NFI: New Frontiers, Incorporated: Book 2, the New Frontiers Series

by Jack L Knapp

  Frenchy continued, “We haven’t flown enough hours to work out all the bugs, and picking up the cargoes on time is critical. It’s an assembly line, but only so long as all the parts work together. If Gypsy is not available, Farside will take her place. She’s the flexibility built into the system. Later on, I’ll use Farside and one of the ships that’s in the pipeline to service the French contract.

  “Tell you what, Chuck, go ahead and give your bird a shakedown cruise. You need to make sure the repairs are holding. After that, keep her available until she’s needed. What say I meet you at Aladdinsville in a few days? It will take me a while to finish negotiating with the French, then I’m scheduled to talk to Germany. They’re considering a similar contract. When I’m done, I’ll give you a call.” Chuck nodded.

  “Lina OK?”

  “Doing well, Frenchy. No more space flights for her, maybe not for the next few years. Two babies will nail her feet to the ground. I can’t tell if she’s happy at the prospect of twins. She probably regrets missing the early flights.”

  “Well, it won’t be long, and I’m sure she’ll love the motherhood experience. I’m not sure about being a grandfather.”

  “Morty did it, though not with twins. You can too, grampa.”

  “She’s due in twelve weeks, right?”

  “Right, everything’s going well. She’ll be all right, Frenchy.”

  “That’s good, just keep me advised. But I need to get back to work, Chuck. I’ll call you when I get back to the states.”

  The connection ended and Frenchy sighed. Two visitors had arrived at the office while he was talking to Chuck. The parade never slowed!

  #

  “Vacation’s over, gang. I’m taking Farside out for a shakedown cruise. There’s no reason to keep her here, so we won’t be coming back. Will, you want left seat?”

  “You take it, Chuck. What have you got in mind?”

  “Fly to orbit, then tank up at one of the refueling stations. We should do a trial run.”

  “I doubt there’ll be any problems. The fill tubes are flexible and independently steerable from the control panel, so all you need to do is take your time joining up. The radio beacon and docking lights will help.”

  “You’re probably right, but until we try we can’t be absolutely sure. The stations are easy to reach, the whole thing should be almost foolproof. We don’t have fools flying our ships, but I’ll be happier if we give it a try. We could take some of the maintenance people with us. Farside will be based in Iceland or Finland from now on.”

  “Tell me about the bases.”

  “They’re absolutely necessary, not just for hangar space between flights but for maintenance. We’re still working out the schedule, but so far we expect to replace door and hatch seals every hundred hours. The rubber compound dries out and begins to flake, so the only way to prevent leaks is to replace them before they fail. Each hatch has an inner seal and an outer seal, but even so, after a hundred flight hours we start losing atmosphere. The leaks are slow, but we can’t afford to have them get larger.”

  Will nodded.

  “We’re following a modified version of what airlines do, inspect after every flight, do preventive maintenance according to a set schedule, and every two years do a complete teardown and rebuild. Space flight is even more demanding than atmospheric flight, so proactive is better than reactive. The impellers are reliable, but even so there’s no reason to take chances. We intend to replace them every six months. Old impellers go into the shop for teardown and detailed inspection. Any worn parts will be replaced. We expect bearings to fail, so they’ll be replaced during every inspection whether they need it or not. Rebuilt impellers are as good as new, so they’ll go into the maintenance pipeline. The batteries get similar treatment, except that we send them back to the manufacturer for inspection and recertification. Anyway, that means we need shops, which means bases.”

  Two men decided to fly with Chuck and Will, the others begged off. They helped load the rubber water bladder, so the task was soon finished. The pool that had filled the bottom of the cavern’s sinkhole was almost empty; the water had been filtered and used as raw material for the orbital refueling stations. The immense photovoltaic wings provided the needed power; electrolysis split the water molecules, and the hydrogen and oxygen were compressed and stored until needed.

  “Board in fifteen minutes, suits on. You can leave your helmets racked.”

  “I’ll keep my fishbowl on, Chuck. One of us should be fully suited until we reach orbit. I’ll take it off when we get there. If something’s going to break, it will have done it by then,” Will said.

  “Good idea. I’ll warm up the fuel cells and start checkout while you get suited up.” Chuck kept his pressure suit in a locker at the back of the crew cabin. He would change while waiting for the fuel cells to come online.

  #

  The cavern had been formed by the same chemistry that produced the nearby Carlsbad Caverns. Seeping water dissolved the limestone, leaving an underground void that extended for miles. Part of the roof had then collapsed, leaving a giant sinkhole; similar events had formed the nearby Bottomless Lakes State Park. Chuck fulfilled a childhood dream by rappelling down the sinkhole’s sides, then briefly exploring the cave. He noticed that there were few stalactites and stalagmites, meaning this cavern was probably younger than the Carlsbad Caverns when the roof collapsed.

  There had been changes. The cavern now had an electrical system, using power drawn from the photovoltaic plant near the old ranch house. The California King, the company’s sole remaining lifter after Mel’s crash, had simplified the task of converting the cave into a workshop and factory. Lights had been installed, the cavern floor leveled. Metal buildings were erected on the new foundation, including a bunkhouse and a storage building that currently held NFI’s stock of completed impellers. The new factory and shop were sufficient to maintain Farside, as well as manufacture new impellers.

  Half an hour later, hatches sealed and indicator lights glowing green, Chuck lifted Farside to a low hover. Easing the ship ahead until he reached the sinkhole, he added power as soon as he cleared the cavern’s roof. The ship rose, elevator-like, to the surface.

  “Radar on.” Chuck gave the command as soon as the nose cleared the surface. Will pushed the buttons, then monitored the display as the unit came online. Continuing his slow rise, Chuck slowly revolved the ship while watching the display. The only return came from the distant mountains.

  The flight control computers seamlessly translated his commands; when the ship’s up-angle reached sixty degrees, Chuck fed in power and the big craft climbed rapidly.

  “We’ll stay subsonic through angels 60,” he explained. “It takes a little longer to reach the stratosphere, but we don’t want to spook the neighbors. There’s no reason to make people curious. They might decide to take a look at the cave, and we don’t want that to happen.”

  “Agreed.” Will reported the indications from his instruments. “Your course is east, speed 500 knots, now passing through 36,000 feet. Fuel cell output is nominal, impellers at 43% of max thrust, hakuna matata.”

  “Say what?”

  “No worries, Chuck. What are they teaching you guys in school now?”

  “Not that!”

  “Impellers are at 75%,” Will reported. “Cabin pressure remains nominal. Five minutes from orbit, prepare for weightlessness.”

  The two crewmen responded with “Got it” and “I understand”. Chuck smiled. No standard pilot’s jargon for them!

  “I show us on course, ready to enter orbit. Reduce power...now,” continued Will.

  “Impellers at 5%, Will, maintaining altitude. Refueling station coming up in thirty minutes. I’m using the impellers to keep us down in a lower orbit, meaning we’re overtaking the station. I intend to engage the docking program as soon as the station is in sight. I’ll refuel first, then top off the station’s water supply.”

  #

  Forty-six minu
tes later, Chuck disengaged the transfer probes.

  “Any comments, Will?”

  “Nope, that went so slick it’s scary.”

  “I show us at 100% fuel,” Chuck said thoughtfully. “You know, we’ve got enough to orbit the moon and return.”

  “You sure, Chuck?”

  “Why not? How about you guys, want a sightseeing tour?”

  “Sure,” followed by, “The moon?”

  There’s always a doubter, thought Chuck. He rotated the ship and lifted the nose, gradually adding power. Acceleration pushed him into the seat as the impellers spun up. On course, he gradually reduced the thrust, holding it at one gee acceleration. He glanced at Will and got a nod of encouragement.

  “You’ll need to watch your fuel consumption. You should also file a report through the communications satellite. Old pilots and bold pilots, you know how that goes. I vote for letting our guys at Aladdinsville know where we’re going. Maybe Frenchy can send a rescue party if we need one. You’re just doing a loop around, right?”

  “Right, no landing. I’ll call in the report, you take the stick.”

  “I’ve got the controls.”

  The moon’s image grew larger. The ship’s velocity continued to increase; the cratered disk filled the screen, then became too large for the display. Chuck tweaked Farside’s course, watching the image slide away to starboard. “One loop, maybe two, then we head for the barn.”

  “You’re doing a slingshot?” asked Will.

  “Right, that way we’ll hold our speed for the return. I’ve got fuel for several orbits, but I don’t want to cut it too fine.”

  “Watch your acceleration, then. You might want to dial it back now, otherwise your slingshot will send us where we’re not ready to go.”

  “Go around in free fall, you think?”

  “That’s what the Apollos did, but then they didn’t have impellers or enough fuel to do anything else. You’ll have to fly the approach manually, there’s no program in the computer.”

  “I’ll fix that before we try this again. Dialing power back, prepare for microgravity.”

  The moon was visible through the side viewports. Will adjusted the starboard wing camera and let it pan across the surface.

  “Altitude, Chuck?”

  “I’m watching it, Will. We’re not in orbit, I’m using the impellers to hold this altitude, meaning we’ll spiral in during the second half of the loop. I’ll boost speed as we come around and that should slingshot us for home. I’ll file a follow-up report as soon as we’re on our way.”

  “Agreed.” Will aimed the port camera and the camera on the vertical stabilizer toward the surface, then pushed the record button. “I think we’ll get some good photos. They’ll help when it’s time to pick a base location.”

  “We’ll have to do a walkabout.”

  “Sure, but the photo record is where it starts. You don’t want to set your base in a crater.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” said Chuck. “One of the earlier surveys reported water ice in those craters. If it did come from comet strikes, the ice might still be there, under the craters. Some of them, anyway.”

  “You think? Maybe so, but we’ll need some kind of digging machine. Moon gravity is too light, the Apollo guys just bounced around; even chipping rocks, they came off the ground. We’ll need a backhoe, maybe a dozer. You know those spent fuel rods we’ll be hauling?” said Will.

  “Right, first for the Japanese, then the French, probably the Germans too. Eventually, maybe even the USA. We’ll have customers.”

  “The first cargoes won’t be usable; the nuclear fuel will be distributed through glass in the canister, so they won’t produce enough heat. But the ones still in the cooling pools, well...we should be ashamed to charge people. We want those spent fuel rods. I would even haul them free.”

  “You’re going to dump them on the moon? Will, we’ll catch hell from the UN, and the rest of the nuclear-capable nations won’t like it either; they might cancel our contracts. Sure, we save on fuel costs, as opposed to launching from beyond the moon’s gravity well, but...”

  “Not going to dump them at all. You know they’re hot, right?”

  “Sure, they put them in pools to contain the radioactivity.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean they’re ‘spent’ only because they no longer have enough power to operate the generating plants efficiently. But they’re still hot when they’re pulled from the reactors, literally hot. The water keeps them cool.”

  “Okay, but we don’t have water to spare. You’re suggesting we might find some, but that’s a maybe and so far we don’t have any.”

  “Nope. No water. What we do have on the moon is room, all the room we want.”

  “So...Will, you’re going somewhere with this. What are you talking about?”

  “I want to bring up a trencher, maybe a backhoe, battery powered, track mounted. The batteries will add weight to the machine, and on the moon we need all the weight we can get. Other than that, it will be like any other ditch-digger. I’m thinking we should dig trenches, then lay in pipes and connect them end to end. Once the plumbing is finished, cover the pipes with a thin layer of crushed rock or dust but don’t completely fill the trenches. There’s plenty of dust available. Lay the fuel rods on top of the fill material, then add another layer of rock so the heat stays in the trenches. Circulate a fluid through the pipes, collect the heat, and use it to generate electricity.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Sure it will. Even if it doesn’t work, we’re no worse off; we just launch the fuel rods toward the sun like we planned. But I’m sure this will work. We’ll need to pump the fluid through a heat exchanger, that will have to be inside a shelter, then transfer the heat to a second loop to generate power. The second loop circulates a hot fluid through Stirling-Cycle engines hooked to generators. Some of the electricity will drive the pumps to circulate the fluids, but the rest is free power for Moonbase. I figure the spent rods will stay hot for five, maybe even ten years, and by then we’ll be ready to replace the oldest ones. Once the system starts, it will run continuously. Electricity will be available all the time, not just when the sun’s up. After we build the system, it’s all free. That’s why I say we should consider paying for the spent rods.”

  “No way, if they’re willing to pay us, let them. Those rods are a negative asset on the ground, they’re only worth something after we deliver them on the moon. We’re the only ones who can do that safely, so we charge for the service.

  “Why don’t we set up a meeting with Frenchy? He’s got a conference in Germany later this week, but he’ll be home after that. I like the idea, but Frenchy’s the boss, so let’s see what he thinks.”

  Chapter Two

  Chuck parked Farside outside Reykjavik in an empty NFI hangar. He switched off main power, then locked the board.

  After the Russian hijack attempt, a number of security enhancements had been made; in addition to titanium rods around the high-security lock, smaller titanium pins fitted loosely into holes around the cylinder. These were free to rotate, preventing removal of the cylinder by sawing. A cutting torch would have no better luck; the switches and wiring would melt first, effectively breaking the link between the flight control system and the rest of the ship.

  Will and Chuck then went their separate ways; Will caught a flight to Finland, where he would meet Wolfgang Albrecht. Gypsy waited there, ready to make the first commercial flight to space. Wolfgang would command and Will would serve as copilot; he would also evaluate Wolfgang’s performance, deciding whether he was ready to command Gypsy. Two mechanics completed the crew complement.

  Will and Wolfgang had agreed on a rough flight plan. Wolfgang would fly Gypsy to orbit, top off her tanks, then land near Fukushima to pick up a canister of vitrified high-level nuclear waste. Japanese workers would load the canister and Gypsy’s crewmen would secure it in the cargo bay. Pausing in orbit long enough to top off his tanks, Wolfgang wou
ld boost Gypsy’s speed to escape velocity, then launch the container on its long trip to the sun. Detailed planning would take place after they got the latest weather briefing.

  Chuck caught a ride into Reykjavik and ate supper, then checked into the company’s leased hotel suite. He placed a call to Lina before settling in for the night. Chuck missed his wife, and a phone call was better than nothing.

  There was another reason for making the call; Chuck wanted her to relocate to Australia. She would be safer there, but she had friends in New Mexico and Texas. Could she adjust to living in a strange country? And how would emigrating affect the as-yet-unborn twins? Lina was hesitant, still unwilling to decide when they ended the call.

  Chuck found Frenchy at the company’s Reykjavik office the following morning. He spent the first half hour explaining Will’s idea for using the ‘depleted’ fuel rods, then mentioned the difficulties involved in transporting the cargo.

  “We need a second-generation ship. Farside or Gypsy won’t do, not without major modifications. We’d do better refitting them with extra fuel and oxygen tanks. In-flight refueling would be more efficient than stopping at one of the orbital stations.”

  “An interesting idea,” said Frenchy. “But we can talk about it later. Why a second-generation ship, Chuck?”

  “Farside-class ships can’t haul unconverted fuel rods. If they’re melted together with silica, we can transport them, but we can’t use them. We need a way to carry unprotected rods, straight from the cooling pool. That means a different kind of cargo bay, one with shielding to protect the crew and a way to hold the rods. That means a larger bay that has enough room for the shields. More fuel rods means more mass, so we’ll need stiffer walls around the cargo bay, adding to the weight. More mass also means more fuel cells and additional impellers. The new ships will also need insulation between the fuel rods to keep them from interacting with each other. If the rods get close to each other, there’s enough active nuclear material to speed up the reactions, increasing the heat and radioactivity. They might even melt down. The Japanese can help you design the unit. It’s to their advantage if we can haul more rods each trip. Transport would go faster if we didn’t have to wait for them to vitrify the material. Even if we kept the cost of a single flight the same, we wouldn’t need as many trips. We’ll still send them off to the sun, but only after we’ve got as much use out of them as possible.”