He turned toward the bed. “I said earlier that sleeping in microgravity was kind of difficult. Here’s something we’ve done to make it a little easier. Our beds consist of a foam mattress and a pillow that stays attached to the bottom sheet with a couple Velcro strips. Then there’s an upper sheet and blanket, if one wants it – we keep the temperature inside at about 72ºF – and that is all covered with a lightweight jersey-like over-sheet that is somewhat elastic, and it is snugged up around everything else. So, when you crawl into bed, the jersey over-sheet pulls you into the mattress and pillow. It feels kind of like a little gravity. It’s not really, but you sort of have the sensation of a regular bed. Um, it helps. It’s certainly a lot better than just floating around somewhere. Now you’ll also notice that the head of the bed is butted up against the truss and there’s an air vent right there. That’s the ventilation exhaust vent for the room. Air enters the room through a couple vents in the wall from the commons. The reason for this is that, as I mentioned earlier, without gravity warm air doesn’t rise, because there is no ‘up’. So the air that one exhales tends to just cloud around your head, and it doesn’t take long for you to find yourself lying there in a cloud of your own exhaled carbon dioxide. And then you wake up gasping for air and with a nasty headache owing to oxygen deprivation. This ventilation arrangement eliminates that problem.
“Okay, that’s a bedroom, such as it is. Let’s drift back through the truss here to our Utility Room.” Jeff pulled through the truss and dropped into the Utility Room. “This is the aft section of the Sundancer. Behind us is the aft airlock to which the CSM is docked. In here are the bathroom, laundry, our exercise equipment, and some storage. The bathroom is a self-contained unit that contains a shower, sink, and unisex toilet, and, like the dishwasher and kitchen sink, contains fans that direct the water and other materials in and out. Same thing goes for our washing machine. But our clothes dryer works pretty much like the one you have at home. Storage-wise, we keep a lot of spare parts in here, along with consumables other than food – toiletries, toothpaste, shampoo, toilet paper, spare clothes, that kind of thing. There’s also some ventilation equipment in here.
“Alright, I’m gonna open a couple hatches in the airlock and get into the command module. While I’m doing that, Gabe is going to give you an external view from one of our cameras. Gabe?”
“Roger. The image you’re seeing now is from our ‘A’ camera. Not including the telescope, we have eight external cameras – of varying types and capabilities – located on the ends of each of the Sundancer’s eight solar panels. This is a true color standard video camera. We also have cameras that image all the way from the ultraviolet to infrared spectrums. You can see the Sundancer below, with its four forward solar arrays. And, forward of it, the storage module and EDS, with its four auxiliary solar arrays. I have the video gain turned way down so that you can see detail on the daylight side of the ship. That’s why you can’t see many stars. Okay, now I’m going to pan around to the aft end, and we’ll have a look at what’s back there. Okay, there we go. There’s the CSM, the command/service module, which Jeff is now squeezing into. Are you there yet?”
Jeff opened the outer hatch and dropped into the tunnel. “Yeah, just about. Why don’t you center on the starboard rendezvous window and zoom in.”
“Roger.”
He pulled into the crew compartment and up to the rendezvous window, looked out and waved.
“Got you,” said Gabe.
“Alright. You’re all now looking at me through one of the CM rendezvous, or docking, windows from out in space. I guess that makes you astronauts. Welcome to the club. Gabe, why don’t you pass video back to me, and see if you can find Earth.”
“I think I can do that.”
“Roger that. Okay, we’re now in the command module. This is where we were when we launched, and where we’ll be sitting whenever we make a main engine burn.” Jeff slowly panned around the CM. “As you can see, it’s pretty cramped, and filled with buttons, switches, display panels, and a bunch of other stuff. If any of you have seen the movie, Apollo 13, this may look a little familiar. This is in fact an Apollo era CSM, though it’s been completely overhauled and, uh, substantially updated. The biggest difference you’re likely to notice is the glass panel cockpit. That’s all new. This flight system was modeled after the cockpit of a Boeing 737, as was the Space Shuttle. And, having worked in both the Apollo simulator, and ours, this is a heck of a lot easier to fly. The seats, from left to right, are pilot, command, and engineer/navigator. And down below… there… surgeon. That’s Sue’s rabbit hole. The command seat, mine, is folded, for now, giving us easy access to the aft storage compartment. Below the instrument panel, that little cubbyhole is the navigational position. That’s where the sextant is. During the Apollo missions, that’s where they did all their navigation. Gabe has it a little easier now, as this guidance and navigation suite is connected to the Sundancer’s G&N suite via a data link, and she can navigate from the comfort of the Sundancer’s commons. As the Apollo lunar missions typically lasted eight to twelve days, and we’ll be out here for seven months – twice – a little more convenience is highly desirable, and very welcome.
“Of this entire ship, this command module is the only part that will be returning to Earth with us. The EDS and storage module up forward will be jettisoned prior to entry into Mars orbit, and the Sundancer and service module will be jettisoned prior to Earth re-entry. Other than that, the only thing coming back will be the Mars ascent vehicle containing samples; that is, rocks that we hope to collect while on the planet. And that part belongs to NASA and JPL. Well, that’s about all there is to see in here. Gabe? You find Earth yet?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Okay, well, why don’t you take over and show the folks back home what it looks like, while I try and find my way back.”
“Alright. If you get lost, just holler, and we’ll send out the St. Bernard.”
Jeff chuckled. “Right.”
“Okay. What you are seeing now is an image of the starfield directly behind us, and it should appear almost exactly as it would if you were here and outside the ship. That’s the sun in the lower left. Earth is directly in the center, though you can’t see it. To the left is the constellation Pisces, at the lower center is Andromeda, and to the right is Cassiopeia. I’m going to overlay a planetarium image… there. This is simply a computer generated graphic of the constellations and major celestial bodies so you can see where everything is. This image may appear upside down to some of you. Our ship rotates on its axis at about three revolutions per hour to maintain even heating from the sun’s rays. At present, this camera is on what you might call the ‘bottom’ of the ship, relative to the conventional image of the solar ecliptic, so the picture looks backwards. Now I’ll zoom in on Earth. There you are. That’s about all we can see without the telescope. From here, Earth appears only about half the diameter of the moon as seen from Earth, and we can see only the night side of both Earth and the moon, with just the slightest hint of the morning terminator. Okay, now let’s see if we can do a bit better. There we go. This is from our 14” Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at full magnification – nearly 500 power. That looks like dawn over western Australia. We enjoy looking at this. It’s comforting to know Earth is still there, even though it’s approaching two million miles distance. I’m afraid that’s it. That’s all there is. We should have a somewhat better view in five or six months as we approach Mars, and Earth has moved around to the other side of the sun.”
Jeff pulled into the commons. Gabe switched back to the interior camera and they all gathered in their original seats.
“Well,” said Jeff, “I think that’s about all the time we have, for now. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to all of your questions, but time and distance being what they are… Be sure and checkout our website, GreyAerospace.com, and look us up on Twitter and Facebook and all those other Internet places that I don’t know anything about.” He grinned. “
Feel free to post questions and mission control in Newport will forward some of them to us now and then and we’ll try and get you an answer. We all hope you found it interesting, and even educational, and, uh, keep in touch. Ares out.”
Gabe killed the video feed. “Well, that was fun.”
“Yeah, I thought it went pretty well. I’m gonna guess that Abby’s little nap will be a news highlight.”
Abby chuckled, “Great.”
Gabe groaned, “If you’d done that with me, I would have barfed.”
Jeff nodded, smiling. “Uh… yeah. That was on my mind.”
Thursday, June 23, 2016 (T plus 93 days)
FLIGHT, “Ares, Newport, midcourse correction PAD follows.”
Jeff and Abby got ready to write, Gabe just listened. Jeff glanced at her. “You sure you don’t want to write this down?”
She just smiled and shook her head.
FLIGHT, “Ares, this is Newport. SPS/G&N; mass 160149; pitch and yaw trim, plus 0.83 minus 0.20; UTC ignition 14:00:00; plus 0047.9, minus 0001.2, plus 0071.8; roll 279, pitch 4, yaw 17; Delta-VT 86.4, burn duration 69, Delta-VC 81.9; sextant star 36, 212.3, 32.0; GDC align per your last fix; no ullage. Read back, over.”
As Abby read back the PAD, Jeff leaned to Gabe. “That sound right?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“What about the GDC stars and alignment?”
“Like she said, per our last fix. We’re here, they’re not. We already verified the GDC alignment. Relax, this is the easy part.”
“What’s the hard part?”
“Waiting for the engine to light.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We miss Mars by 179,000 kilometers and spend the rest of eternity lost in space.”
Jeff frowned. “Um, that would be bad.”
Gabe cast him a nervous grin. “Yeah.”
“Okay then, let’s try not to do that.”
“Right.”
While Jeff waited for the readback confirmation from Newport he twiddled his thumbs.
After a minute Gabe reached over and slapped his hands. “Stop that, you’re making me nervous.”
“Sorry.” He stopped. “You know, we never practiced this.”
“What?”
“Waiting five minutes for a response.”
Gabe chuckled. “No, we didn’t, did we? It wasn’t in the Apollo training plan, so it didn’t get into ours. They never had to wait more than a few seconds. Besides, if we’d done that we would have spent all our time in the trainer watching you twiddle your thumbs.”
“Yeah, good point. It’s not exactly like calling cross-town on your cell phone, is it?”
“No. 47 million miles roundtrip. Patience.”
“Not my strong suit.”
She grinned. “I know.”
“Oh, I dunno,” said Abby. “I can think of one thing he’s pretty patient about.”
Jeff and Gabe both glanced at her. “What?”
Susan’s hand came up between Jeff and Abby’s seats and wagged a finger at her.
Abby smiled softly and shook her head. “Um, never mind.”
“What?” Gabe persisted.
“You’ll find out.”
“Huh?” She frowned at Jeff.
He shrugged.
FLIGHT, “Ares, this is Newport, readback correct. Out.”
Jeff sighed with relief. Saved by the bell. “Alright, let’s get on with it. Gabe, time to burn?”
“Twenty-three minutes.”
FLIGHT, “Ares, if you can send me an ACCEPT, we’ll upload state vector and target load to the DSKY.”
Gabe shook her head and glanced at Jeff. “No, not until I’ve seen it. This may look like an Apollo command module, but it’s not. They can buffer it, and we’ll see.”
Jeff frowned. “Gabe, they’ve got bigger computers down there than we have.”
“I don’t care. I’m navigating, not them.”
He glanced at Abby.
Abby nodded. “She’s right. Everything they’re seeing happened two and half minutes ago. They only think they know where we are, which way we’re pointed, and how fast we’re going. Gabe does know, cause she’s here. We’re in a time warp, trust your navigator.”
He glanced back and forth between them, then smiled at Gabe. “Roger that. Uh, Newport, Ares, send it to the buffer, NAV wants a look, and I concur.”
“Coming up on two minutes,” said Abby. “Delta-V Thrust B on?”
Jeff nodded. “At two minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Translation Controller, Armed,” said Gabe.
Abby flipped a switch. “Armed.”
“Rotation Controller, Armed.”
“Got it.”
“Standby for 69-second SPS burn in eight seconds… Mark,” said Gabe.
“PROCEED,” said Jeff.
“Got B Mode,” said Abby.
Jeff nodded. “Burning. Looking good. Uh, Newport, Ares, we’re burning.”
Gabe sighed aloud. “Thrust A.”
Abby glanced at her. “Got them both?”
“Yeah. Thrust A and B.”
“Chamber pressure?”
“95% on both.”
“Okay.”
Gabe smiled. “Oooo, gravity. That’s nice.”
Abby chuckled. “Enjoy. It won’t last long. Gimbals are dancing a bit, but not as much as I’d expected.”
“EMS and G&N CALS are together,” said Jeff.
Abby nodded. “Pitch trim is a bit over one degree, yaw is hovering around zero.”
“Ten seconds,” said Gabe.
“And in 3, 2, 1…”
“Shutdown. Ball valves closed.”
“Roger,” said Jeff. “Good burn?”
Gabe shrugged. “So far as I can tell. I’ll have telemetry for you in a minute.”
“Rog. Newport, Ares, shutdown. We’ll have a post-burn state for you in a couple minutes.”
“Abby, residuals?”
“Um, yeah, minus 0.9, plus 0.5, minus 0.4. Jeez! How do you do that?”
Gabe grinned. “Just a little high school math.”
Jeff smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think we went to the same high school. Are we gonna trim that?”
“Yeah. Abby, just tap the throttle and get the x-axis residual down below 0.5 feet per second. The others are fine.”
“Roger that.” She nudged the RCS controller. “Okay, it’s now minus 0.4.”
“That’ll do.”
Jeff clapped his hands. “Okay, let’s wrap it up.”
Abby nodded. “Rog. Pitch one, off.”
Gabe flipped a switch. “Off.”
“Yaw one, off…”
#
Gabe sat back from the Sundancer’s navigation console and smiled.
Jeff put a hand on her shoulder. “How’s it look?”
“Beautiful. Couldn’t be better. This trajectory will take us well inside Deimos’ orbit. The approach burns should be negligible.”
He grasped her shoulder, pulled down, and kissed her cheek. “Good job.”
She leaned her head toward him and smiled softly. “Thank you. Assuming the rest of our, uh… luggage arrives, we should be good to go.”
“Where is everybody else?”
“On course, on time.”
“The MAVs?”
“Uh huh. Relax Jeff, these mid-course corrections are minor. Nothing significant is likely to happen until we get to the orbital insertion burn.”
At that moment the Auxiliaries Console Master Alarm went off.
Jeff frowned. “You we’re saying?” He punched the alarm button, turning off the alarm. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Hang on.” Gabe cycled through several displays. “Um, solar cell current is down by 12 percent.”
“That’s an entire panel.”
“Yeah.”
“Circuit breaker?”
“Jeff, give me a second.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah, panel seven is offli
ne, but I can’t reset it.”
“Alright, put a camera on it.”
Gabe lit off the number three camera and swung it around aft. “Oh my god! It’s broken in half.”
“We got hit by something.”
“What?”
“How would I know? Somebody’s missing wrench?”
“Out here?”
“Probably not. More like a rock?”
“Meteor?”
“Yeah, small one.”
“Oh god, what are the odds?”
“You’re the mathematician, you tell me.”
“Incalculable. I don’t think it’s ever happened before this far in space.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything. Alright, get cameras on it from every angle. Send photos to Newport. Get heads working on it. I’m gonna find Abby and we’ll suit up and go have a look, and see if we can snag that other half before it drifts away or hits something else.”
“Can I go? I haven’t been outside yet.”
“Yeah, okay.” Jeff hit the PA button. “Abby, Sue, need you in the commons. Now!”
A minute later Abby came out of the truss. “What’s up?”
Susan came out right behind her.
Jeff motioned them to the console. “Better have a look at this.”
Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) Page 66