by Mark Kelly
“While we’re here, can we get a tour?” Mom asked. She was looking at Grandpa, but he turned to Egg.
“Jenny’s the expert,” he said.
“I don’t know about that.” Egg tried, unsuccessfully, to look modest. “But I’ll be happy to show you around.”
Like well-behaved students on a field trip, the group bunched up and followed Egg.
“This is our Mission Control building, and Launch Control, too,” Egg explained. “NASA has separate facilities, but here at Greenwood they’re combined in one.”
“Where is everybody, anyway?” Grandpa asked as they walked across the smooth spread of newly laid asphalt. “Usually there’s a few NASA guys or some contractors around working, even on weekends.”
“I don’t know for sure,” Mr. Perez said. “But one of their guys told one of my guys at the shop that everybody was all of a sudden recalled to Florida in a hurry.”
“Dad!” Lisa said. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Mr. Perez shrugged. “It didn’t come up.”
“Why would they be recalled to Florida, do you think?” Scott asked.
“Maybe it has something to do with the cosmonaut,” said Barry. “Maybe they have to do extra training to get ready for the rescue.”
“If it’s training for the rescue, shouldn’t we be there?” Mark asked.
That question hung in the air as everyone approached the Mission Control building, which was made of white concrete. Located well away from the rocket, it had been reinforced with heavy blocks and buried partway underground. Egg explained the thick walls had to protect the people inside in case something went badly wrong, which—sometimes—it did.
The Titan that had been used for launching Gemini spacecraft in the 1960s had another use as well. It was a modified ICBM—intercontinental ballistic missile—suitable for delivering a huge bomb to an enemy target. Compared with the Crazy 8 team, the U.S. government had tons of money, expertise, and experience. Even so, instead of launching into the air, their rockets sometimes stayed right where they were on the ground and—this was the bad part—exploded.
The entrance to the Mission Control center was down a short, narrow staircase. The only daylight came in from three narrow windows, slits really, on the wall facing the rocket. Egg flipped the light switch to reveal a space that was empty, still, and gray, the kind of space that silenced you the second you walked in.
And then there was all the cool stuff!
Apparently, NASA required a lot more computer power and a lot more equipment for telemetry, tracking, and instrumentation than the Crazy 8 team had used for their own launch in the fall.
“The equipment in this building is connected to the rocket by a data link,” Egg explained. “During launch, closed-circuit TV cameras transmit to the screens you see here.”
She pointed to the windows. “They’re made of reinforced glass,” she said. “For a better view, you have to use that.” A heavy-looking, complicated metal contraption with an eyepiece hung from the ceiling. “It’s a periscope, like they have on submarines. Maybe you saw the top sticking out of the roof.”
As for the furnishings, they were like NASA’s operations in Texas and Florida, familiar to everyone from TV: three neat rows of desks on elevated platforms, each desk with a phone, all of them facing a big screen.
The whole thing had a rough, unfinished look. Here and there lay power drills, sandpaper, and screwdrivers. The electricity to the desks had yet to be hooked up, and wiring spilled from the outlets and electronics like tangled red, white, and black spaghetti.
“What’s through there?” Mark gestured at a doorway up five stairs in the windowless back wall.
“Restroom,” Egg said, “and a dorm space with two sets of bunk beds in case someone working a long mission needs to crash for a while.”
“It feels spooky,” Barry said.
“Wait till it’s full of people,” said Egg.
The next stop was the vehicle assembly building, the one like an airplane hangar. It was as long and wide as a football field, and more cavernous than a cathedral. Inside, the air smelled faintly unpleasant, like cleaning chemicals and fresh cement. Vents high in the walls brought in some daylight.
When Egg flipped switches, a buzz and hum preceded startlingly bright illumination. Intricate webs of scaffolding on either side cast black shadows. Catwalks linked platforms along the distant ceiling. On the concrete floor were stacks of silver storage containers as big as railcars, and orange forklifts parked in rows.
“It sure beats Grandpa’s barn,” Mark said finally.
“Hey, now,” said Grandpa. “I thought the barn worked pretty well for you kids last summer.”
“Don’t get me wrong. It did,” said Mark. “On the other hand, it would be nice to work without worrying a bat might swoop into your hair.”
“I’m gonna miss the bats,” said Lisa. “This place is so big and clean, it doesn’t seem human somehow.”
Dad looked at his watch. “Sorry, kids. I had no idea this was going to be quite such a jam-packed visit, and I do have to work tonight. We need to head back on time.”
“Okay, so come on, then.” Egg herded everyone back outside for the short hike to the main attraction, the one towering over them all—ten stories tall with a spacecraft perched on top.
“Can we go up and take a look?” Scott asked.
“I don’t think the elevator’s working yet,” Egg said.
Howard had been staring upward, arms folded across his chest. “It’s kind of disappointing, actually,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘disappointing?’ ” Egg narrowed her eyes.
Howard shrugged. “It’s not even state-of-the-art.”
“Haven’t you seen it before, Howard?” Barry asked.
Howard hadn’t. In fact, only Egg had seen the rocket on the launchpad. The last time the others had been there, it had still been in pieces on a truck.
Mark looked up. “It’s a lot bigger than the Crazy 8 launch vehicle, but Howard has a point. The Saturn V that powered the Apollo trips to the moon was more than three times as tall—taller even than the Statue of Liberty. This guy’s a pipsqueak by comparison.”
“So I guess we won’t be taking this one to the moon,” Scott said.
Mark said, “Not hardly. I mean, a Titan only produces four hundred and thirty thousand pounds of thrust.”
“This Titan does a bit better.” Egg’s expression was smug. “It’s powered by the same superpowerful sugar propellant–based solid fuel as the Drizzle rocket that launched Crazy 8.”
“How much thrust does it deliver?” Mark asked.
“Not as much as a Saturn,” Egg conceded, “but plenty to get the three-seat command module into orbit. Pound for pound, Drizzle fuel is a lot more powerful than the stuff NASA usually uses.”
This conversation took place as Grandpa, the Kellys, Barry, Mr. Perez, Lisa, Howard, and Egg walked in a wide circle around the rocket and its support tower. Even if it was small compared to some others, it was an impressive piece of machinery. While both Mark and Scott were disappointed that they couldn’t get a better look right now, they were also confident they’d have their chance soon. NASA was bound to assign them to rescue the Russian, right?
And of all the kids on the Crazy 8 team, they were by far the best prepared. Hadn’t they been reading up on how to fly a spacecraft ever since the fall? Hadn’t they done all the simulations together for the last launch? Hadn’t Scott himself already been into space?
“Ready to head back for lunch?” Grandpa asked. “I’ve got sandwiches.”
“Don’t tell me,” Mom said. “Peanut butter and pepper?”
Grandpa shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I only make those in summer with peppers from the garden. This time of year, I’m serving peanut butter and mushroom.”
Chapter 10
* * *
Everyone thought peanut butter and mushroom was a terrible idea. Everyone was too polite to say so. Instead, on the
walk back to Grandpa Joe’s, the conversation was all about the rocket.
“Uh, for those of us who have never built a spaceship,” said Mrs. Kelly, “could you guys just say what ‘thrust’ means again?”
Mark loved any question he knew the answer to. “No problem, Mom,” he said. “You know how once there was this guy Sir Isaac Newton who described three laws of motion?”
“I did take science in school, honey,” Mom said. “It was a while ago, but we covered Sir Isaac Newton.”
Mark said, “Just checking.” The truth was that up till they started studying for Project Blastoff, Mark had never heard of Newton’s laws himself. But a few trips to the library and one spaceship later, he was pretty knowledgeable on the subject. “The first law says for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. A rocket works according to that law. When the fuel burns, gases shoot out in one direction, causing the rocket to react by going in the opposite direction—up.”
Mom nodded. “Okay, I get that. And what about thrust?”
“It’s a measurement,” Mark said, “of how much pushing the fuel does. If you’re trying to get something off Earth, you need a lot of thrust. The big thing it has to overcome is the pull of Earth’s gravity. But there’s also friction caused by the atmosphere, air. How much thrust you need depends on a lot of stuff, but mostly it depends on the mass of whatever you’re moving.”
“I see,” Mom said thoughtfully. “So in that case, the Apollo rockets had to be bigger than the Gemini ones because Apollo carried three people and Gemini only carried two. Apollo had more mass, in other words.”
Mark looked uncomfortable. “Uh, Mom? You know how much I hate to disagree with you. . . .”
“Ha!” said Scott. “No, you don’t.”
“And that was very good thinking, Mrs. Kelly,” said Egg.
“They’re telling you you’re wrong, honey,” said Grandpa.
“She hates to be wrong,” Mr. Kelly said.
“How can I be?” Mrs. Kelly asked. “There were two astronauts in NASA’s Gemini program and three in Apollo. It wasn’t that long ago. I remember it distinctly.”
“That part’s right, Mrs. Kelly,” Egg said. “But the rocket is lifting tons, so in comparison the extra weight of one single astronaut isn’t that big a deal. What’s more important was that the Apollo missions had to transport the lunar lander and also something called a service module. So the spacecraft itself wasn’t one piece like this one, it was three—and it was more than three times as massive.”
“Plus it had to go a lot farther,” Scott said. “So it had to carry more fuel, and fuel is heavy too.”
“Hmph,” Mom said. “How come everybody is smarter than me all of a sudden?”
“It’s just something we’ve studied, is all,” said Mark.
They were almost back to Grandpa’s cabin by this time, and he hurried ahead to open the door and stoke the woodstove. The morning’s activities had been so interesting and unexpected that no one had noticed the cold . . . until they went inside, shed their gloves, coats, and hats—and realized how good the warmth of the fire felt.
Grandpa’s house consisted of a main room with the woodstove in the middle. On one side was a table with picnic-type benches and a doorway to the kitchen. On the other was a plaid sofa and three mismatched easy chairs rescued from a thrift store. A short hallway led to the bathroom and Grandpa’s bedroom.
Overlooking the main room and reached by a ladder was a loft space where the twins slept when they visited. They called it Twin Territory.
“Can I get some help in here?” Grandpa called from the kitchen. “Boys?”
“He means you and Howard,” Mark said to Barry.
“I don’t think so.” Barry grinned.
“Come on, Mark,” said Scott. “We’ve got peanut butter to spread and mushrooms to chop.”
In the kitchen, the boys made a happy discovery. While Grandpa really did make peanut butter and pepper sandwiches in summer, he had been kidding about peanut butter and mushroom. Instead, he asked the boys to set out bread, sliced turkey, lettuce, cheese, mayonnaise and mustard so people could make their own lunches.
“I do have mushrooms and peanut butter,” Grandpa said after the table was laid. “Should we set those out too?”
“No!” Scott and Mark chorused.
The combination of a hike and excitement had made everybody hungry. Each person fixed a plate and sat down on sofa, chair, or floor in the living room. Meals at Grandpa’s were never formal. The twins were just taking their first bites, when the phone in the kitchen rang.
Grandpa groaned. “I’m going to ignore it. I want to eat my lunch in peace, and whoever it is will call back if it’s important.”
Mark and Scott looked at one another. They guessed Grandpa could do what he wanted about his own phone. . . . But when the ringing persisted for another long minute, everyone except Howard and Grandpa stopped eating.
“Uh, it could be my mom,” Egg said at last—and that made Grandpa jump up, go to the kitchen, and answer the phone.
A few moments later, he emerged into the living room, tugging the receiver to the end of its cord. “Jenny?” He held it out. “You were right, it’s your mom.”
Jenny was already on her feet.
Scott was thinking Mrs. O’Malley must’ve tried her own house first, then tried here to track down her daughter. The call had to be important.
Mark was trying to remember all he’d read about spacewalking. If he was going to rescue Ilya Ilyushin, a space walk was definitely going to be required.
“Hi, Mom, is everything okay?” Jenny took the phone back to the kitchen. No one was trying to eavesdrop, but she was excited and speaking loudly. “When are you coming back . . . ? Oh, that’s good. . . . So what did they say? . . . Wait, what do you mean? . . . But, Mom! I thought . . . No, I do not understand, and besides that, neither will . . . Oh, fine. . . . Fine, okay? See-you-later-bye.”
The next noise was the click of the receiver hanging up.
Chapter 11
* * *
In the living room, Howard was almost done with his sandwich. No one else was eating. After a long moment, Jenny reappeared in the doorway. She was frowning. “Well, I guess you all heard that,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” asked Grandpa.
“Is your mom okay?” asked Mrs. Kelly.
“She’s fine. She’s flying back tonight,” Jenny said. “And what’s wrong is something I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure. See, I thought probably Mom had gone to Florida to talk NASA into helping us use the Greenwood Launch complex to rescue the stranded cosmonaut.”
Mark said, “So didn’t she?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t the way I thought,” Jenny said. “Instead of asking NASA to help us rescue him, she was offering them Greenwood to use for their own rescue.”
Mark said, “No fair! The Greenwood Lake Launch Site is ours!”
“Uh, Mark?” Barry said. “Up till a few hours ago, you never even knew it existed.”
“Well, yeah,” said Mark, “but the point is without us, it wouldn’t exist.”
“Us and a lot of other people,” Lisa reminded him. “If NASA wants to use it, I guess they have a right. It’s their stuff out there, isn’t it?”
“I’m still mad at my mom, though,” Egg said. “I thought she was on our side!”
“Speaking for moms,” Mrs. Kelly said, “I’m sure she is, but maybe you kids aren’t really best suited for a complicated mission like this? NASA employs professional astronauts. You guys have school to worry about, not to mention chores. And on top of that, you’re a bunch of kids.”
“I will also speak on behalf of mothers,” said Mr. Perez. “They worry. As do fathers. Maybe your mom would like to keep you here on Earth . . . at least until you are a whole lot older.”
“On the other hand,” said Grandpa, “if I thought my tax dollars were being used to send teenagers to space, I would be proud to pay.”
> All the grown-ups laughed at this—even quiet Mr. Perez. Meanwhile, Howard asked if there was any more turkey.
“Help yourself,” said Grandpa.
Howard got up, made himself a second sandwich, came back to the living room, and sat down. Egg watched him. “How can you even eat at a time like this?” she asked finally. “Don’t you care about another space mission? Don’t you care about the stranded cosmonaut?”
Howard swallowed. “One thing at a time,” he said, “and this is the time for lunch.”
“He’s got a point,” said Barry.
Conversation ceased as everyone followed Howard’s lead and finished their sandwiches.
Mark ate too, but without enthusiasm. The crazy emotional ride of the last few hours had dulled his appetite. He’d been thrilled when he saw the new launch facility, angry when he realized he’d been excluded from construction, elated when he thought for sure he was finally going into space.
Now he was disappointed, and it didn’t help one bit when his very own brother turned to Egg and said, “I’m disappointed just like you, but don’t blame your mom. We’ve got time for more space missions. The person who hasn’t got time is Ilya Ilyushin. As long as someone is going to bring him home—that’s the main thing. Right?”
Dad patted Scott on the back. “Well said, son.”
Egg said, “I guess.”
Mark didn’t say anything. His brother was right, of course. But that made things worse. Now Mark was not only disappointed, he was also a bad person for being disappointed.
When had Scott become so good, anyway? Maybe there had been a solar flare when he was in orbit in the fall. Maybe the radiation had affected his brain.
For some reason, this idea made Mark feel better.
* * *
Trying to get updates on the cosmonaut and NASA’s rescue plan, Mom punched the buttons on the car radio all the way back to West Orange.
But there was no news from NASA, and as for the cosmonaut, the only mentions were continued reassurance from the Soviets that he was in good health and good spirits.