“East or west?” said Gabe.
“How about the short route.”
Gabe thought for a moment. “Um, 5,875 miles east, give or take.”
Susan stared at her. “As Chrissie said, how do you do that?”
Gabe shrugged. “59.275 kilometers per degree at the equator, some simple geometry, and convert to miles.”
“Yes, I understand the math, but how do you do it in your head? Algorithms?”
“No. I’m not what’s commonly known as a ‘human calculator’. They use algorithms to perform a simple set of math functions: multiplication, squares, factoring, that kind of thing. That can, to some extent, be learned. I do it a little differently. I have two mental tools – a slide rule and a chalkboard – both of which I can visualize and manipulate. I do most things with the slide rule. More complex math, like calculus, I do on the chalkboard.”
Susan bit her lip. “Um, but you just came up with a solution with four significant digits. Aren’t slide rules only good up to three?”
Gabe nodded. “The one I see has about twice the resolution. I can usually get up to six significant digits fairly easily.”
Susan’s eyes popped wide. “Good grief! How complex an equation can you solve?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t found a limit yet. I can solve repetitive iterations of complex quadratic polynomials, like Mandelbrot sets.” She shrugged. “But at some point I get bored with it and just stop.”
“And you can remember it all as you go?”
“Uh huh.”
Susan smiled and shook her head. “That’s incredible. What’s your IQ?”
Gabe shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “I don’t know. Over 200.”
Susan’s jaw dropped. “And you have eidetic memory?”
“Yes. I store things as sensory images, mostly visual, or as text, depending on what it is.”
“And total recall?”
“Well, yes and no. I can recall anything I’ve, um, stored in memory, but I don’t remember everything. I only remember things that are important to me. But I usually need a fairly specific set of search parameters to pull something out of long-term memory.” She grinned and tapped her head. “There’s a lot in here to search.”
“I can imagine. May I ask you a little more personal question?”
Gabe frowned. “I guess.”
“What do you dream about?”
She shook her head. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“When you sleep, what’s in your dreams?”
“I don’t know. I never remember my dreams. I don’t know that I do dream.”
Susan nodded. “It’s been suggested that a possible function of dreams is to remove junk memories and consolidate others. If that hypothesis is correct, maybe you don’t dream. Maybe that’s why you remember so much.”
Gabe shrugged. “I’d never thought of that.”
“Have you ever been fully assessed?
“Assessed?”
“Yes, your intellectual abilities… by a psychologist.”
Gabe bit her lip and stared at the floor for a moment, then nodded slowly and whispered, “A long time ago.”
“Is this the one?” said Chrissie.
Jeff glanced at the screen. “Yeah, Chrissie, that’s it.” Saved by the bell. “Okay, enlarge it to full screen width.”
“Like that?”
“That’s good.” He pulled a laser pointer from his pocket and pointed at the screen. “Okay, Sue, you see our site in the Basin there?”
“Yes.”
Gabe stood frowning at the floor for a moment longer, then left the room.
“Alright, way over here on the other side of the world, on the edge of the Elysium Planitia, is Gale Crater.”
Susan nodded, “Okay, yes, I see it.”
“That’s where the MSL is headed. Chrissie, go into that folder and open up MC-23, Aeolis.”
“Okay, just a minute.”
Jeff leaned toward Susan and spoke softly. “Um, Gabe is… complicated. I’d ask that you hold off on the psychoanalysis until you get to know her a little better.”
Susan nodded. “I’m sorry, I got carried away. She is just so fascinating.”
“Yeah, but she’s not a lab rat. And she’s fragile, tread lightly.”
“You do know that she may not be entirely stable?”
“Yeah, I know. But she may well have the finest mind on this planet. That’s an asset I’m willing to pay a lot for.”
Susan smiled apologetically. “Good point.”
“Here it is,” said Chrissie.
“Good. Okay, enlarge to 100% and center on the upper left-hand corner. Good. Alright, there’s Gale, just southwest of the Aeolis Mensae. Chrissie, there’s a JPEG topo map of it in that folder called Gale MSL site.”
“This?”
“Yeah. Sue, the ellipse in the northwest corner is where the MSL is headed. The mountainous area in the center rises about three miles above the crater floor. The MSL site displays some pretty strong evidence of water activity sometime in the past: water-carved channels, an alluvial fan, layering, weathered clay deposits called phyllosilicates, and sulfates.”
“Huh. How big is the crater?”
“Oh, about 95 miles across. Chrissie, there’s a png THEMIS image in there.”
“Okay, just a second.”
Jeff turned back to Susan, “THEMIS is the thermal camera on the Mars Odyssey Orbiter.”
“Is this it?” Chrissie asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Is that how it really looks?” Susan asked.
“No, that’s a false-color image made from a composite mosaic of day and night thermal images. Different types of surface material – regolith – and features retain and lose heat at different rates. In this image, the blue and white would indicate fine materials, like sand, that lose heat quickly. Stuff like rocks, gravel and sedimentary layering that lose heat more slowly are shown in yellow, red and brown.”
“So that’s how you tell what the surface is like?”
“One way. Chrissie, in the Margaritifer Basin folder there’s a jpeg file, THEMIS2, bring that up in the other window, if you would, please.”
“Okay… here you go.”
“Thanks. Alright, Sue, recognize that?”
“Oh, wow, our landing site. And look at the Morava Vallis and the big crater southeast. Is that clay sediment?”
“Maybe. Kind of looks like it ought to belong there, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s just part of what makes the Margaritifer Basin so interesting, at least to me.”
Gabe returned with a plateful of crackers, cheese, and summer sausage. “I suddenly got hungry.”
“Gabe, didn’t I hear you say you did some work on the MSL?” said Susan.
“Yes, some volunteer work at JPL.”
“What did you do?”
“Checked the checkers.”
“Huh?”
“Double checked the math of somebody that was double checking the math of somebody that was, well, you get the picture.”
“Isn’t that all done with computers?”
“Yes, but the computer is only as reliable as the human that’s programming it; the old ‘garbage in, garbage out’ syndrome. On the Mars Climate Orbiter somebody mixed up pound-force and newtons and… splat.”
“Who’s going to be checking our checkers? I’m no math wizard and, just for the record, ‘splat’ doesn’t appeal to me.”
Jeff grinned. “Gabe has plenty of contacts at MIT and Caltech. The plan is eventually to recruit a cadre of volunteer grad students – budding young math, physics and engineering wizards – that wouldn’t mind noting on their resumes that they were part of the project.”
Jeff walked over to one of the sofas and took a seat. “Chrissie, let’s have those Viking images again.” Gabe and Susan followed and sat beside him.
“Coming right up.”
He gazed at the image. “Ah, wintert
ime at the south pole.”
Gabe put a slice of sausage and a chunk of Brie on a Triscuit and offered it to Jeff. “A lot of snow and ice.”
“Thanks. Yeah, so much for global warming.”
“That was 36 years ago, ten years before I was born. How old were you then?”
“Um, thirteen.”
“It must have been really exciting.”
“It was. For days it was about all we talked about in school.” He downed the snack, leaned back and closed his eyes. A moment later he felt his coffee cup being taken from his hand and looked up with a start.
“You dozed off, I didn’t want you to spill it,” Gabe said.
Jeff rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. A little tired.”
“Go ahead and sleep, I’ll wake you in plenty of time, there won’t be much happening before cruise stage separation.”
“No, I’m fine.”
Jeff yawned, sat back, and closed his eyes again.
“It’s time.” Gabe said, while shaking Jeff gently.
“Huh? What?” He ran his hand over his face, “Damn. How long was I asleep?”
She smiled. “About two hours. Here, fresh coffee.”
“Thanks. Guess I’m not very good company at this hour.”
“Validation of that hypothesis may require further experimentation.” She grinned.
Jeff chuckled. “Uh, yeah. Where are we?”
Gabe nodded toward the screen. “This is the live feed from JPL’s MSL Mission Control Center, though of course they’re only relaying information as they receive it, so everything they say happened fourteen minutes ago. The MSL should be right about at entry interface, just about seven minutes from touchdown. We should know how cruise stage sep went in about five minutes. They passed out the peanuts a few minutes ago.”
“JPL and their damn peanuts. Did you ever get any?”
“No, nothing much happened while I was there.”
“Well, if they pull this off tonight, I’ll buy you a jar of peanuts.”
Gabe grinned.
“What do you think the odds are it will land in a small, steep-walled crater that it can’t get out of?”
Gabe laughed and shook her head, “Don’t even think that. JPL would have to remove all sharp objects from the building.”
“When will we see a HiRISE image of the landing site?” Chrissie asked.
“If they get one, a couple weeks,” said Gabe.
“A couple weeks?!”
“Yeah. Fifteen minutes to transmit the image to Earth, a couple hours for the Deep Space Network to send it over to JPL, another hour for it to reach HiROC, the HiRISE Operations Center, a couple hours for them to process it, a week for the MRO position data to be constructed, another couple hours of image processing and, if they feel like it, they’ll post it on the HiRISE web site the following Wednesday.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. On the other hand, if they are really curious and want to work through the night, we could see one tomorrow.”
“Will MSL images take that long?”
“Probably not. At least, not today. As I said, we should probably see Hazcam images right away. JPL will be understandably curious, though they will probably just be a couple thumbnails.”
“So when will we know if it actually made it?”
“About twenty minutes, give or take.”
They all focused on the countdown clock in the corner of the screen.
JPL PAO: “Cruise stage separation.” There was a big cheer from the JPL MCC.
Jeff smiled. “Well, that’s a step in the right direction.”
At one minute forty seconds Gabe said, “Chute deployment. 6,500 meters AGL. That’s ‘Above Ground Level,’ Chrissie.”
The clocked ticked down to 78 seconds. “Heat shield jettison, ground radar activation. 4,300 meters to go.”
40 seconds. “1,000 meters, chute and backshell jett. Descent stage motors should be firing.”
14 seconds. “Hovering at 35 meters. Skycrane lowering the lander.”
The clock stopped at 0:00:00. “Touchdown.” She turned, looked at Jeff, and shrugged. “One way or another.” Then she smiled. “Fourteen minutes and we’ll know if it’s alive, or just another crater-full of manmade junk.”
Susan turned to her. “I sure wish you’d stop talking about things landing on Mars and craters in the same sentence. You make me nervous.”
Gabe grinned at her. “Occupational hazard.”
Susan groaned.
Gabe turned back to Jeff. “Given any thought to what we’ll do if it doesn’t work?”
Jeff shook his head. “Nope. But I suppose some serious soul searching might be in order.”
Gabe nodded. “Yeah.”
The next seven minutes passed like an eternity
JPL PAO: “We are beginning to feel the atmosphere as we go in here.”
“Entry interface,” said Gabe.
Jeff nodded.
JPL PAO: “It is being reported that we’re seeing gs on the order of 11, 12, or 13.”
“That’s encouraging,” said Gabe. “I thought it would be closer to 15.”
They all watched silently for four and a half minutes while the JPL MCC crew seemed to hold their breath.
JPL PAO: “Parachute is deployed.”
Another huge cheer arose at JPL.
JPL PAO: “We are decelerating.”
Gabe grabbed Jeff’s arm and squeezed, tightly.
JPL PAO: “Heat shield has separated. We’re down to 90 meters per second, six kilometers altitude.”
“78 seconds,” said Gabe.
JPL PAO: “Standing by for backshell separation.”
“Oh god, here it comes!”
JPL PAO: “We are in powered flight.”
“It’s working! 40 seconds.”
JPL PAO: “Standing by for Skycrane… Skycrane is starting.”
“13 seconds!”
JPL PAO: “Touchdown confirmed, proceed with flyaway.”
They all leaped from their seats clapping, screaming, and yelling. Jeff grabbed Gabe’s arm, spun her toward him, wrapped his arms around her waist, and gave her a big sloppy kiss. After a moment, their lips parted and Jeff, grinning broadly, yelled, “We did it!”
Gabe returned a sheepish grin. “Um, actually, JPL did it.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He glanced around the room at the others. “Boys and girls, we’re in business! Sue, where’s that champagne?”
Saturday, August 25, 2012 (T-1305 days)
“So we’ve got two choices,” said Gabe as she laid out several drawings on the table in Jeff’s office. “Actually, a lot more than two, but these seem to be the best in terms of mass to volume ratio, lift/drag ratio, cargo carrying capacity, guidance, and, um, cost. First is the straight-up bent biconic, second is shuttle-derived.”
Jeff looked over the drawings. “Shuttle-derived? What’s the advantage of that?”
“More lift, better guidance, lower g-forces, lower cargo ejection velocity, 48% more cargo volume, and a proven design.”
“That sounds good. What’s the downside?”
“Complexity, development time, greater mass, and cost – both development and launch.”
“Well that’s not good. 48% more volume? I didn’t think the shuttle cargo bay was that big?”
“It’s not. It’s around 387 cubic meters, about 24% larger than our proposed lifting body, but we could also use the crew compartment since there won’t be a crew. Just remove the bulkhead and we have another 74 cubic meters of cargo space.”
“But that’s still not enough for the entire cargo. We’d still have to launch something else.”
She nodded. “Yes, but it would be a lot smaller, and provide some cost savings on that side of the equation.”
Jeff shrugged. “Okay. How would we launch it?”
“The same way NASA did.”
“Yikes! Jesus, Gabe, you’re talking about building and launching a Shuttle-C.”
“Someth
ing like that.”
He sighed and scratched his head. “Um, how do you get it out of orbit?”
“Launch a second external fuel tank all by itself, dock it with the shuttle in LEO… and send it on its way.”
“Oh brother. That’d be some kind of docking system.”
“Uh huh. Look, you wanted options. This is an option.”
“Yeah, but it’s not much of an option if it consumes our entire budget, and then some.”
Gabe shrugged.
“May I interrupt you for a minute.”
Jeff turned to find Chrissie standing in the doorway with a rather dour look on her face. “Sure, what is it?”
She pursed her lips, long-faced, looking like she was about to cry.
He frowned. “Chrissie, what’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “Neil Armstrong just passed away.”
Jeff felt as though he’d just been kicked in the stomach. “Oh, God!”
Gabe stood for a moment, then dropped her glasses on the table, fell into a chair, buried her face in her hands, and bawled.
Friday, September 7, 2012 (T-1292 days)
Jeff pulled up a chair at the conference room table opposite Gabe. “What?”
She smiled. “I think I’ve got it.”
“I hope it’s not contagious.”
Gabe frowned and wagged a finger at him. “One of these days…”
He smiled. “Yeah, but not today. Got what?”
“The return booster.”
Jeff’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Uh huh, and it was right under our noses all the time.”
“What?”
“A Falcon 9 second stage. It’s the right size, uses the right fuel, it’s available, easy to launch and, comparatively speaking, affordable.”
He stared at her for a moment, mouth hanging open. “I’ll be damned. Now why didn’t I think of that?”
Gabe shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Outstanding! Um, how do we do it?”
“Well, it’s a bit complicated, so pay attention.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Okay. We launch a Falcon Heavy – already in the plan – to LEO with the SPS fuel and the lander, about 8,850 kilos. Now, the FH can do that without using the second stage; and there’s our return booster.”
Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) Page 21