by Jeff Pollard
“I know. That's why I'm ridiculing it. You believe something that's obviously false, so why the hell should anyone care what you think about global warming. The planet is warming and 99% of scientists say it's man-made, and the 1% that say it's not man-made all have curious deposits in their bank accounts. So I'm gonna go ahead and say that 99% of scientists probably know what they're talking about better than someone who says 'god did it' is an appropriate answer to any scientific question, and I'm not too surprised when the guy who thinks god created the Earth six thousand years ago despite the fact that we've found thirty-thousand year old pottery laying around isn't all that interested in exploring Mars or Europa or learning truths about our solar system. To anybody who wonders why we haven't been back to the Moon since the '70s, or why we haven't gone to Mars yet, this is the answer right here. Stop electing idiots.”
Senator Walken bangs his gavel. “Mr. Pretorius, you're addressing senators, not tweeting to your fans. Please show some respect.”
“Thank you chairman,” Senator Winger says. “Mr. Pretorius, I think we've heard about enough from you today. I just have one final question, which I believe I already asked you, but you avoided it. I ask the Chairman to make sure you are held to an answer on this question. If your company were to lose all its government handouts and be forced to survive on the free market, how long would it be until you were bankrupt? And with that I cede the floor.”
“I wouldn't characterize the money we get paid for providing services as a handout,” Kingsley says.
“We can avoid the editorializing, just answer the question as fairly as you can please,” Senator Walken says.
“Without having the books in front of me, if we were suddenly deprived of the contracted cargo delivery missions to the ISS as well as a handful of satellite launches, we would certainly be short of cash. I don't think it's fair to wipe away all these contracts we already have and then say we can't survive without the government. Our company's position and strategy is based on the needs of the market and the market right now includes a lot of launches for NASA, so if you suddenly change the market, then sure our strategic position isn't so optimally suited to the market.
But that's not really the point. If SpacEx survives by running passengers up to a space station and launching satellites, we might open space up somewhat, but we'll never do the kind of science or exploration that NASA does. We'll never push the envelope like NASA does because we are a company. Companies have to serve the bottom line. Sure, I can push as hard as I can and even lose money in the pursuit of pushing the envelope, but I can only push so far. I only have so much capital. Running a space hotel can be a profitable enterprise, but commercial flights are routine, not boundary pushing. Exploration, truly pushing the envelope is expensive, it's risky, you don't know if it will pay off, and it costs more and we need government to fund it. If it wasn't a quirk of the cold war that we needed rockets capable of dropping nuclear bombs anywhere in the world, then rocketry development would have been so much slower. Without all that military money going into rockets as weapons, I don't know that we would have been to the Moon even by today. Government spurs innovation because governments measure success by more than just the bottom line. The federal government didn't turn a profit on Apollo, but the American people, the world, they turned a profit.”
Chapter 13
“No, but really, I'm just a regular guy,” Kingsley says while strapped into the pilot's seat of his home Griffin simulator. He's multi-tasking, both interviewing a candidate for nanny and landing a Griffin 2.0 on Mars.
“Right, sure, most job interviews are like this,” Brianna replies as the whole capsule starts shaking.
“I'm just saying, sure I design rockets and talk about going to Mars, but at home, hanging out, I'm not like some weirdo or like a jerk. I'm pretty boring really,” K says as the capsule pitches up, putting their feet above their heads.
“You're laid back,” Brianna replies, deadpan. “Did you see what I did there?”
“I saw that,” K says.
“So when you say you went me watching Griffin, you did mean the kid right? I don't know how much good I can do in here.”
“Oh it's not so hard, if you've got a few minutes, I could teach you to land on Mars.”
“I don't think so, I've already been in like five car accidents in the six years I've been driving, not sure you could teach me to fly UFOs.”
“Have a little faith in yourself,” K replies as he pushes the throttle forward and a loud rumble reverberates in the capsule.
“I have plenty of faith in myself, just not when it comes to operating joysticks and levers and buttons.”
“Well, have a little faith in my teaching ability then,” K replies.
“This really is the weirdest job interview ever,” Brianna says.
“What are normal job interviews like?” K asks.
“Have you never been on a job interview?” She asks. K thinks for a moment.
“Actually...no. Wrote my own video games, started five companies...I've never been interviewed for a job. I invented my jobs.”
“Well usually they ask you stupid questions like, what's your greatest weakness?” Brianna says.
“My greatest weakness is that I have no absolutely no respect for any kind of authority,” K replies. “I don't care if I'm a cashier and the president of the company comes by, I'll tell him how he's fucking up.”
“Yeah, you wouldn't get hired,” Brianna replies.
“What other stupid questions do they ask?”
“Why do you want to work here? Which might sound alright, but when you're at like a video store, it's like...for money? Like am I supposed to kiss your ass and say I just love being near DVDs so much I want to work at a video store? I mean, all that question does is make sure you get nothing but people who are willing to tell you what they think you want to hear right?” The capsule levels out and Kingsley ups the throttle more. A mountain looms out the window, above them, as they approach the surface. “So are you just practicing Mars landings?”
“I'm figuring out how much delta-v a piloted, targeted, powered landing uses,” K replies. He grips the joystick and throttle a little harder as they approach the ground. His eyes scan a screen giving him a view out the side of the capsule that's overlaid with the speed, altitude, fuel remaining, and other relevant information.
“And that means?” Brianna asks. K doesn't reply. The capsule abruptly jerks and the sound disappears as K has landed the Griffin 2.0 safely.
K begins to unstrap, “I'm trying to figure out how much fuel I use. We have equations that tell us how much fuel it should take, but that doesn't tell us how much fuel is actually used when a pilot actually flies the thing. So I'm doing a whole series of these landings, where I aim at a targeted landing site. In this case, I was trying to land near the Insight probe.”
“Did you get close?” Brianna asks as she follows suit in unstrapping and they both sit up.
“See for yourself,” K says, pointing out the window. The small probe is less than 10 meters away.
“We started in space and ended up that close? Are you a wizard?”
“Well at entry-interface the landing ellipse is only about 15 kilometers across, so all I really have to do is give it a nudge here and there until we're almost down. So I'll do this about another fifty times and look at how much fuel I use up so we can use those figures to determine how much margin we need. Typically the more accurate the landing needs to be, the more fuel required because if I'm in the middle of an empty field, then I can just set her down, but if I have to land amongst boulders and right next to another ship, I have to come in a bit slower, spend a little more time in a hover, or if there's a strong cross-wind, things like that. So this gives us an idea of how different requirements on the landing might effect the fuel consumption.”
“See, the manager at the Olive Garden doesn't usually say things like that.”
“I said othe
r than this,” K says as the two of them hop out of the Griffin motion-control simulator. “Other than rockets and Mars and stuff, I'm a pretty ordinary guy.”
“Right,” Brianna replies.
“So did she get the job?” Hannah asks from the floor where she is playing with her son, Griffin.
“I don't see why not,” K says.
“Really?” Brianna seems shocked.
“I thought she already hired you,” K says.
“I just wanted your approval first,” Hannah replies.
“Yeah, she's fine I guess,” K says.
“Thanks,” Brianna says sarcastically.
“Well, I guess I should show you around then,” Hannah says, scooping Griffin up and leading Brianna to the door. “Wait,” Hannah says, stopping, “your phone's ringing.” Hannah passes Griffin off to Brianna and struggles to pull K's work-phone out from her pocket.
“You answer his phone?” Brianna asks.
“I'm his assistant,” Hannah replies as she continues the battle with her pocket.
“I thought you were his wife,” Brianna says.
“No, she's my extremely capable assistant,” K says sarcastically as Hannah's jeans seem to be destroying her in a battle of will.
“But she lives with you and had your baby?” Brianna asks.
“She tricked Wendy into giving her my swimmers,” K replies.
“Who's Wendy?” Brianna asks.
“She's my agent...For my sperm. I swear, I'm basically a normal dude. A normal dude who's going to have to fire his assistant because she literally can't operate pants.”
“I got it!” Hannah says as she finally wriggles the phone free. “And missed call.”
“Yeah,” K says. “Who was it?”
“B-O?” Hannah asks.
“What?” Brianna asks. Hannah hands her the phone, and sure enough, all it says is B.O. “Is that your smelly friend?”
The phone starts vibrating again. “Answer it,” K says to Brianna.
“What's up stinky?” Brianna answers.
“Please hold for the president,” the reply comes from the other end.
“I think I'll take this call,” K says, grabbing the phone and walking away.
“He calls the President B.O.?” Brianna asks.
“He calls me Jarvis sometimes,” Hannah replies.
Kingsley shuts the door to the Griffin simulator and straps into his seat. He puts on his Bluetooth headset while he is still on hold. He opens up the menu and navigates through his options. He selects a landing at Zeus, a fictional base on top of Olympus Mons consisting of a dozen Griffins landed near eight larger one-way cargo landers. These aren't today's Griffins, but the next Generation which is creatively called Griffin 2.0. Griffin 2.0's are larger, with the capability of holding 16 tonnes of fuel to give the craft more than 4 km/s of delta-v. These tanks are internal, rather than residing in an external service module. This enables quick and easier reuse of the Griffin 2 as it doesn't throw away a service module with each mission. When sent to Mars, the Griffin 2 could survive re-entry, deploy her landing legs and make a powered landing on the Martian surface. Then it's a matter of refilling the internal tanks with oxygen and methane which can be obtained on Mars, and then the Griffin 2 can take back off and fly itself back up to Mars orbit where it can meet up with a still orbiting ship that can take the astronauts back to Earth. K scrolls through his options, selecting a landing during a violent dust storm with winds in excess of 100 mph and low visibility.
He continues holding for the president as the Griffin 2.0 hits the upper Martian atmosphere. One of his screens shows his projected trajectory toward Zeus base. External landing cameras also feed him with a clear picture beneath him. The simulator begins shaking as the re-entry Gs start to add up. Olympus Mons is 26 km in altitude, about 80,000 feet, which is significantly higher than Mt. Everest. Mars can support higher peaks because of its weaker gravity. The higher the gravity, the smoother the surface of a body becomes. Go small enough and a body doesn't even need to be spherical, as Mars's moons Phobos and Deimos prove. The downside of landing on such a high peak is that the Griffin has less atmosphere to go through before landing, and thus less braking is done by drag and more is done by rocket fuel.
Kingsley is buffeted as the Griffin slows to mach 4 in the upper atmosphere. His external cameras offer him a completely useless picture of a dust storm, but his HUD marks the location of the landed SpacEx hardware with small green outlines. Kingsley angles the Griffin, creating lift to try to curve the Griffin into the heavy cross-wind.
“Kingsley?” the voice of Barack Obama comes through his headset.
“Right here boss,” K says, as the capsule suddenly erupts in alarms. There's been a failure in the attitude thruster system. Kingsley will have to use nothing but his gimballing landing engines to guide his spacecraft to a landing. He whacks the alarm button to kill the noise.
“Bad time?”
“Just practicing landing on Mars,” K says. “What's on your mind?”
“Can you pause it or something?”
“Just talk, this relaxes me, I can do both,” K says.
“I wanted to talk to you about SLS,” President Obama says.
“Yeah?”
“I want to know what you think I should do,” Obama says.
“Give the NASA budget to SpacEx and watch as we colonize the solar system,” K says simply.
“If you were me, what would you do?”
“You're seriously asking me this?” K asks as the capsule starts buffeting wildly, entering the top of the dust storm.
“What's that noise?”
“Probably my teeth rattling,” K replies as he's vibrated.
“Would you shut off the damn video game!” Kingsley whacks the pause button like a frightened kid when the 'dad voice' is used.
“Sure thing boss,” K says.
“Seriously. If you were me, in my shoes, don't give me a biased SpacEx version of events. If you were me, right now, what would you do?”
“Well, sir,” K says, taking a breath. “You can't announce a big new program. You don't have the clout to make it happen and neither Republicans nor Democrats will want to back you because they both think they'll have an energetic new president sweeping into the White House in a landslide in a year. So they want their options open so their guy can have his Kennedy-Mars moment. So you can't really pick the course of the future.”
“You nailed that. But what can I do? Eisenhower had his military-industrial-complex speech. Is there something I can do in my unique position as a President on the way out? Something a new President wouldn't dream of doing because he has too much to lose?”
“Well,” K says, thinking. “Actually. There is.”
“What is it?” Obama asks.
“You can cancel the SLS,” Kingsley says.
“Cancel it?”
“Cancel it,” K repeats. “Look, it might be a fine rocket. But it will never fly often. And that means we're going to spend tens of billions on bloated infrastructure to get something that will never be cheap. It will be a massive drain on the NASA budget for thirty years, and it won't accomplish anything that can't be done cheaper and smarter. If you can't bring up the flight rate nor the quantity of production, then unit costs will always be high.”
“But it can do things that no other rocket can,” Obama replies.
“Sure, SLS will be able to do big things. Stuff the shuttle never could have. But that's not a good reason to saddle NASA with a launch vehicle that will be so expensive they'll only be able to use it once or twice a year at most. They keep coming up with mission proposals to show the SLS is needed. Look at Europa Clipper, it's a probe to Europa, and they put out a proposal saying that if they launch it on SLS it'll get to Europa in two years instead of six. But the six year journey is launched by a rocket that costs 150 million, the faster trip will cost a billion and take up NASA's only SLS for that year. Seems l
ike a high price to pay just to get a probe there sooner. There's no way they would actually decide to do that. But they're still putting out proposals.”
“What about the big telescope?” Obama asks.
“You're talking about ATLAST? Yeah, they have the biggest payload fairing, so you can send up the biggest one-piece mirror on that. But we don't need a monolithic mirror, we can send up segmented mirrors that expand in orbit and get to about the same capability.”
“I thought the one-piece mirror was a big deal,” Obama says.
“I mean, it's nice to have, but we can get almost the same results from segmented mirrors. And go talk to people at JPL, go talk to the science people at NASA, see what they think of SLS. They'll tell you it's absurd how much money goes to re-inventing the rocket while the science people have so much trouble getting funds for probes. Instead of spending a billion dollars for an SLS launch to get a single big telescope, you could spend that money on launching three or four space telescopes. Maybe you have telescopes that are designed for different missions and you have four times as many telescopes, four times as much viewing time. Or maybe you use them in an array, where they all look at the same thing, turning them into a mega space telescope. You can do that, and you don't need SLS.”
“I can't just cancel it,” Barry replies.
“Here's what happens if you don't do anything. I'm pretty resigned to this being what the future looks like. 2018, the first SLS sends an Orion unmanned around the Moon. 2022, the second SLS launches humans in an Orion for a first time, they go out to the Earth-Moon L-2, they'll brag about being farther away from Earth than humans have ever gone, speed, altitude records, etc. But there's not much to do there other than look at the far side of the Moon from quite an altitude. 2023, they launch an asteroid capture robotic device, it goes and gets a tiny asteroid, something the size of a car, brings it to lunar space. 2024, Orion crew goes and visits the asteroid, takes some samples. 2026 they launch a habitat module and an Orion to lunar orbit, maybe Lagrange point. It's the deep space habitat, they'll say it's preparing them for Mars, but it won't really accomplish anything. Then what?