite the Chinese government stated was purely the first part of its own space station with more launches to come. Two days later they launched a second satellite and twenty-four hours later a third one, a day before Christmas.
Ryan was busy making cargo transfer schedules with his own shuttles as well. One of his space craft was descending to connect to the two unmanned space-freighter modules and thrust them up to geostationary altitude before the asteroids got too close.
The four approaching asteroids, now less than 100,000 miles the other side of the moon, were not going to pass anywhere close to America One, Ivan, the first two freighter modules already secured to the ship, or Astermine I and II; the mining fleet were expected to have enough time to be docked to America One. Even though two of America One’s three large hydrogen thrusters were now up in space, they were still being attached to the aft of the ship, and the thrusters of the two smaller craft would be needed to position Ryan’s whole investment in space out of the way of any incoming dangers.
SB III was due to be up there several hours before the asteroids were expected to hit the moon and Jonesy had orders to climb the shuttle up to 1,000 miles above Earth and prepare for battle. Asterspace III would meet up with the shuttle to load the cargo before returning to a safer higher orbit.
The second laser had already been placed in its position on America One, underneath the new command center, and power had been connected only hours before the start of Christmas Day. VIN had aimed the distant laser towards earth for the first time, 22,500 miles away. Much like the test done in Florida with SB III’s laser, Ryan used as a target an old rusted military jeep body he found on the property when he had first arrived; this time the jeep was placed several feet off the runway on the opposite end to where the customs officials lived.
With the ship’s radar, computers and new laser on full power, VIN fired the unit aiming for the area where the computers determined the jeep was located. He couldn’t see the airfield through the powerful cameras, but the computers worked out the position of the jeep from the accurate coordinates given to them.
Large metal sheets from the walls of the partly dismantled Hangar Seven had been placed around the jeep to test if any laser strikes could be noticed. The first burst was not detected.
VIN was firing the laser from the new ship’s half built and sealed flight deck, now connected and welded to the front of the first cube. The ship’s new “Command Center”, or flight deck was a decent size, ten times the size of the of the shuttle’s flight cockpits, and was one of the large forty-foot accommodation oval cylinders specially made with large one-foot thick see-through windows six feet across.
The second one-second burst blew a hole in one of the panels, thirty feet south of the jeep, raising a small part of the metal panel an inch or two off the ground. Ryan told VIN his distance from target.
In five bursts he never hit the jeep, but got within ten feet of it, accurate enough at 22,500 miles, Ryan suggested to his team.
This was VIN’s first time in the future “Bridge”, the area where America One would be controlled from. He and Jonesy had argued on several of their flights whether to call it “The Bridge” or the “Flight Command Center”, or simply the “Flight Deck”. Ryan had decided to call it “The Bridge” since his ship was a spaceship, not a spacecraft, like an aircraft.
The Bridge was set up against Cube One’s outer front wall, on a revolving circular unit welded to the wall, which would rotate the cylinder in the opposite direction to the rotating cubes, keeping the command center stationary while the craft revolved behind the Bridge.
A magnetic floor and an electromagnet had been placed underneath the metal, so magnetic shoes could be worn by the crew while in the Bridge. The sliding door to the cube was round so that it didn’t matter at what degree they were when it opened into the cube. The middle of the cube’s walkway now had a door to the sealed elevator unit connecting the walkway vertically to the two outer levels.
The entire Bridge was one-half see-through with one-foot thick silicon windows and three control stations, positioned like a naval ship’s bridge, in one line across the width of the cylinder. VIN was sitting at the laser control center, to one side of the three captain’s chairs.
Where he sat in a swivel chair looking out of
the side of the cylinder, the ends of the bridge were three-foot thick silicone-graphite oval seals, the same see-through materials the first supply cylinders had used, with a far harder more permanent compound this time. Only the magnetic floor wasn’t see-through, and VIN felt all powerful in this large open Bridge, twice the size of Ivan’s communal module.
The interior command chairs and stations, two dozen computers and furniture, were surrounded by a jumble of hundreds of feet of wires and connections being worked on by a crew of three. It would take months before it would be ready, but it was sure nice and roomy to sit in.
****
While millions enjoyed Christmas Day all over the world, Earth had only forty-one hours left before they would find out if any of the incoming asteroids missed the moon. The festivities at Ryan’s airfield were loud and happy.
Many knew that this would be their last Christmas on terra firma. Many knew that this was their last Christmas at the airfield in Nevada. All of the personnel who were not going to space didn’t know if the person next to them at Christmas dinner might be having their last Christmas on planet Earth. The non-space crew didn’t know anything more than when their contracts ended, how much money would be deposited into their bank accounts, and their earliest returns to their homes, if these pesky asteroids didn’t end life on earth before New Year’s Eve.
Around the world, there was little to no concern about the asteroids. The media systems had done well, not letting the public worry over Christmas. Also, the U.S. president had stated in a special Christmas address to his nation, and to others who had any interest in listening, that there was very little chance that the four asteroids would miss the moon. Hal McNealy and NASA were confident that they were spot on.