Magellan

by Scott Baird

  “I'll talk to you soon,” Abigail said. Becker had promised her a direct line to the Magellan once it got into orbit. She forced a weak smile.

  The thought flashed through Roger's mind that they would indeed be able to talk, but it would be a very long time before they would feel each other's presence. He felt a sudden urge to take Abigail in his arms, but pushed back the impulse. He had done that many times in the past few days. Now it was time to be going. Abigail was doing an admirable job of maintaining composure, and he knew she was doing it for him so that he wouldn’t have to deal with difficult emotions during the critical hours ahead.

  So he nodded and left. She knew how he felt. There was nothing left to say.

  After an hour in the White Room, Roger entered the X-57 spacecraft and took his seat. He began checking cockpit switches and carried out a voice check with Launch Control and Mission Control. It was just like the rehearsals, a job that had to be done, a sequence that had to be followed. Mentally, he was already floating in zero gravity.

  As the hatch was sealed behind him and the crew retreated to their fallback area, however, he felt suddenly alone in a way he hadn't experienced before. Always before there had been other crew nearby, trusted companions, brave men and women that were alongside him and constantly interrupting the rehearsals. Now they were only voices in his earpiece, their faces already fading in his memory. They would not intrude this time. This time, he was headed into space alone.

  He missed Abigail already, and he missed the busy hive of innovation and technical accomplishment that was NASA. He ran his hands over the familiar controls of the X-57’s cockpit, reminding himself that he would only be awake for a few days of the years-long journey ahead. The loneliness was purely psychological, and the heaviest parts of that burden were not on him.

  In Launch Control, Gerald Becker’s eyes flitted between a video feed of Nelson in the cockpit, an exterior feed of the entire Launchpad, and a mission-critical systems dashboard. So far, everything was nominal and there was no cause for worry. He felt a surge of pride in his team, and knew the launch would go well. Whether the rest of the mission would go as smoothly once Nelson got into space and began encountering unknown variables, well, that was less clear.

  The months of work on the Magellan had been completed well ahead of schedule, as the mission took full NASA priority and got additional boosts of funding and political support from those who understood its importance. But testing of the crew-centric systems had dragged on far beyond the expected period until Gerald Becker began to seriously worry. For the mission director, this was not just a high-profile mission. It was an epoch-defining transitional moment for humanity, and he had no doubt that if anything went wrong, every note, every meeting, every minute of every day would be examined in ruthless detail. He would personally bear the brunt of it all on his shoulders.

  It didn’t help that one of his lead programmers was married to the sole crew member. Abigail had put constant pressure on her team to work later, test harder, and take no risks. Everyone had shared her enthusiasm and rigor at the beginning. The excitement inside NASA’s various mission centers was palpable. Eventually, however, Becker had to remind her that any manned mission required the same level of dedication, and she couldn’t delay the timetable to refactor code every time another minor bug surfaced. There was a method for dealing with such things in a reliable way, and they were working toward a fixed launch window.

  She fought back ferociously at first, accusing the entire command structure of setting her husband up for mission failure and a slow, cold death in space. It was only after several sit-down meetings with multiple links in the chain of command that she was finally convinced the original schedule provided for the highest standards to be met.

  Abigail was a major player on the team that was finalizing the artificial intelligence that would control most of the ship’s functions, and updating it for the specific mission parameters Nelson would face. This kept her in the loop for all the details of the interplanetary journey her husband would be making. It also gave her near-daily reasons to rant against someone or something.

  Becker had been forced to sit down with Roger and Abby together in their home and have a serious chat about division of responsibilities. Together, he and Roger finally convinced Abby to let the experienced NASA staffers do what they did best. She seemed bent on managing the entire mission from her coding terminal, but in the end they convinced her that was impossible, and for the last few months she had shown remarkable forbearance even when alarming bugs cropped up.

  Each of those bugs was squashed in due course, and by launch day Becker was upwards of ninety-nine percent confident in all of the complex systems working together toward the goal of this mission. Now, as he watched Nelson calmly sitting in the X-57’s cockpit, and when he gazed out over the sea of control stations manned by the smartest people in the entire world, he felt nothing but optimism for the outcome.

  This would be mankind’s finest hour. He was sure of it. And it was a humbling, inspiring thing to be a part of.

  In the cockpit, Nelson grinned when he noticed a small card affixed to a nearby control panel, placed outside his critical line of sight but close enough to act as a reminder. It was hand-written in his wife’s loopy scrawl, and said “I'm watching you all the way.”

  He appreciated the gesture immensely, but also found the wording funny. It was a touching reference to her commitment to undergo this journey alongside him, even if she couldn't be there physically. But it also carried a hint of her obsessive reach for control, as if her furious surveillance of his every move would continue into the outer reaches of the solar system and there was nowhere he could go that she would not be watching.

  He resolved never to mention that reading of her note. He also wondered what she'd had to do to persuade the support crew to leave it there for him. She really was unstoppable sometimes.

  NASA was talking in his ear again. They had never stopped, actually, but he had tuned out momentarily. That jolted him out of the zen-like state he’d entered for the past few minutes. In another moment, mission-critical events would start happening in quick succession, and if he zoned out for one second he might cause an error that would kill him, or even worse, scrub the mission.

  He quickly responded to the request from Launch Control and transitioned the onboard computers to launch configuration. Then he blinked a few times, steeled his mind and heart against further flights of emotional fancy, and became Commander Nelson, a near-robotic servant of the greater mission, a precision instrument of flesh and brain just as reliable as the A.I. that was onboard with him.

  Outside, fuel cells began thermal conditioning and vent valves were closed. Becker and his team gave their final “go” responses, and the automatic ground launch sequencer began. It was all Nelson could do to still the beating of his heart.

  The access arm retracted and the tower tilted away from the rocket.

  The auxiliary power units rumbled to life.

  Commander Nelson closed and locked his visor.

  A light came on, indicating that power had transferred from the ground to the Magellan's internal systems. The main engine burnoff system activated.

  The main engine started.

  T minus zero. The solid rocket booster ignited, and the Magellan achieved liftoff.

  Goodbye, Abigail.

  4 – Starstruck

  There was a young boy sitting alone in the very front section of the darkened theater. His brown hair was cut short, while the heads of the other kids in the theater hung long with retro-chic yearning for cool. And while they were all snacking and telling whispered jokes to each other as they glanced down at their glowing pocket devices, this boy gazed up at the screen with dark eyes wide.

  The film was visionary, an epic that spoke of both desperation and aspiration, one designed to remind a jaded and distracted audience of the power of pioneering individuals and the effect they could have on the course of human progress. It in
cluded just enough thrills and danger to keep a boy on the edge of his seat, but had enough deep science to make him wonder at the mysteries of space travel off-screen, in real life.

  And for young Roger, it was his fourth viewing. He’d spent all his money on the last few tickets, but had successfully begged another ten dollars from his mother to come to the theater on his own this Saturday afternoon. His father had scowled and suggested a more productive use of his time, but his mother had backed him up. “It’s good for him at this age,” she laughed. “He loves science, he loves space. There’s nothing wrong with that. Hey, maybe he’ll grow up to be an astronaut.”

  Maybe, Roger thought, sitting in the theater. Maybe!

  At that young age, Roger—the awkward kid with the old-fashioned name and the inability to see why his peers were so easily distracted by lesser things—didn’t catch the irony in his mom’s joking prediction. He didn’t know that great-grandparents had begun to say the same thing back when Sputnik had first ignited the Space Race, and that by now it was a winking way of expressing the fondest hopes for one’s children in spite of more realistic expectations.

  But he knew that if he could make it a reality, he’d be like those heroes on the screen. And he’d able to one day look back and remind his mom of her words. He would be a hero himself, indisputably.

  He would matter.

  Years later, during a rare training break in the lead-up to his history-making solo mission, Roger watched the film again, this time with Abigail at his side, the two of them embedded in a deep sofa in their basement. As the familiar scenes played out in front of him, his mind traced the patterns of his life back to that point—a turning point for him, he now realized.

  It was after this film that he began playing every space simulation he could find, and trying his best to read through technical manuals released online by NASA—more of the former than the latter, but he made an effort. He did “astronaut pushups” in his room alone every night. He dragged his mom to a recreational vertical wind tunnel attraction so he could experience an approximation of zero gravity. And when he was fifteen, he traveled to California to watch the launch of the first private manned mission into space.

  Another turning point came soon after college, when he turned away from a business opportunity and instead joined the Air Force. That was his first real step toward his dream. It had filled him with fear at first, especially when he saw the uncertainty in his father’s eyes. But later, when people all around him began to take him at his word when he said he was going to become an astronaut, he felt a surge of confidence. And now, with the launch date rapidly approaching, his father had become one of his most ardent supporters.

  Roger heard a gentle snore and looked over at his wife, blithely sleeping through the film’s climax. She was another turning point, perhaps the final one without which he’d never have made it this far. Abigail came on board just as he was getting out of the Air Force. The cute young lady with the dark hair and eyes had him at the word “NASA”, but it also helped that they both loved chess, hiking, and stargazing. Her support and enthusiasm sped up his professional development exponentially, and soon he found himself in exactly the kind of role he’d hoped for: testing experimental craft at one of NASA’s Florida facilities.

  But then another economic and political downturn had put space funding through one of its periodic lulls. Abby was still happily engrossed in the advances her division was making in A.I. control systems, which had commercial uses well beyond space missions, but privately Roger had to wonder if he’d made the right choice.

  He’d agonized over it for months. Was any of this going anywhere? What were the chances? Maybe those guys in the private sector had the right idea. If he stayed with NASA waiting for something to come along, would he grow old and lose his sense of wonder without ever playing a part in the exploration of all that lay beyond Earth?

  Thankfully he’d plowed through. He went to work every day, he represented NASA at occasional seminars, and he kept a telescope by his patio door. He lived life, all the while unaware of what was coming. Something kept him in the game, some inner light that burned in spite of frustrations and dull years. This inner sense kept him sharp, kept him hungry.

  Some might have called it faith. Nelson preferred to call it dedication.

  He turned off the movie before it reached the end, and settled back next to Abigail. He had his own ending to act out now.

  5 – Into Stasis

  Orbit.

  It was a strange little word, from the Latin orbitus, circular. But it fit: the X-57 and its parent vehicle, the Magellan, were being flung around the earth in a 17,000-mile per hour circular trajectory that would take them out into space in the direction of Saturn.

  Having shed the solid boosters with their massive external tank, the X-57 joined had joined the much larger craft and taken its place docked at the forward junction of the Magellan. Made up of two concentric spoked rings that rotated on a long central shaft to give gravity and electric generation to the interior crew space, the Magellan wasn’t particularly sleek. But it was both elegant and functional, and it was now coming up on its exit window.

  At a word from NASA, and a visual confirmation check on the computer model, Nelson brought in a pulse from the directional thrusters, and the Magellan was away from Earth and moving outward into the solar system. Computers confirmed that the course was accurate, and a series of computerized pulses from the ion thruster in the rear sped it on its way.

  Inside the crew area, which consisted of the X-57’s cockpit and a larger room beyond its docking hatch where a small laboratory was located, Roger floated gently through the air. It was his first true zero-g experience, and all too soon it would be over. When he awoke, the spinning of the Magellan’s rings would provide a measure of artificial gravity so he could walk around in the cabin and accomplish his mission duties in a more standard human environment. For now, he took a moment to enjoy the weightlessness and revel in the audacity of his new role.

  Only a few people had come this far from their home planet. By the time Nelson awoke from stasis, he would be the only human ever to venture as far.

  Abigail sighed audibly over the comms system. “Roger, I asked them to let me do a remote upload to fix a little bug on one of your monitors that makes it flicker under certain conditions. It was denied.”

  Nelson smiled. “Don't worry about it, Abby. To make a launch on this timeline, sacrifices had to be made. I'm just glad it wasn't related to life support.”

  “Not funny, Roger.”

  Becker's voice cut in. “Hey, in my defense, it was really the Chinese driving the schedule here. Otherwise we’d have had a full three years to do this.”

  Roger flipped a switch to turn all systems to auto while he drifted back through the craft toward the rear where the stasis box awaited him. “Speaking of our Asian friends, how did their launch go? Any word?”

  “Delayed until morning for technical problems. Secretary Stewart is ecstatic.”

  Nelson left the X-57 cockpit area and passed through a hatch to the rear cabin, part of the Magellan itself. The stasis box, a long coffin-like compartment that was white and sterile like the rest of his new home, ran along one wall, across from the lab equipment.

  The stasis box had a small window where his face would be when he lay down in it. There was no one else to look in on him, of course, but during testing for the new technology one unlucky man had awoken prematurely and nearly suffocated himself in panic. The kindly, benevolent engineers had put the window in so that if it happened to Nelson, he would see out into the spacecraft's interior and be able to orient himself and remain placid until the box opened.

  Nelson opened a cupboard in the wall to retrieve his stasis garment, and then set about the awkward task of changing clothes in zero gravity. He found that he had to hold on to one side of the stasis box while he used his other hand to wiggle into the thermally-regulated garment. Then he turned and pulled himself toward the lo
ng white box. It took all of his professional resolve to put aside his personal aversion to the sarcophagus (early technical manuals had actually used that word) and move himself into its icy, padded depths.

  “I'll dream of you often, Roger. I know I will.” Abigail's tone was heavy, choked with emotion. It surprised Nelson; he would have thought she'd be controlling herself more tightly in front of everyone at Mission Control.

  “And I of you, Abby.”

  “No, you won't,” she corrected him with a trace of bitterness in her voice. “You don't dream in stasis. For you, it'll be like waking up after a quick nap. But it will have been eighteen months for me.”

  Nelson sighed. “I love you, Abigail. Be strong.”

  He looked up just before inserting the second of two I.V. tubes into his arm, distracted by a flash of something blue on a nearby wall-mounted screen. It was the Earth, which had just come into view on the camera that looked out over the Magellan's rear thrusters. Nelson froze, staring at the planet he was leaving behind.

  He was transfixed. Enamored. It was a beautiful world, and it was shrinking slowly into the distance, swallowed by a growing spread of black around it.

  “Commander Nelson, are you preparing for stasis?” Becker was obviously monitoring his signals very closely.

  “Sorry. Got distracted by the view. You have a wonderful planet, there. Keep it that way until I get back, okay?”

  “You got it.”

  “And Becker? Take care of Abby for me, all right? Take good care of her.”

  Abby's reply was quick. “Hey, I'm still here, Roger. And I can take care of myself just fine.”

  Becker laughed. “If by 'take care of', you mean making sure she has her own key to the Comms Center and can check on you or record a message for you any time she wants, then yes. I've got it covered.”

  “Thanks. That's exactly what I mean. Abby, we'll start that long-distance chess match when I wake up. Until then, farewell.”