America One - The Launch

by T I WADE

  Both views of the moon were very different. The higher view looked down at the moon, and could see behind the dark side. SB III’s view was much the same as the moon viewed from earth, except that the moon was a clear crescent and twice as large as if Ryan looked out of the window.

  “Can anybody see the asteroids?” Ryan asked, sitting down in the command seat.

  “We have a lock on the largest, the third rock,” replied one of his team peering at monitors in front of them. It is about 3,000 miles from the moon’s dark side and calculating its position, I believe we should either see the first rock, or DX2014B, which is still a few hundred miles ahead of A, cause an eruption on the moon’s surface; or, we could see a black speck pass in front of the illuminated crescent of the moon in about thirty seconds.

  They waited. For the entire thirty seconds nobody said a word. Then one man spoke up.

  “I can see the start of an explosion on the rear side of the moon, and I also see a minute black speck the size of a pin head in front of the crescent, right by the rear dark/light line in the camera from SB III.” Then others stated that they had it visual.

  “Suzi, Mr. Noble, can you see the black dot on your screens up there in America One?” Ryan asked.

  “Ja, we see it now. The black speck is about 300 miles to one side, the left side of the moon as you would look up at it from earth. We also saw the explosion of dust on the darker side, there is a plume of what looks like dust forming in the sunlight around the moon.”

  “Yes, we can see it from here,” replied Ryan. Guys get the coordinates of that plume of dust on the moon’s surface. That must be DX2014B. How close is the third one? Anybody?” Ryan asked.

  “Our best guess is that it will hit the moon in 185 seconds,” replied one man.

  “We can now see the first rock in front of the bright side of the moon,” Jonesy reported from SB III. “It is sort of coming in our direction.”

  “Can you see it on radar?” Ryan asked.

  “Negative, but we are still picking up the first rock’s beacon, which means that it missed. The second beacon has stopped. I’m setting up the computers to plot the first beacon’s course. I should have it in a few minutes.”

  Nobody moved until Jonesy came back on air.

  “Your guys were right, our computers show DX2014A will crash into the Pacific about 200 miles off shore from Los Angeles in 31 hours, 23 minutes.”

  Ryan tried to phone Hal McNealy still in Air Force One. He got no response. Then he tried to call the president. The Washington switchboard told him to call back another time. Then he tried Martin Brusk.

  “The first rock is still curving,” continued Jonesy over the radio.

  “Yes, we are now seeing it from your feed,” replied Igor, the head of ground control. “It’s center target area has already moved 200 miles further north, and at this rate it could plough into Alaska if it keeps changing its path. OK, we have a second minute plume of dust on the moon’s surface. We can see it from America One’s feed on the opposite side about 1,000 miles from the first plume, which is still drifting above the surface. At least that is the largest rock down. How long before the last one?” he asked.

  “I believe 102 seconds,” someone responded.

  “It better be faster than that,” interjected another voice. “It’s going to miss by just miles if you are correct, Simon.”

  “Switch on the television feed, put the screen into quarters. I want to know what the media is saying.”

  Martin Brusk’s phone just rang and rang.

  “The first asteroid named DX2014A has missed its hit on the moon, and is currently aiming for the Pacific, about 200 miles offshore. We have the Director of Kitt Observatory on the telephone…..”

  “Well, it seems that the public is being kept up to date. What does CBS have on?” Ryan asked. Suddenly he saw himself talking on camera. It was the footage taken earlier with the president, and this was airing from the Los Angeles studio. The feed was suddenly frozen and a presenter came on. “The first asteroid, we’ve been told, has missed hitting the moon. The second and third asteroids have hit the moon and observers at the Los Alamos Observatory are waiting to see what happens to the fourth asteroid, the second largest of the group….”

  “How big is the first one that missed?” asked Ryan.

  “It seems to have lost some of its size,” said one scientist. All the observatories are describing it as less than half a mile across. The fourth one is still being shown at more than seven times its size and it seems to have missed the moon. We should have seen a….hold on…. . There is a plume of dust right along the moon’s dark side. Maybe it went in, but the plume looks like the wake of a speed boat. The moon dust is rising, but spreading out and right across the side of the moon, about a hundred miles long. I’ve got it. It has passed the moon and a grain of something moving is visible through SB III’s feed. The moon is dark but I can see this grain of dust moving away from its surface. We have two incoming. We have now lost visual on it.

  Ryan went back to the television. “…it seems that NASA has just told us that the fourth asteroid has just erupted into the side of the moon. We are awaiting more information from either Kitt Observatory, or Los Alamos Observatory for confirmation. Hold on, I’m getting a voice in my ear. OK… NASA believes that the fourth asteroid has hit the moon…that’s it, the danger is over for now except from the first rock NASA says is too small to reach Earth. Danger averted….our current weather for downtown Los Angeles….”

  “Crap!” shouted Ryan. “The rock is still out there. He could just see the grain of dirt on the feed now from America One, but not on the feed from SB III. “Maybe all the Earth telescopes are at the same angle and blind,” he suggested to the team. He tried Hal’s phone again and left a message that the fourth asteroid was still incoming. Then he speed dialed his Hubble friend, and left the same message.

  “The first rock is still curving but more slowly,” Jonesy stated. “The beacon we left on it is getting weaker. Possible impact looks like another 50 miles north and 220 miles offshore from San Francisco.”

  Martin Brusk’s phone was answered on Ryan’s second try.

  “Martin, Ryan here, we still have two meteors incoming,”

  “Hold on Ryan,” and Ryan heard him put his hand over the phone. It wasn’t long before he returned. “Hal says that’s impossible, NASA saw it hit the moon and the danger has been averted. A missile will take care of the first rock,” and Martin added “please do not disturb us again. Ryan I’ll call you when I get back to Washington.”

  For several minutes Ryan did nothing but look at the feed coming through from both cameras, and the television channels he switched continuously through.

  His team just sat there and waited. “How far is the distance between the two rocks?” He asked to nobody in particular.

  “It looks like that DX2014A is speeding up,” replied one man.

  “Ja, it is being pulled in by our gravity,” added another. “Current speed 9,100 miles an hour, time to impact 27 hours, somewhere in the Pacific. DX2014D is harder to figure out since we don’t have a beacon-lock on it. It isn’t large enough to show up on radar screens yet. I studied those pictures given to us from Hubble. Rock four is now seven times the size of the first meteor, about half a mile wide and a mile long. The last time we saw it, we calculated that it is not as fast, traveling in the 9,000 mile range and I think it is now about five minutes behind the first one.”

  “Can you get a lock on the first one, Mr. Noble?” Ryan asked VIN sitting up in the bridge of America One.

  “Negative, they are still too far and too small to show up on our radar.”

  “Same here,” replied Jonesy.

  “DX2014A is curving north; we can go ahead with our transfer of cargo. It is going to put us back a day, but Sierra Bravo III, gain altitude at maximum, meet up with your connection at 200 miles on your next orbit, and transfer your cargo. Asterspace III, decrease altitude as rapidly as possible
to get down to connect with the shuttle, then head back up to Ivan; use one extra seven-minute thrust to eliminate your final orbit, and I want you back up at Ivan in twenty-three hours in case we need your thrusters to help our investments up there dodge bullets. Sierra Bravo III, hold back 200 pounds of fuel from the fuel transfer in case you need reserves. Astermine I, with the two most recent freighters in tow, is expected to reach Ivan in twenty-four hours. I want to see what the U.S. military sends up before we get involved. Team, what would be the safest height for SB III?” Ryan asked his ground control.

  “If the military blasts the meteor with a nuke,” answered the chief, “I would say a minimum of 1,000 miles away from DX2014A’s incoming trajectory window, currently 500 miles wide, is necessary. I think 200 miles higher than the ISS is minimum safe altitude. The ISS is not changing altitude anymore at 300 miles, they can’t; the ISS is already at maximum altitude for Earth-Exit’s resupply freighter going up to meet them. Their connect time is twenty-six hours, about the same time impact is possible.”

  “If there are going to be particles slicing through the junk layers,” added another voice, “then a 600 to 1,000 mile altitude should give SB III enough time to maneuver away from any debris below, and hours before any debris from the 12,500-mile military GPS and information satellites arrives at that altitude, if they get hit. The Chinese space station is still very low, their parts connected up only a day ago they are also climbing at full thrust, heading upwards to get out of the way of the lower junk.”

  “Igor, please give me a sixty-second lecture on space junk. How much is actually up there?” Ryan asked his lead scientist.

  “The great majority of debris consists of objects smaller than one-half inch across,” began Igor. “These millions of smaller objects do not pose a threat to our craft up there due to the protective forward directional Whipple shields we designed on them. The mid-2011 update to the NASA debris report places the number of what they describe as ‘large’ debris items sized at over four inches wide, or one pound in weight, at 21,400. These are the most dangerous and are in either in LSO, low space orbit or the higher geostationary orbit altitudes.

  “Between four inches and down to half an inch, the ‘middle size’, they estimate 500,000 units, while the debris items smaller than half an inch exceed tens of millions, In terms of mass, the vast majority of the overall weight of the debris is concentrated in larger objects; using numbers from 2009, about 1,900 objects weighing more than 200 pounds each account for over 98 percent of the 2,400 tons of debris known to be in low earth orbit at that time.

  “Due to extended distances at the geostationary level, the chances of collisions are far, far less, and most non-solar powered craft could maneuver out of the paths of possible collisions. Only solar-powered satellites, like the communication satellites are prone to collision at America One’s altitude.

  “Since space debris comes only from man-made objects, the total possible mass of debris is easy to calculate; it is the total mass of all spacecraft and rocket bodies that have reached orbit. The actual mass of debris will be necessarily less than that, as the orbits of some of these objects have since decayed. As debris mass tends to be dominated by larger objects, most of which have long ago been detected, the total mass has remained relatively constant in spite of the addition of many smaller objects. Using the figure of 8,500 known debris items from 2009, the total mass is estimated at just over 6,000 tons, not including the tonnage we have put up there. We can increase that figure by 140 tons of metals by the time we have America One complete.”

  “What about the mid layer, where the military GPS satellites, cameras, spy satellites, et cetera, orbit?” asked Ryan.

  “There is slightly less large debris at this altitude, and durations for collisions are counted in hours and days, not minutes, like in low space orbit. Most of these satellites have power, hydrogen thrusters for emergency. But if there was a spray of rogue particles reaching through this mid layer it could cause havoc up there. We must now look at Professor Donald Kessler’s 1991 paper on this exact topic. Let me explain. Professor Kessler wrote that ‘chance of collision is a function of the number of objects in space.’ There is a critical density where the creation of new debris occurs faster than the various natural forces remove these objects from orbit. So, beyond a certain amount of directional changes, or meteors heading through this altitude in all directions, a runaway chain reaction can occur that reduces all objects in orbit to debris in a period of years or months. This possibility is known as the ‘Kessler Syndrome’, and there is debate as to whether or not this critical density has already been reached in the LSO, or the middle orbital band. Of course these times decrease as the numbers of alien rocks passing through increases. A runaway ‘Kessler Syndrome’ would render this useful polar-orbiting band difficult to use, and greatly increase the cost of space launches and missions.”

  “So, if the U.S. military blast these incoming asteroids at low altitudes, then that altitude is directly related to how many rogue rocks could pass through a layer and cause a possible ‘Kessler Syndrome’?” Ryan asked.

  “Correct,” replied Igor. Ryan thought about this vital information for several minutes, and then went out for a walk.

  He returned thirty minutes later and continued the discussion.

  “So, Igor, if the military nukes these incoming rocks, the lower the altitude, the more chances that this professor’s syndrome could actually happen?” Igor nodded.

  He called the former president who, after three rings, answered his cell phone. Then Ryan put him on hold while he called Hal McNealy who must have been back on the East Coast. He picked up the phone this time. “Mr. Richmond, you are not a popular person right now. The president has banned me, and anybody working in the space field from talking to you. He considers you dangerous and an enemy to the state. So, please do not call me again, please do not call the president, or any U.S. citizens working at the observatories in this country and especially any contacts you might have at Hubble, or in the government. If we learn that anyone discussed anything with you from today on, they will join you and your orange suited personnel at the location we discussed. You have stupidly pissed off the most powerful man on Earth, and he is out for blood, your blood.”

  “And what location should I get my mail sent to?” replied Ryan calmly.

  “The happy holiday resort location in Cuba. We are going to fill it with you and your friends, every friend you have. Joe Bishop and Tom Ward at the CIA are desperate to come and get you, and it looks like they will have the pleasure of putting you away for the rest of your life, without trial, and throw away the key.”

  “And these are the totally illegal moves this country’s new president is taking?” Ryan asked. “I have done a study of the incoming asteroids and need to explain certain problems this country is going to face, McNealy. You had better listen, or thousands of Americans could be in danger.”

  “Getting information from you, a person pretty close to being a criminal, is a joke. We at NASA and General Mortimer in the Pentagon will handle this situation, and whatever happens, you and your expired company better back off, and watch how we handle this from the sidelines. If you lift a finger to move this incoming asteroid off its course, we will take it as a direct attack on the United States of America, and have no choice but to retaliate. Remember, Richmond, we have nukes active and ready. It might be just a bad aim if they happen to take out one of your craft, or erase your entire airfield from the map.”

  Hal McNealy hung up. He smiled as he put the phone down. Wow! This power rush was worth living for.

  Ryan thought so as well. He asked the former president what he should do. His friend said that he would like a recording of this conversation, and that Ryan and his company back off, and allow the powers-in-command to solve this problem.

  Ryan then explained the bad news he had gathered. He would send over the recorded message of McNealy. Pity he had not been able to record the president’s
visit. The former president asked what the worst possible scenarios were, and smiled when Ryan explained that all of the satellites in space could be affected over time, and that the West Coast could have a tsunami several feet high if this larger rock impacted the Pacific. He was told to keep his eye on the news reports.

  Several hours later the media began to receive information describing a possible rogue wave that could hit several cities if an asteroid hit the ocean, and that people should begin moving back from low-lying coastal areas as a precaution.

  Two hours later, the news showed Hal McNealy himself explaining that there was a very slight chance that the asteroid could reach earth, as the military were about to blast it into millions of pieces once it reached 100,000 miles above earth. Upon being asked if there were two of the asteroids approaching earth, he smiled, replying arrogantly to the camera that there weren’t, but just in case, he would get all available space observatories to search the sky.

  Ten hours later the early morning news was being broadcast on the East Coast when Ryan was awakened to get dressed and see the latest news.

  Igor, again in control, told him that both Jonesy and VIN’s radar systems had picked up the fourth asteroid four hours earlier. Now the stations around the world were showing that two asteroids were approaching. When his craft’s radar systems had seen the second rock, it was 200,000 miles away from earth and coming in at 9,300 miles an hour, rapidly catching up to the first one. It was on an approach course similar to DX2014A, but angling south towards the equator.

  Now DX2014D was only 162,000 miles away and as he spoke, they saw two rocket launches begin to glow on their ground radar system, exiting from somewhere in California.

  “I think two nukes are heading up,” suggested Igor.

  “We have two rockets on radar,” reported Jonesy. “We are over central China and see them climbing on our radar. They will pass our altitude approximately 2,000 miles from our current position. We are currently at 650 miles altitude and still climbing.”