by Read, John
The room erupted into cheers, but Norman held up his hand to silence it. “People of NASA, contractors, and friends, let’s make history!”
At that moment there was a hustle and bustle as engineers tapped away on their consoles. Additional screens flicked on, showing immense amounts of data.
For the next hour, we worked through dozens of checklists. Norman read from a tablet, requesting the status of each system. After each request, someone in the room would shout, “Nominal!”
The time came to inject the Bradbury into Earth’s orbit. There was a countdown, which included another checklist, but instead of responding with, “Nominal,” everyone responded, “Go Flight.” It was time.
“Retro rockets firing,” said an engineer. An animation on the screen showed four jets of rocket flame shooting from the giant spacecraft’s engines.
“Trajectory nominal,” said a female voice. I glanced at another display which plotted the path of the ship into Earth’s orbit. “Pitch... nominal… Attitude... nominal.”
“Navigation...wait...” said a man seated in the row ahead of me. He sat at a radar station. I looked at his screen, trying to see what he was looking at. This was a critical moment in the flight, and my heartrate quickened.
“Wait... There’s something on the radar. It’s small, about the size of a baseball.” I still couldn’t see what he was looking at. The engineer pushed his head closer to the screen, trying to get a read. At the speeds that these spaceships traveled, debris of any size was a threat. But space is very empty, and spacecraft rarely hit anything larger than a grain of sand.
“Switch to dorsal camera,” Norman ordered. The views on a half dozen screens showed the top half of the freighter. We all saw it, a piece of space junk streaking through space at incredible speed. We watched as the object grazed both the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen tanks.
I didn’t realize it, but I was standing. Nicolas put a hand on my shoulder, guiding me back into my chair. “It’ll be alright, John,” he whispered, always the optimist. I tried to wrap my mind around it. NASA monitored most of the space junk in the Earth’s vicinity. The trajectory calculations always took debris into consideration.
“Zoom in on that fuel tank,” Norman ordered, pointing at the room’s primary display. The screen zoomed in, revealing a small impact hole with hydrogen leaking out. The gas appearing to glow as it streamed out into space, trailing ahead of the craft as the main engines slowed down the giant spacecraft.
“Can we shut down those tanks?” Norman asked.
“Affirmative, Flight, tank shutdown complete, increasing flow from the remaining tanks,” someone reported.
I spoke up. “We should shut down the thrusters until the gasses disperse!” I yelled, hating myself for not speaking up sooner.
“Do it!” Norman yelled, but it was too late.
The live views of the spacecraft turned white. I stared in disbelief. Something had overwhelmed the cameras. Error messages flashed over all the displays.
“We’re still getting data,” someone said, “but it looks like we’ve had an explosion. I’m patching in another video feed now.” We watched as millions of pounds of fuel erupted in pulsing spheres of blinding light.
I slunk down in my chair and pinched my temples, using my hand to hide my tears. I’d poured my heart and soul into this mission. I’d worked long hours, time I could have spent playing with my son. And for what, a thirty-second firework show? I felt worthless. This was compounded by the fact that there was nothing for me to do. If this mission failed, I had no reason to be here.
“It’s off course,” the telemetry engineer said. On one of the large screens we watched a simulation showing the hunk of spacecraft veering off its projected course by two degrees.
“Estimated trajectory?” the flight director whispered to the telemetry engineer. This was an important question. I perked up, trying to hear, dying to know where the unguided spacecraft was headed.
“Calculating now, Flight,” she replied. “Give me two minutes.”
“Engines?” Norman asked the room.
“Offline,” said an engineer. “We’re not getting any readings from the fuel tanks. My guess is that we lost the fuel in the explosion.”
“All of it?” Norman asked.
“All of it, Flight.”
“Cycle the cameras,” Norman ordered. “Let’s see if there’s anything good on the spacecraft.”
Someone in the room cycled through the Bradbury’s cameras like a slideshow. A large cloud of debris surrounded the spacecraft. Burned chunks of metal floated around it in an expanding sphere. Through the debris field, we could see the bulk of the spacecraft from a high vantage point, probably from a mast camera of some type. The majority of the spacecraft’s mass seemed relatively unaffected by the explosion.
“Do any of the thrusters work?” the flight director asked.
“We have two functioning starboard thrusters and three port thrusters. However, without the main engines, we can only change our orientation, not our trajectory.”
“Understood,” he responded. “Okay, everyone, is there any chance that we can salvage this?” Norman had my full attention again.
“Sir, if the Bradbury enters a stable orbit, we’ll be able to dock with it using a tow-shuttle, and eventually pull it back into the correct orbit,” suggested one of the engineers. For a moment, I felt a glimmer of hope. I looked over at Nicolas. He was seated, resting his head on his hands as if listening to a fascinating speech. The young engineer’s eyes glistened. I’m sure he and I felt exactly the same way.
“That’s not going to happen,” the telemetry engineer said, using a hand to brush her hair behind an ear. “We’re not going to get a stable orbit.”
“What’s the result, Alaina?” Norman said, using the engineer’s first name, a rare event in mission control.
“Well sir, the Bradbury is, well, it’s headed straight for the Earth.”
“Dammit!” Norman muttered. “Any chance it will miss?”
This changed everything. It was a silly question. The telemetry reports were never wrong. If Alaina said the spaceship was headed for Earth, you could be damn sure it was going to hit the Earth. I felt like I was going to die, as if the spacecraft was going to land right on top of this building.
“No, sir,” Alaina said. “Probability is one hundred percent, updating visuals now.” Everyone looked to the front of the room. The primary display showed an animation with the path of the spacecraft leading straight to Earth.
“Mr. Collins, bring up the procedure for self-destruct,” the flight director ordered. Several people in the room gasped and there were tears in people’s eyes.
“Self-destruct sequence on your mark, Flight,” an engineer at the back of the room said.
“Mark,” Norman said.
Nothing happened.
“Mr. Collins, update please.”
With the debris field dispersing, the Bradbury’s superstructure came clearly into view. If you weren’t looking closely, you almost couldn’t see the damage.
“Sir, we’re not getting a response from the detonators.”
“How about a workaround?” Norman asked, pacing up the hallway between the workstations.
“I don’t think so,” Collins said. “It looks like the main bus was destroyed in the explosion, sort of like Apollo Thirteen.”
“Shit,” Norman swore. “Lock the doors.”
During most emergencies, the “lock the doors” command is the first command given after a disaster. It had been so long since the last major incident in space, I guessed he just forgot to say it.
His expletive did not do the situation justice. The CTS-Bradbury was a giant hunk of steel, ten million tons in mass. It was about to hit Earth traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour.
We knew one thing for sure. The spacecraft was going to hit this side of the planet. We had timed the arrival so that it would be over North America. This reduced communication lag.
All geostationary orbits are over the equator, so it would probably hit the tropics, with a margin of error of thirty-something degrees. This put a potential impact zone within the continental United States.
When the news leaked, there would be panic. The standard procedure in a NASA emergency was to halt communication with the outside world. This gave the communications team time to align on a consistent message.
I slunk down in my chair and pulled out my phone, shooting a text to my wife.
Epic disaster with spacecraft,
Impact with Earth imminent,
Get out of SF, drive north.
Tell no one, just go. I love you.
Marie knew the risks. I discussed my work every day over dinner. She knew the ramifications of a rogue spacecraft better than most. She also understood that when the news got out that a spaceship was going to land on their heads, people would panic and act irrationally.
The phone dinged, a text: I love you.
Norman looked over at me and frowned. He walked to the back of the room and picked up a trashcan, dumping the contents on the floor. A half empty coffee cup rolled under my workstation, leaving a helical pattern of cold coffee on the floor. “Mr. Johnson,” he said, and held out the trashcan to the security man. He raised his voice and said, “All right, people, the doors are locked. You know what it means.”
Johnson walked from workstation to workstation, and people dropped their phones, tablets and watches in—anything that could call or message out.
“Thank you, everyone,” Norman said, pacing between the workstations. “Time to impact?”
“Forty-five minutes, Flight”
“I need a location, Alaina.”
“Hard to say.” Alaina had a habit of speaking quietly. Norman leaned in to hear her better. “Twenty minutes at the least.” When Alaina spoke, the whole room quieted down, but like everyone else in the room, she was one of the best.
“Flight, I’m getting dozens of emails from the press,” said a voice from one of the stations. “The live feed was broadcast on NASA 3D.”
“Wonderful,” Norman said.
“What should I tell them, sir?” said the communications director.
“Tell them we’ve had an anomaly onboard the spacecraft.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Norman replied. “Let’s just pray it comes down in the water somewhere.”
“And if it hits near a major city?” someone asked, speaking without formally addressing the director.
“Then God help us,” Norman responded.
For twenty minutes, the room reverberated with the sounds of a dozen engineers debating vectors and the other directors coordinating with the Air Force. Ideas flew around the room like sparrows trapped in a chimney.
“Shoot it down?” I heard someone say.
“Can’t launch a missile without accurate telemetry,” said another.
“Wouldn’t matter anyway, this thing is just too damn large.”
“Shut up, everyone,” someone yelled from the front of the room. “Everyone, shut up!”
The room went silent.
“We have an impact site and it’s confirmed,” Alaina said.
“Let’s hear it,” Norman ordered.
“Thirty-six point eight degrees north,” she said. “And…one hundred nineteen point seven degrees west.”
No one spoke. A bead of sweat trickled down the engineer’s face.
All eyes turned to the map. “Northern California,” Norman said.
“Just north of Fresno, Flight. Right in the middle of the Central Valley.”
Only two hundred miles from here, I thought. Fresno had, what, a half million people? Jesus.
“Jerry,” Norman said and motioned to the communications director. “Spread the word.”
As news of the impending collision spread around the world, a holovision on the left side of the control room played the news. “CTS-Bradbury Expected to Impact Fresno, California,” was the headline.
A reporter from ABC news paraphrased our press release. “This ship, containing billions of pounds of material, will ram into Earth at sixty thousand miles per hour. According to NASA, shockwaves could travel for hundreds of miles, reaching San Francisco and even Los Angeles.”
We were in serious trouble.
“Nick,” I whispered, “Hey, Nicolas!” he looked over. “We need to get the hell out of here!”
“We’re locked in!” Nicolas whispered back. He was right, we were stuck in there. Most of the people in the room had a job to do. They had an obligation to stay, to keep working the problem. All I wanted to do was get to my family.
I read the ticker displayed beneath the commentators. “Subterranean rail and hyperloops will be halted in thirty minutes in anticipation of massive earthquakes.” I figured they would send most of the trains away from the cities while they had time. I definitely wouldn’t want to be on a train when the spaceship impacted.
Another headline: “Traffic Insanity – Drivers override vehicle automation systems causing major congestion.” I thought about this for a moment. After thirty years of automation, there was an entire generation who had never learned to drive. Did Marie have enough warning to get ahead of the congestion? I didn’t know.
“Flight, can we have our phones back?” I asked, desperate to get ahold of Marie. I looked around the room, noticing other people sitting around with nothing to do.
“Johnson, give them back their phones,” Norman said.
I reached into the trashcan and grabbed my phone. In a panic, I sprinted to the back of the room and called my wife. She had been listening to the news reports and knew almost as much as I did.
“How bad is it?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer said, “There are car accidents everywhere!”
“It’s bad,” I said, “and we don’t know how bad. The blast radius could be anywhere from fifty to three hundred miles and we expect earthquakes, big ones.”
“Oh, John, how could this happen!” she said.
“Let’s just focus on the problem,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Santa Rosa.”
“Marie, we need to make a decision,” I said. “You can stay on the highway and risk the drivers, or you can head west into the hills and try to avoid the blast that way.”
“I think I’ll head into the hills,” she said.
“When this is over, we may not have working cell phones. San Francisco and Los Angeles will be a mess. If we lose contact, meet me in Las Vegas, at I don’t know, how about the Bellagio? The mountains should protect Las Vegas. Can you do that?”
“I’ll do my best, I love you,” Marie said.
Someone in the room patched in video from ground-based observatories and satellites in geostationary orbit. The spaceship’s hull started to glow as it entered the atmosphere. There were no windows in the control room, but we were informed that the spacecraft could be seen from Los Angeles and that the entire population was outside, looking up.
Someone yelled, “Open the God damned doors!”
Several people had gathered at the back of the room where a row of doors led to a hallway on the north side of the building. Norman flicked a finger at the guard and nodded his head. Johnson pulled out his keys and opened each of the doors, allowing natural light to stream into the room.
I ran to the window and looked up. Earth had a second sun. The CTS-Bradbury appeared as a giant orange orb in the sky, with a tail of debris stretching out like a comet. It descended lower and lower and eventually passed out of sight behind the hills. The news stations showed live views of the crashing spaceship. There were holovisions in the hallway, and every network had camera crews following the doomed craft. Suddenly, all of the news feeds winked out, and the broadcasts returned to the commentators at their home stations in faraway cities.
Nicolas stood beside me, shaking. He was more afraid than I was. Perhaps he understood the implications better than I. Nicolas was slightly overweight and re
minded me of a kid on the playground after he’d been bullied. “We gave the world twenty minutes notice,” he said. “Twenty minutes to gather your things and run. But it’s not going to matter, is it? People are still going to burn.”
If the spacecraft had impacted where telemetry had predicted, the San Joaquin Valley was a crater. I looked back at the data screens in the control room. We had live satellite images of the impact zone. The spacecraft didn’t impact with a ball of flame like I would have imagined. It was a reddish brown cloud, a giant plume of opacity, billions of tons of sedimentary rock thrown up into the atmosphere. An air shock rippled the clouds as it traveled north up the valley and toward the ocean, to the place where my wife was fighting the traffic.
No No No! I thought of Branson, he must be so scared. No, he was too young to understand what was going on. He probably even enjoyed the ride as they raced through the Northern California hills. I knew my wife. She was a strong woman and could compose herself in the most stressful situations. I pictured her in my mind’s eye, focusing intensely on getting to safety, making me proud to be her husband.
I refocused on the display in the control room. The shock wave was headed our way too.
Live data from the United Stated Geological Survey projected onto the screen. The data showed earthquakes all over the United States. Red numbers in yellow boxes representing the Richter scale popped up in an expanding ring around the impact site. There were eights, tens, and even a few elevens, the highest possible number on the scale. This scared me more than anything had in my entire life. Sometimes it’s not the event itself that’s terrifying, but the anticipation.
We felt a shudder go through the building. A P-wave, the first sign of an approaching mega quake. The building’s earthquake early warning system roared.