by Jeff Pollard
Maybe we can be woken up from this capitalist nightmare by a new enemy. Maybe watching Chinese Taikonauts trample on Neil Armstrong's footprints will finally awaken the obese American juggernaut.
Well, awaken us at least until football season starts.
But through this mess, we have a silver lining. SpacEx has its own space station. A hotel in space that you can stay in for just forty million dollars. And they have unofficial plans of eventually taking paying passengers to the Moon and Mars. That's the one great thing about the American greed epidemic: we've got plenty of uber-wealthy people who don't pay much in taxes. Mitt Romney couldn't quite buy the presidency, but with his 9% income tax rate (thanks to several completely legal, and insane, loopholes and deductions) he could buy a trip to the Moon.
Maybe what we're witnessing isn't the fall of America, but the fall of nations. Nation-states crumble away and corporations and billionaires take over the world like so many fiefdoms. Kingsley Pretorius has arguably a better space program than the United States. I mean honestly, who would you rather be, Kingsley Pretorius or Barack Obama?
It's hard to see a nation decide it's worth it to send people to Mars, after all, it won't be the politicians going. Maybe the only way to get to Mars is to have the uber-wealthy buy their own tickets to get there.
What made Apollo great was that the Astronauts were the best of the best. They earned their way to the Moon. That's the American dream. It doesn't matter where you were born, how rich your parents were or if you went to a prestigious academy. No. If you join the Navy and prove to be an amazing pilot, cool under pressure, and smart enough to be an engineer or to get a PhD in orbital rendezvous, you can then earn your way to that amazing feat of walking on the Moon. Those great men inspired us to be great too.
But if the first people on Mars are just a bunch of billionaires who inherited their wealth and then bought a ticket...what message will that send? Try to be born really rich and you can achieve anything? If this is where we're heading, then the future will be like the past. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, only this time we get to watch the rich live in luxury on our computer screens. Maybe we can live vicariously through them enough to placate ourselves. Or maybe the incredible injustice of people lucky enough to be born rich getting anything they want, up to and including outdoing Neil Armstrong, will finally push us over the edge and to a true revolution away from an unfair world of rigged-capitalism.
I mean, if the first words said from the surface of Mars are “That's one small step for me, Justin Bieber,” I just might stab the nearest rich person with a pitchfork.
“Kingsley's Congress”
by Martin Graves
Today SpacEx CEO and Chief Designer Kingsley Pretorius will testify before the Senate sub-committee on boredom and inanity. Now I know most people rarely watch C-SPAN and certainly wouldn't call a Senate Committee an entertaining watch, but today's hearing should be interesting. I'm getting my popcorn ready.
Kingsley is not known to pull his punches, having gotten into several Twitter arguments with celebrities and politicians.
The rocket engineer and dot-com billionaire has spent the last decade criticizing congress for using NASA as a “pork delivery service.” He's never been shy about going on the record, whether he's calling out the Senate for “pretending they're rocket scientists who think they're smart enough to tell NASA how to do its job,” or accusing Senators of outright corruption.
Well this outspoken critic will be appearing in front of many of the very Senators he's been so vocally critical of for years, and they're not likely to treat him very nicely. The fact that Kingsley was subpoenaed rather than simply asked to appear also hints at an ambush awaiting him. He almost certainly would have appeared had they simply asked him nicely, but the move to subpoena, or legally require him to appear, gives his appearance a negative connotation, as if he's answering for shady dealings rather than appearing as an expert witness.
The hearings are the result of a joint GAO-FBI investigation into Pentagon procurement, spawned mostly by the bloated F-35 program, but also other shady moves such as the Congressional move to order the Army to purchase more than a hundred M1-A1 tanks that the Army didn't even want. When this investigation found rather widespread abuses of power, undue lobbying influence, quid pro quo, and other shady dealings, the investigation widened to include NASA's SLS program. If it sounds crazy that congress is actually busy doing anything, let alone investigating corruption, you should remember that this congress has seen its approval rating drop below 5%. It seems that they've decided that they need to make headlines for doing something other than causing shutdowns, so all this investigating is a by-product of their need to cover their own asses. It may just all be a show.
The hearings held by the Senate Armed Services Sub-Committee on Readiness and Management Support are allegedly going to address these concerns, however, Senate Space Committee chairman, Senator Richard Wallace of Alabama, has somehow weaseled his way into the hearing. His state of Alabama hosts the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, which has been the central location for NASA's rocket development and construction since the sixties when the Saturn rockets were developed there.
While the Senate Space Committee gives NASA directives and weighs in on design decisions, they don't however write the budget for NASA. There are whispers in the hallways on the hill that the upcoming budget might see the SLS budget slashed or taken out completely. Many writers, bloggers, science magazines, and even the science-lebrities like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye have called for the SLS budget to be used to purchase and develop commercial launch vehicles like the existing Delta IV Heavy or SpacEx's Eagle Heavy, which offer significant savings and have the added benefit of already existing and not needing billions on development cash up front. They'd like to use that savings to send robotic probes out to barely explored moons and planets. There are many plans, a submarine to probe the oceans beneath the surface of Europa, a recon drone to fly around the Martian atmosphere, landings on IO, Ganymede, Ceres, you name it. There's a lot of science to do, but as Physicist Lawrence Krauss points out, “We'll spend ten times as much to send people instead of probes and our reward is less interesting data from places that aren't as intriguing.”
While cutting SLS and sending that money to the private sector, like Mr. Pretorius's SpacEx, or to the Dream Chaser space plane, which is in orbit as I write this, would be a positive move, it's not necessarily the destination of that savings. SLS might be canceled and NASA's budget left with an SLS-sized hole in it.
If anything, we'll probably have to wait a year for a new President to find out what the future of our space program will look like as wait for another twenty-year plan. Although, the next president might be saddled with the SLS regardless, since the SLS will be only about a year away from its first launch by the time the new president takes the oath of office in January of '17.
So while the SLS is taking a beating alongside the F-35 in the press and perhaps this means that the will of the people will be heard by Congress, today's hearing will probably be an attempt to salvage some of the SLS's reputation by scoring points beating up on Mr. Pretorius.
You can count on Senator Wallace attempting to debunk the idea that SpacEx is a less costly alternative to SLS. How he might do that, I'm not sure. But he'll have to do it in order to make the SLS even seem at all feasible. He could try to paint private space travel as dangerous and NASA as the safe and reliable source of human space travel. There is a legitimate criticism of the move away from super-heavy-lift to the use of multiple launches such as 2 or 3 Eagle Heavys to replace a single monolithic SLS launch, and that is that a mission requiring multiple launches to meet up in orbit has more things that can go wrong and puts more demands on launch facilities and crews. Then again, it might be worth the enormous cost savings, and this line of reasoning isn't likely to score points in the sound-byte-sphere. Perhaps all he needs to do is make it seem like there's disagr
eement, and therefore no clear solution, which causes many people to tune it all out.
Whatever the tactics are, expect both sides to be aiming for the winning sound byte. And don't be surprised if somebody goes ballistic when things don't go their way.
Chapter 12
RAF Edelsborough in Buckinghamshire was a Royal Air Force Base which was closed in 2012. England had built hundreds of airfields during World War Two. After the war, many of the bases were abandoned, many became airports, and some remained in the RAF inventory. The RAF has closed more than a thousand former air bases that it once operated. RAF Edelsborough was bought up by the British space tourism company, Zero-G, and converted into their home base for operating their new space plane, the Jaguar. Test flights began in 2014. The Jaguar, unlike SpaceShipOne or SpaceShipTwo, has no mothership. The Jaguar has a single jet engine and a pair of small liquid rocket engines that burn LOX and Kerosene. In 2015, the Jaguar flew into space, joining Virgin Galactic as the second company to fly a sub-orbital space plane. Now in early 2016, two Zero-G Jaguars are in service, capable of carrying one pilot and a single passenger to the edge of space.
The Jaguar takes off under its own power, cruises up to a launching altitude of 45,000 feet, then turns on its rocket engines for a burst of speed that carries it up above 100 km. Then she glides back down for a brief re-entry, and can then power its jet engine back up for a safe landing back at RAF Edelsborough. After the roughly 45 minute flight, the Jaguar can easily be refueled and relaunched. The turnaround time is supposed to come down to under two hours, and thus with two Jaguars, Zero-G hopes to be able to launch a dozen missions a day to the edge of space. Currently they charge the equivalent of $95,000 for a ticket, less than half of what Virgin Galactic charges for a seat on SpaceShipTwo.
Zero-G's second Jaguar took to the sky at 11:34 am local time. Across the pond Kingsley should have been asleep at 5:34 am, but was instead pacing in his Washington D.C. hotel room, too nervous to sleep. He was to appear before Congress that morning.
It was the Jaguar's second flight of the day. The passenger was Ethan Grommel, a midfielder who had recently retired from Manchester United. The big footballer barely fit into the cockpit of the Jaguar alongside the pilot Ian Mitchell. Mitchell had been a pilot in the Royal Air Force, having flown the Harrier in both the Falklands and the first Gulf War. Mitchell was in his fifties and as one of the eight Zero-G pilots, he had flown Jaguar #2 into space more than fifty times. It was just another day at the office for Mitchell.
The Jaguar features a double-delta-wing with wingtip-rudders. The bottom of the up-turned nose and the leading edges of the wings are covered in thermal-protection ceramic composites to withstand the heat of a sub-orbital re-entry. The rest of the body is made of lightweight composites and an aluminum skeleton.
The double-delta-wing with wingtip-rudders act a bit like the tail of a dart or a shuttlecock, and should keep the Jaguar correctly oriented as it re-enters the atmosphere. The Jaguar also features small RCS thrusters to maintain attitude control of the vehicle while it is above the atmosphere and the usual aerodynamic control surfaces are useless.
Grommel, outfitted in a full pressure-suit, is very snug in the right-seat of the Jaguar. Mitchell throttles up the single turbo-jet engine and the Jaguar pushes the two men back in their seats for a quick burst of acceleration along the runway which once belonged to Spitfires. It's about a twenty-five minute climb up to 45,000 feet. Most of the fuselage behind the small two-person cockpit is taken up by a large fuel tank that extends into the wings and a liquid oxygen tank above it. Grommel and Mitchell can feel the cold from the cryogenic liquid oxygen tank.
“Ready?” Mitchell asks. Grommel just gives a thumbs up. Mitchell pushes the throttle all the way forward for the jet-engine, then turns on the rocket engines and throttles them up quickly. The burst of speed from the ignition of the twin rockets pushes them back in their seats as Mitchell pulls the nose up and begins a steep climb. He throttles down the the jet as it gasps for air in the upper atmosphere, until finally shutting it down and pulling the lever back which closes the twin intake flaps in the sides of the fuselage. The rockets exhaust their propellant and are shut down at 175,000 feet, but the Jaguar has picked up a great deal of speed in its steep climb and will continue up to 350,000 feet. As they push quickly through 200,000 feet, Mitchell activates the RCS controls to roll the Jaguar. The spaceplane begins a slow roll to inverted, revealing the Earth beneath them out the canopy.
Grommel marvels at the view as Mitchell pulls his stick to halt their roll. The Jaguar seems to fight with Mitchell as he tries to halt the roll. He's alarmed but not panicked as he fights with the plane for control. Unbeknownst to him, the roll-control thruster located in the left wing strake is stuck open. The failure of a single valve put the two men in harm's way. Grommel had no idea that they were in any more danger than a typical Jaguar flight as Mitchell fought to maintain control. He countered the continuous left-roll coming from the stuck thruster with right-roll. However his roll input triggered four roll thrusters which did not provide an equal and opposite force to the single-stuck thruster. This imbalance introduced a pitching force, putting the Jaguar into a slow tumble. He fired more thrusters to fight this tumble, but that used even more thrusters. Mitchell realized he was quickly burning through his RCS propellant fighting with this stuck thruster.
As the Jaguar continued upward on its ballistic arc it encountered little air resistance. The attitude of the Jaguar while it was above 200,000 feet mattered little. So Mitchell decided to lay off the thrusters completely, hoping that the single stuck thruster wouldn't fully deplete their RCS propellant before re-entry. He would let the stuck thruster have its way with the Jaguar until just before they would need to be in the proper orientation for re-entry. If he could correct the attitude right before re-entry and hold it until all RCS was depleted, the stuck thruster would stop as the propellant ran out and then the Jaguar would re-enter safely at the proper attitude where the shape of the plane itself would keep the Jaguar pointed the right way.
So he let off the controls and the Jaguar began a steadily increasing tumble into the sky. Grommel has no idea of the danger, simply enjoying the weightless tumble.
Mitchell waits for the right moment, as the Jaguar plummets back toward 100,000 feet at Mach 3 in an inverted flat spin. He finally gets on the thrusters, applying full power to halt the spin and roll the Jaguar, getting it back to the correct re-entry attitude, then only needing to fight that stuck thruster to keep it oriented. The RCS propellant runs out with the Jaguar in the correct attitude, but with a slight yaw. Unable to do anything to correct the slight yaw to the left, Mitchell relaxes, expecting the drag of the wingtip-rudders to correct the yaw. However, he is surprised to find that the drag is insufficient to stop the yaw. He applies right rudder, but the nose continues to yaw to the left.
To his horror, the Jaguar keeps turning, re-entering completely backwards. The drag of the wingtip-rudders finally kicks in and turns the Jaguar around. For a brief instant the Jaguar whips around to the correct attitude, but keeps yawing right past that attitude and the vehicle spins faster and noses up slightly.
The Jaguar spins faster and faster and Mitchell and Grommel are pushed forward in their seats at several Gs, their straps straining to keep them from flying through the windshield.
Mitchell fights to regain control, but it's too late. The right wing buckles from the forces of the extreme spin. At that point, the Jaguar becomes asymmetrical, causing the spin to dramatically increase. The abrupt yaw force of the now asymmetrical wings torques the composite fuselage to its breaking point. The fuselage tears apart, breaking open the nearly empty oxygen and Kerosene tanks. When the vapors meet, they explode, blasting the front and back of the Jaguar away from each other. Mitchell and Grommel lose consciousness for good from the intense Gs just prior to the explosion.
They may have been killed by the blast itself or by the impact with the ground, but ei
ther way, the end result was two dead astronauts.
Word of the crash wouldn't reach Kingsley until after 8 am as he drank coffee in the Capitol Rotunda, waiting to head into the conference room for the committee meeting.
“God dammit,” K mutters, reading the news off his phone.
“What? Hannah asks.
“Zero-G Jaguar just crashed. We're done. It's over.”
“What's a Jaguar, and why are we done?” Hannah asks.
“A space tourist has just died.”
“I thought we didn't call them tourists,” Hannah says.
“You do when they spend less than ten minutes up there,” K replies. “I'll bet Richard Branson just punched a kitten. He's probably going to call me any minute, shouting his fucking head off.” K hands his phone to Hannah. “So go ahead and have him leave a message when the happens.”
“Awesome,” Hannah mutters.
“Where is Harold?” K asks. “You did get him a wake-up call right?”
“Yes.”
“And a car, we got a car for him?” K asks.
“Yes.”
“So where the shit-”
“Would you relax, I'm sure he's coming. Why do you need that old guy anyway, guy's like ninety years old.”