The memories of the first item on his list were starting to fade now, but he could never forget the upsetting details. During the first grade, Adam and his friends walked past an open field every day on the way to and from school. On the weekends they used this field for kites and boomerangs. In September of that year, the field gave way to construction equipment and a new apartment complex began growing from the leveled dirt.
By Halloween it had reached the stage where it looked like a collection of raw lumber in the shape of a three-story building. On the weekend after Halloween, Adam and two of his friends dared each other to sneak into the construction site and write their initials somewhere on the top floor.
When they reached the second floor, they heard mysterious thumping sounds coming from the floor above them. The entire site was supposed to be empty.
The three kids ran into the nearest unfinished apartment and stood perfectly still far away from the stairwell. Adam, however, leaned on a two-by-four and it fell over with a loud clunk. The sounds from above stopped immediately. They heard heavy footsteps running across the ceiling and then coming down the stairwell. Adam and his friends froze in complete fear. They peered out the empty window opening to judge how painful a jump from the second floor would be.
A man wearing a flannel shirt and corduroy pants walked into the doorless opening of the apartment. His hair was disheveled, he was breathing heavily, and he wore tennis shoes instead of construction boots. The man walked toward them while holding something behind his back.
“Hey, you kids picked the wrong day to sneak around. Get over here right now!”
Even though they were young, the kids instantly knew that obeying his command would be a fatal decision. Adam leaped out of the empty window opening and landed in a construction dumpster. His wrist snapped with a sharp sprain. However, he was so scared that he made no sound as he rolled out of the dumpster and sprinted toward the edge of the field. He paused and looked back. His two friends had followed suit and were not far behind. The man stood in the opening staring at them, but then turned around and disappeared back into the darkness of the unfinished apartment complex.
Adam stopped at the far edge of the field to wait for his friends to join him. They were terrified and couldn’t decide what to do next. Smoke appeared from the third floor where they’d heard the sounds coming from. The three friends watched as fire consumed the top floor. They ran home when they heard the sirens coming. Adam told his parents that he hurt his wrist falling off his bike. That night Adam took a piece of paper and started his list. The first entry said, “Lesson #1: Avoid people who wear corduroy.”
That old memory raced through Adam’s mind as his phone call with NASA progressed. He unconsciously flexed his sore wrist and then ran his fingers through his graying hair. The conference call with NASA was a surprise since the group interview had happened several weeks earlier. It started this morning at 9:00 a.m. It was now past 10:00am and people were still talking.
Chris Tankovitch was just one of five people on the call, but he did 90 percent of the talking. As the director of NASA, he was trying to convince Adam that he was the only man to lead the Mars Mission. His name had bubbled up as an out-of-the-box thinker after the desert trailer interviews.
Chris added, “Molly is also being invited. Honestly, she was also a candidate for mission leader as well, but your shuttle experience won out.”
Somebody on the conference call was clicking their pen incessantly. One of the voices on the call yelled, “Will somebody please stop clicking that pen!”
It stopped. Anonymously.
Adam had written books about his space shuttle experience and his predictions for Mars exploration. These writings had made him a celebrity among the Mars Society membership. Even with that niche fame, he remained quite broke.
Although he had degrees in aerospace engineering and geology, the one quality that NASA truly desired was his tight focus on mission safety; he had exercised it many times on the space shuttle flight back in 2008 and written about it in his book. If Adam didn’t think the mission should launch, he wasn’t afraid to point out exactly what was wrong and how to fix it.
Admittedly, Adam’s ego had already launched when he was contacted about the mission before the president’s press conference. When NASA first contacted him to attend the desert interviews, part of that conversation involved seeing the still-confidential photos from Mars; all except Photo D.
After all of the prodding and prying had been surgically applied to Adam’s ego, Chris let loose one more carrot to help him take charge of the mission.
Chris said, “Adam, you are the guy. Think about it and get back to us. And, um, to help you consider it, we are paying a bonus of $1 million regardless of whether you return or not. If God forbid you don’t make it, your family will still receive the money. Take some time. Talk to your family. Then decide. Call me either way, okay?”
The phone call ended and Adam carefully hung up the receiver. He sat there for ten minutes thinking about the mission and doodling a picture of a rocket crashing into Mars.
The future arc of his life was at stake here. Regardless of how safe the rocket would eventually be, he felt the chances of making it back home weren’t good. Adam didn’t take missions with risks this high; it wasn’t in the nature of his grown-up self. However, the monetary bonus weighed heavily on him.
That night after dinner, Adam sat out on the patio with his wife Connie overlooking the scrub brush fields of North Texas. They were only a mile from the school where his wife used to work before her car accident. They sat in old Adirondack chairs attached together at the arm rest; the red paint was bleached pink by the Sun and flaking off. The breeze still blew in warm gusts. The smell of mountain cedar filled the air.
“NASA wants me to lead the mission to Mars, but that means I’ll be gone from you and the kids for almost half a year. Maybe even more.”
Connie smiled gently and said, “Yes, but we both know your real worry is that you may never come back.”
She leaned toward him and whispered, “That’s my only worry. My only worry.” Then she leaned back against the angled Adirondack chair. His hand found hers.
He looked off into the distance at an old cedar tree blowing in the breeze and said, “Yah, that’s about right. I want to see Cody and Catie grow up. Anything that gets in the way of that is, well, of no interest.”
“No interest?” said Connie with a raised eyebrow.
She put her coffee down and said reluctantly, “You know. This is a big deal. Like, a really big deal. You’ve said it yourself, nobody born after 1935 has ever walked on the Moon. This generation has no space heroes.”
She looked out over the field and gathered her thoughts.
Connie continued, “Whoever they get to put that first foot on Mars; that person will be more famous than the Wright Brothers. They will scratch Neil Armstrong’s name out of the history books and write ‘Adam Alston’ there instead.”
She held her hands up in the air framing the imagined text.
Adam interrupted, “And Missus Alston too? She’ll be famous too?”
“Hah, unlikely,” she laughed. “But I will wave and smile in the tickertape parades.”
Connie continued, “After Mars, nobody will remember the Moon landing. But if this mission is not safe on a level that you find comfortable, then don’t go. If you die, then I die too. You’ve always said it yourself, the worst thing a Dad can do is die a foolish death while he has young kids.”
He leaned to her and said, “There is one more thing. Regardless of whether I make it back or not, NASA will pay us a bonus of one million dollars. Hazard pay of sorts. Hah, perhaps hush money.”
His eyes welled up and grew bloodshot.
“We’ll be able to call Dr. Sanders and schedule that experimental stem cell surgery on your back and get rid of those awful leg braces. You deserve it.”
She tilted her head and said incredulously, “Oh come on!”
&n
bsp; He interrupted her, “No, no, listen. I’m serious about this. You could get rid of those for good.”
She laughed. “Get out of here! You’re making me sound like Tiny Tim! I’ll be fine, okay? Don’t do this to pay for some crazy surgery that might not work. Do this for yourself. Don’t make it about me.”
Adam was suddenly overwhelmed by the memory of being on the space shuttle and learning about Connie’s car accident. Her lower spine was mangled. She could still walk, but not without leg braces. Since that time, she’d been raising two kids nearly all by herself as Adam pursued his career at NASA and writing his books which brought in very little money. He’d always felt guilty for not being there when the car accident happened and the only surgery that had any chance was deemed experimental; insurance would not pay for any of the nearly half-million dollar price tag.
Adam knew the Mars mission would be dangerous. He knew it would be tough. Regardless of what happened to him, his wife would walk again without braces and they would dig themselves out of their money hole. All he had to do was say yes to Chris Tankovitch.
Adam whispered to himself, “I don’t really have a choice.”
His mild fame among engineers never translated into financial freedom. He was a poor hero to the nerds. But now he could save his family and get truly famous; the kind that fixes all your financial woes. This would be especially true if he was the first person to walk on Mars. That was the key. Nobody remembers the second guy. This was the biggest decision of his life and it kept him awake late into the night.
At midnight he was just drifting off to sleep when he felt somebody staring at him. He opened his eyes and saw a head floating just two inches above him; he jerked completely awake and yelped in fright.
“Daddy, I can’t sleep.”
Adam grabbed his heart to show his surprise. He sat up in bed.
“Sure thing, champ, let’s go back to your room.”
Adam got out of bed, grabbed his son Cody’s hand and walked him down the hallway to his room. He tucked him in and sat down on the floor next to the bed. This was a regular routine when his son couldn’t sleep. Usually, once Cody drifted off to dreamland, Adam would sneak back to his own bed.
Instead, Cody asked, “What were you and Mommy talking about tonight about some space trip?”
Adam looked surprised.
“Oh, you heard that huh? Yah, that’s a job I’m thinking about. That’s all. It’s kind of the final step in the Space Race.”
His son looked puzzled.
“What’s the Space Race?”
Adam searched his memory and said, “Well, think of it like this. You know how there’s all that space junk up there floating around Earth? Well there was a time when there wasn’t anything there. It was the unexplored frontier,” said Adam wistfully as he waved his hands in the air for effect.
He continued, “I mean, there was nothing up there. No weather satellites. No astronauts. No GPS. You had to use paper maps back then. Can you imagine that? Then one night in October of 1957, there was an object floating around the Earth going beep, beep, beep.”
Cody leaned up on his elbow to listen. “Well, what did we launch?”
“That’s the problem. We didn’t launch anything. The Russians did. They launched the very first satellite. It was called Sputnik and it floated around the Earth up in outer space sending out a signal that basically said, ‘Nah, nah nah nah na. You can’t beat us.’ They really surprised us with Sputnik.”
“So that was the Space Race?”
Adam continued, “Well, that was the start. After that, we raced to put a person in space. But we lost that battle too. The Russians launched a guy up there first. He was named Yuri Gagarin.”
“Yoo ree grug aran?” said Cody as he tried to repeat the new name.
“That’s pretty close!” said Adam. “So we were feeling really bad and really behind technologically.”
Cody looked very curious now. He asked, “So did we ever do anything right?”
Adam patted his son on the head and said, “Yes, of course we did. So, the Russian guy popped up into space for one trip around the Earth and then he came back down. The year after that, we put a guy named John Glenn on a rocket and shot him so far up and so fast that he went around and around and around the Earth.”
“Wow!”
“Yah, it was amazing. From then on, we battled with the Russians for the next step which was putting somebody on the Moon. We did that in the summer of 1969.”
“Do you remember that?” asked Cody.
Adam smiled.
“No, I wasn’t born yet unfortunately. I don’t know what it’s like to watch somebody walking on the Moon. Anyhow, the Russians were actually trying for the Moon too, but they never made it. So we won the Space Race.”
Cody looked confused and asked, “So if the Space Race is over, what was your long phone call about today? Mommy wouldn’t let us go near your office.”
“Well, technically I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. The next step for human explorers is to visit another planet. Like Mars. And that’s what I might do. Maybe.”
Cody closed his eyes and said, “It sounds like you better sleep on that decision.”
Adam laughed.
“Thanks, I think I will.”
Cody closed his eyes and hugged his stuffed dragon. He drifted off to sleep. Adam was still very much awake and wandered back to his own bed.
The next morning Adam and Connie took the kids to the park to help his son ride his bike. Cody was only a few weeks away from getting rid of his training wheels. Then Adam chased Catie around the jungle gym. Cody eventually came over to the jungle gym to join them.
Adam asked, “Would you guys mind if I took a trip to Mars?”
“Would you bring me back some Space Ice Cream?” asked the younger sibling Catie.
“I’ll bring back a crate of it for you,” answered Adam.
“Then I guess it’s okay. Just take some Band-Aids in case you get a booboo.”
Adam walked over to Connie who was sitting on the park bench and leaned down to whisper in her ear. He casually recited a line from his favorite Robert Frost poem.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. And sorry I could not travel both…”
“And long you stood in the dog poop?” said Connie as she pointed down to show him where his shoe had landed.
He laughed out loud, “Yah, yah, yadda, yadda, I took the road less traveled by and it involved dog poop.”
She laughed loudly. He wiped his shoe off in the grass.
When they got home from the park, Adam dug around in his pocket for the small piece of paper that had Chris Tankovitch’s cell phone number on it. He took a deep breath and dialed the number.
Chris answered with his Midwestern plain accent.
“Hey Adam. Talk to me. Do I have a mission captain?”
“Chris, let’s go make the Moon landing a footnote.”
Chapter 9
“It’s 7:00am guys. Why aren’t you working your butts off?” commanded Keller Murch to his team. They scattered like bugs to their desks.
The only reason this mission was going to happen on time was due to Keller’s magic motors and the constant pressure he put on his team. Any project can come together with the proper motivation. Keller wanted on that first trip to Mars. He wanted on it badly. If they missed the short launch window in the late summer and autumn, they would have to wait another 26 months to try again. The conversion of his motor technology from a hover ship platform to a rocket ship was his number one priority in life right now.
Keller needed a manufacturing building much larger than the one he had at the Murch Motors headquarters. At first he looked for warehouse property near their existing facility in Silicon Valley. That area proved to be prohibitively expensive. After a friend’s suggestion, he looked just south of that area toward the farming region of Watsonville and found the ideal location; right off the runway at the Watsonville Airport. It proved to be
ideal because it was within quick driving distance of his beach house in Santa Cruz; much more convenient than making the trek to Murch Motors headquarters up in Silicon Valley.
That part of the country also had a fairly huge pool of engineering talent available due to the heavy defense contractor presence in area. Many of them had been set adrift after the space shuttle cancellation. Keller hired away dozens of defense workers to help build the space version of his rocket engines as quickly as possible. The engineers jumped at the chance to live and work by the ocean, even for lower salaries which is all he offered.
One large defense contractor nearby complained to the government that Keller was poaching their key engineers. The government agreed that he was poaching, but they felt the Mars trip was more important. Case closed.
Keller was so engrossed in the hectic MM10 conversion effort that all other tasks were secondary. At one point his home phone went dead simply because he forgot to pay the bill. Keller knew how important these motors were to the entire mission; he couldn’t be bothered by such pesky things as bills.
With the MM10 motor, NASA had the rocket engine technology they needed to get a crew of astronauts to Mars fast. All they needed now was a design for the two Mars-bound modules and a plan to make it happen in less than ten months.
Several contractors and government entities created the Mars Exploration Board, or MEB. The whole purpose of the MEB was to establish the goals, procedures and module layout for the mission. Of course Keller was the chairman; at least for a while. When the astronaut training got serious, he would have to turn over operations to his trusted flight test engineer Tommy. However, before that, Keller invited the contractors into the Mars Exploration Board for their help in brainstorming. Regardless of their input, Keller would have the last say in the design of the ship. He would constantly threaten to withhold the MM10 motors if he didn’t get his way.
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