Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1)

by Gregory Gates

  PAO, “At T plus 80 seconds, Mars One Charlie is at Max Q at an altitude of 10.9 kilometers. Bravo is on course with the second stage and Delta is Go for launch at T minus 100 seconds.

  Having little to do for the next minute and a half, the entire room collectively caught their breath. The respite was short-lived.

  PAO, “10, 9, 8, guidance to internal, 6, 5, 4, ignition, 2, 1, zero, all engines are running and we have LIFT OFF of Mars One Delta at 6:29 a.m.”

  Gabe leaned over and hugged Jeff. “All three in the air!”

  He grabbed her with one arm and Susan, seated to his left, with the other. “May I kiss you both?!”

  They nodded and he did.

  PAO, “Tower clear.”

  MOD, “Canaveral, Newport, we have all three birds. Thank you very much and have a nice day.”

  PAO, “We are at T plus 90 minutes on Mars One Bravo. Mars One Charlie and Delta have now caught up with Bravo in orbit 225 miles in altitude and auto-docking is about to commence. Charlie, consisting of a Centaur booster stage and the lifting body cruise stage, is 117 meters astern of the lifting body and approaching at a rate of one meter per second. Delta, another Centaur booster, is 287 meters further astern. Once all three are docked, the complete ship will make one additional orbit of Earth, then begin its ten-month voyage to Mars.”

  Jeff grasped Heidi’s shoulder. “How you doing?”

  She leaned over and banged her head several times on the console. “Oh god, I dunno.”

  Jeff smiled. “You’re doing great. And, for what it’s worth, your voice is being carried by just about every TV station on the planet.”

  “Oh, marvelous. Like I needed to hear that.”

  “No, I mean it. You’ve been wonderful. Hang in there.”

  She nodded. PAO, “67 meters.”

  Jeff glanced at Abby who gave him a ‘thumb-up’.

  FLIGHT, “DOCKING, how’s it look?”

  Abby nodded, “Right on the money, FLIGHT. 58 meters.”

  Jeff walked to the other end of the row of consoles and stood beside Abby. The central video screen up front displayed an image from Charlie of Bravo’s docking collar as it approached.

  DOCKING, “39 meters. Alignment is Go.”

  FLIGHT, “GUIDANCE?”

  GUIDANCE, “Right on, FLIGHT. Go for docking.”

  Abby grabbed Jeff’s arm. “You know the guys at NASA right now are absolutely green with envy.”

  Jeff smiled and nodded. “Tell ‘em to write their Congressman. They had their chance.”

  Abby clenched her fist and shook it. “Damn right! 28 meters, FLIGHT.”

  FLIGHT, “Rog. Go for docking.”

  Abby sat with one finger poised over the “MANUAL” button and her other hand on Charlie’s attitude control joystick. “21 meters.” Bravo’s docking collar loomed large on the MCC display with crosshairs zeroed on the docking probe insertion point. “15 meters. Retro.” Charlie’s RCS fired its retro rockets to slow the rate of closure. “Capture probe extension.”

  FLIGHT, “Retro.”

  “Ten meters, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, soft dock. Probe retract. FLIGHT, we have hard dock.”

  FLIGHT, “Roger, hard dock.” Chrissie turned around, winked at Jeff and gave him a thumb-up.

  Gabe grabbed Jeff’s shoulder and shook him gently. “Another first. Complete automated docking of two unmanned space vehicles. Never been done before.” She grinned. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. And we’re about to do it again, I hope.”

  DOCKING, “157 meters.”

  FLIGHT, “Rog. Are we Go for Delta docking?”

  DOCKING, “We’re Go.”

  PAO, “The Centaur booster of Mars One Delta is now 157 meters astern of the now docked Mars One Bravo/Charlie and closing.”

  FLIGHT, “DOCKING, does that look low to you?”

  DOCKING, “FLIGHT, Bravo/Charlie pitched down a couple degrees at docking. Delta’s good. Give it a second. Bravo/Charlie will pitch up.” Abby leaned forward and stared intently at the image.

  Jeff held his breath.

  DOCKING, “There it goes. 139 meters. Looking good. Go for docking.”

  Susan elbowed Jeff again. “Would you stop doing that?”

  Jeff sulked. “Sorry. I’m a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

  PAO, “T plus 95 minutes and we are Go for final docking.”

  The image of Charlie’s docking collar grew larger and larger as Delta approached.

  DOCKING, “Three meters, 2, 1, contact and… soft dock.”

  FLIGHT, “Rog. Soft dock.”

  DOCKING, “Retract and… hard dock.”

  FLIGHT, “Hard dock confirmed.”

  PAO, “Mars One Bravo, Charlie and Delta docking is complete and Mars One Columbus is ready to begin its ten-month journey to the red planet.”

  The Newport MCC erupted in cheers.

  Jeff stood, smiled broadly, nodded to the room and applauded. “Well done. Well done, everyone.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Sunday, December 15, 2013 (T minus 828 days)

  PAO, “Columbus’ trajectory and guidance look good, thrust is good. We are 14 minutes into the second Centaur stage burn and anticipate engine cut-off in 54 seconds.”

  FLIGHT, “FIDO?”

  FIDO, “Looking good, FLIGHT. Off by 12 feet per second.”

  Jeff glanced at Gabe. “That Delta-V error going to be a problem?”

  Gabe shook her head. “No, hardly worth mentioning. That’s just over one-tenth of one percent, not bad for nearly thirty minutes of burn from two stages. It’ll probably even be a bit higher by SECO. That engine has to be huffing and puffing by now, that’s a long continuous burn for an RL-10. Anyway, we’ll make up for it during the first cruise maneuver.”

  Jeff nodded.

  PAO, “Five seconds… 3, 2, 1, SECO. We have final stage engine cut-off. Columbus’ Trans-Mars Injection, or TMI, is complete; velocity is 35,415 feet per second. Next stop, Mars on October 14. At this time, the Centaur’s Reaction Control System is maneuvering Columbus for booster separation, which will occur in 160 seconds. Following separation, the RCS will give the Centaur one final push to maneuver it clear of Columbus and the stage will enter an elliptical solar orbit.”

  Jeff weaved through the great room, clinking champagne glasses as he went. The post-launch party was in full swing, and it was only eleven o’clock in the morning.

  Someone grabbed his arm from behind. “Hey.”

  He turned around and smiled at Abby. “Hi. Hell of a morning.”

  She looked around the room. “You’re gonna have a gaggle of drunk eggheads on your hands in just a bit.”

  Jeff nodded. “Yeah, but they deserve it.”

  “You don’t suppose they’re all gonna end up naked in the pool, do you?”

  “I don’t think so, it’s eighteen degrees out there.”

  Abby grinned. “Loaded with antifreeze, that may not stop them.”

  “You did a great job with the docking. Couldn’t have been better.” Jeff leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  “Well, you’re welcome, but I didn’t do anything. The auto-dock system worked, and it worked good.” She nodded. “That’s comforting.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Heidi walked up to them. “I’m beat.”

  Jeff smiled. “I’ll bet you are. I can’t thank you enough. You did a great job.”

  Abby held up her glass. “I need a refill. Anybody else?”

  Jeff and Heidi both shook their heads. “Thanks, I’m good,” said Jeff.

  “I need to slow down,” said Heidi.

  As Abby headed for the bar, Jeff turned back to Heidi. “Before you get completely plastered, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Could I see you in my office?”

  “Sure.”

  “You know where it is?”

  “Um…” she glanced upstai
rs.

  Jeff pointed. “Second floor, west tower. Say, ten minutes?”

  “Okay.”

  Jeff responded to the knock at his office door, “Come in. Yeah Heidi, come on in. Have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” She glanced around the room and took a seat on the sofa opposite Jeff’s desk. “Wow, your office is beautiful. The fireplace is a nice touch, particularly this time of year.”

  “Thanks. Yeah, I find it very comfortable. Quite a day, huh?”

  “Wow, yeah, unbelievable. I never imagined I’d get the opportunity to do something like this.”

  “Well, I’m glad I could give it to you. In a sense that’s one purpose of the entire exercise: to give those of us that have the desire to do it the opportunity to do it. Particularly since it doesn’t seem like anyone else wants to do it.”

  “It’s fantastic, on so many levels. And to be a part of it, well… I haven’t the words.”

  “Trust me, I know what you mean. I’m pretty sure that PAO isn’t what you expected to sign on for but I want you to know and understand that you were probably more valuable to us today than anyone else in that room. And you did a spectacular job.”

  “Thank you.”

  “With everything run by computers these days, for so much of this PAO may be the only console that has a real job and actually has to work for a living. For everyone else, it’s mostly sit and watch the blinking lights and hope nothing goes wrong. And if nothing does, hey, good job, now go home. But you were busy, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I sure was.”

  “And, like I said, you did great. Keeping the media informed – and in terms they can understand – is so important. If we don’t have the media and, consequently, the public and the government on our side, we’re not going anywhere. We’ll have to wait and see what’s in the morning papers and news shows, but I’d wager that in tomorrow’s press you will be widely quoted.”

  Heidi cringed. “Oh god, I’m an aerospace engineer, not a press secretary.”

  Jeff smiled. “Well, you were today, and a darn good one. But there’s another reason I asked you up here. The further along we get, the greater the demands are on us and, as you know, we’re not a real big operation. NASA employs something in the neighborhood of 18,000 people. Not including you part time volunteers, right now we have a staff of five: Chrissie, Gabe, Abby, Sue, and me. And four of us comprise the flight crew and a little over two years from now we will be going away for quite some time.”

  Heidi shook her head. “And I have no idea how you do it.”

  Jeff groaned. “Yeah, most of the time neither do I. But we’re still afloat, though just barely keeping our heads above water. Now, technically speaking, Gabe is our chief engineer. And I think that you knew her at Caltech, didn’t you?”

  “Sort of. Certainly we met. You can’t spend several years at Caltech without getting to know everyone in your department, at least a little. But I wouldn’t say we were close. Me being an engineer and a year ahead of her and living in a different House, our paths just didn’t cross that often. I knew her more by reputation than personally.”

  “Reputation? Hmmm, how’s that?”

  Heidi cringed again. “Um…”

  Jeff smiled. “Go ahead, you can speak freely. I doubt there’s much you can tell me about Gabe that I don’t already know by now.”

  Heidi nodded. “Well, intellectually she’s without a doubt the brightest bulb on the tree. I’ve never seen or even heard of anyone else that could mutilate a grading curve the way she could. There was even a story floating around that she came to Caltech for her doctorate because somebody hung her in effigy at MIT.”

  Jeff laughed. “You’re kidding?”

  “No, that’s the story.”

  “Huh. I’ll have to ask her about that.”

  “But nevertheless, she’s, uh… eccentric.”

  He laughed again. “Eccentric? Well, I suppose that’s one word for it. Wouldn’t be my first choice but, uh, I know what you mean.”

  “Anyway, everybody in Engineering and Applied Science knew of her, but she was kind of, I dunno, at the same time both revered and despised. I mean, Gabe had the answers to just about everything – which nobody else did, including a lot of her professors and advisors – but I don’t think she was ever happy at Caltech. You know, she should have won the Ballhaus Prize – Caltech’s top award for doctoral work – for her thesis; it was really no contest. But politics within the administration being what they were… I think they were just afraid of her. She would’ve set the bar too high. There was kind of general sigh of relief throughout GALCIT when she finally got her degree and left. I thought it was a sad commentary. The bar should be high. The higher, the better.”

  Jeff nodded and smiled. “Well put.”

  “Honestly, I was really surprised when I heard she was on your team. When it came to, well, ‘choosing teams’ at Caltech, she would’ve been the last man – or woman – standing. She was never anything even remotely approaching a team player.”

  “Hmmm. I think you’ll find that Gabe is not who you thought she was.” Jeff waved his hand in dismissal. “Anyway, that’s all ancient history. Fact is, Gabe’s a physicist and mathematician, she’s not really an engineer. She’s certainly competent, but she’s got her hands full, particularly since she’s also crew. Now, Abby has a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the Naval Academy, but let’s face it, she’s not an engineer either; she’s a pilot.”

  “And a darn good one from what we saw.”

  “Yeah, one of the best. And of course, Chrissie, Sue and I aren’t engineers either. Which brings us to you.”

  Heidi’s eyes opened wide.

  “We need an aerospace engineer. It’s not that we can’t do it; it’s just that someone with the appropriate expertise could do it a lot faster and easier. Besides, we’re getting to the point where we really need to concentrate on training. We’re all just wearing too many hats and need to spread the wealth around a bit more. As I said, I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen of you this past month. And, frankly, Gabe speaks very highly of you.”

  “She does? I didn’t think she ever even noticed me.”

  “Well, you were apparently noticeable enough to make an impression; she’s the one that pulled your name off the list. By the way, where’d you do your undergraduate work?”

  “Harvard.”

  “Really. Wow. What was your major?”

  “Engineering Sciences, with a minor in applied physics.”

  Jeff smiled and shook his head. “Good god. Okay. Well, anyway, bottom line is: You want a job?”

  “You mean like… a consultant?”

  “No. I mean like… a job, full-time, here, on the payroll. Come join the team. Be a player.”

  “Wow, uh… I’m speechless.” She swallowed hard. “What would you want me to do?”

  Jeff chuckled. “The same thing the rest of us do: everything. But specifically, we have one enormous project that is bedeviling us. And we have to have it; it’s absolutely critical. But honestly, it’s beyond us. It’s too much, and we need somebody with the requisite skills to take over for Gabe, cause she’s buried and I can’t have that. And that project is Jupiters. We need to build four Jupiter 241s, including legacy J-2 powered Earth Departure Stages, loosely developed from the external shuttle tank, and we need them soon. We have all the parts we need – external fuel tanks, SRBs, SSMEs, J-2s, the works – and I think Gabe has most of the engineering done. So now it’s just a matter of doing it. We’ve met with the President of the United States – had dinner with him – and he’s done a magnificent job in prying loose essentially the government’s entire stockpile of surplus shuttle hardware for us. But we desperately need somebody to get down to Michoud and start kicking ass, putting all this together and making it happen. We have to build four giant rockets that have never been built and we have to do it in two years. And I want you to do it.” Jeff grinned at her. “Think of it… you can go down in
history as the woman that built the Jupiter. How’s that for an enticement?”

  Heidi’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

  Jeff shook his head and smiled. “Why does everyone keeping asking me that? Yeah, I’m dead serious. The four of us want to go to Mars and we need those rockets to get there. So what I want is for you to buy a bullwhip, dress up in your finest tight black leather dominatrix outfit, get down to Michoud, kick ass, take names, and get it done. And if that doesn’t work, let ‘em know that if I have to send Abby down there, well, it’ll pretty much be the end of life as they know it. She doesn’t take prisoners.”

  Heidi started breathing hard.

  Jeff pointed his finger at her across the desk. “Now don’t you hyperventilate. I went through that with Gabe at the White House. Thought she was gonna pass out on me.”

  “Sorry. I just… I don’t know what to say.”

  “Uh, ‘Yes’ would do just fine.”

  “It’s just that, well, I have a job. Not much of one, but I’m kind of committed.”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re doing postdoc research at Caltech. I’m sure it’s very rewarding and doesn’t pay much.”

  Heidi shook her head. “Yeah, you’re right about that. In fact the funding is about to run out and I don’t think they’ll renew it.”

  “Well, there you go. You just never know what’s gonna happen when you get out of bed in the morning, do you?”

  She smiled. “When would you want me to start?”

  “Oh, I dunno. As soon as the party’s over?”

  Heidi stared at her lap and thought for a minute. “I hope you’ll forgive me for asking this but… I’ve noticed that your team is all women. Do I have to sleep with you?”

  Jeff’s jaw dropped. “Uh… now there’s a question I didn’t anticipate. Um, but I suppose under the circumstances it’s a fair one. Uh… no. Heidi, the fact that, aside from me, the nucleus team is all women is nothing more than a statistical anomaly; luck of the draw. I’m sure that somewhere along the line in your illustrious educational career you’ve had a course in statistics, and you know that it doesn’t matter how many times the coin comes up heads, the odds of it coming up heads again on the next toss are still fifty-fifty. It’s just the way it is. Don’t read anything into it.”