Moon For Sale

by Jeff Pollard

  “This can wait.”

  “I don't know how to relate to kids,” K says. “I never was one. I was always reading, then started writing video games. I never played with other kids. My parents thought I was deaf because I couldn't be bothered to interact. Really I was just not interested because, well, books could tell me how to go to Mars, what could other eight-year-olds tell me? I don't know what to do with him.”

  A Week Later

  “What are you doing?” Caroline asks.

  “Is that a joke?” K asks.

  “It looks to me like you're just playing video games,” Caroline says. Kingsley is sitting one of his driving simulators. This one is a motion-controlled driving sim surrounded by a white curved surface on which the surroundings are seamlessly projected.

  “Can't you tell?” K asks, quickly downshifting and turning sharply through a hair-pin, the car jerks to one side.

  “Grand Theft Auto?” Caroline asks.

  “The Grand Prix of Monaco!” K shouts, “For god's sake, I just passed your apartment!”

  “How long have you been playing this?”

  “It's a two hour race.”

  “You're doing the whole race?”

  “What's wrong with that?” K asks.

  “I mean, don't you have a job or something?” Caroline asks sarcastically.

  “I'm flying to to the Cape tomorrow!”

  “So?”

  “I'm going to be working 24/7 for a week solid for this launch. Can't a man take an afternoon off and race in the Grand Prix of Monaco?”

  “Well, since you're not doing anything,” Caroline says.

  “I am doing something, I'm in second in points for the championship behind Hamilton and right now I'm in first and he's in seventh, so this race could be huge in the championship-” K stops. Caroline just hit the reset button. K looks over, stunned.

  “Sorry, that all sounded really important, as far as video games go, but maybe you could play with this video game instead,” Caroline says as she drops little Griffin into Kingsley's lap in the cockpit. “How about you teach him to drive.”

  “A Formula 1 car?!?”

  “Give him something easier,” Caroline replies. “Oh and take this,” she holds out his car-seat.

  “But-” K tries to come up with a witty comeback but Caroline is already gone and he's left with a toddler and a car seat. “Formula 1 cars don't take car seats!”

  An hour later, Caroline returns, finding K with Griffin in his lap. Griffin, 4, is laughing as he turns the wheel back and forth.

  “See, I knew you two could bond over video games.”

  “I did have to turn off the motion-control, since he would probably be concussed from the force-feedback in here, and I had to turn the wheel sensitivity to max because the steering wheel is bigger than he is so he can't exactly whip it around. Also he can't reach the pedals. I tried mapping the paddle-shifters to be gas and brake, but he can't really reach those with his tiny hands, so I'm just operating the pedals for him.”

  “See, you two have a lot in common. Although, now that I think about it, you probably shouldn't be training him to be a race car driver. Not with those genes.”

  “Oh, we're not racing Formula 1,” K says.

  “What are you doing?” Caroline asks, leaning down to look at the projections. Just then Griffin laughs loudly as city bus he's driving flies through a pair of occupied park benches. A woman is thrown up over the top of the bus and toward the fake camera, screaming.

  “That's Grand Theft Auto!”

  “It's the only thing I had that he could manage. He's driving a nice bus.”

  “He just killed like twenty people!”

  “I know, he's a natural at squishing pedestrians,” K replies.

  “That's not for kids!”

  “Oh he doesn't understand it.”

  “He's learning it's okay to run people over!”

  “I played Galaga when I was a kid and you don't see me annihilating alien space ships. Although...I probably could if I ever saw one. Note to self: invent space laser.”

  “This isn't funny. Can't you let him drive something else?”

  “He can't drive an F1 car, hell, you couldn't drive an F1 car, even if I put it on super-easy girl-mode, you'd still not be able to make a lap.”

  “I bet I could,” Caroline replies.

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “How about a wager,” Caroline suggests. “If I can do a lap, then you have to read an entire book to Griffin. If I can't, then you can keep showing him how to run over hookers.”

  “Kingsley!” Hannah shouts from upstairs. She makes quite a racket racing down the stairs. “Your phone is exploding! It literally hasn't stopped vibrating in five minutes.”

  “Okay then.” K stands up, holding Griffin out for Hannah. They try to exchange child for phone, but can't quite make the trade happen.

  “Oh for god's sake,” Caroline says, taking Griffin from Kingsley, allowing him to take the phone from Hannah, then passing Griffin off to Hannah. “Rocket scientist,” Caroline mutters under her breath as K discovers the reason his phone won't stop buzzing. K jumps out of the F1 simulator, racing to the end of the sim room to turn a TV on.

  The two ladies follow after K, standing behind him as he flips to the right channel. He holds his hands over his head, barely able to believe his sight. The headline is plastered across the screen and accompanied by little rocket graphics: “Space Launch System Canceled.”

  “This is just another symptom of Obama's America,” a panelist says on FoxNews. “No leadership, no direction. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing.”

  “He didn't announce a new program, no Moon speech, no Mars mission, he's just canceling it. Meanwhile China is on their way to one-upping Apollo with a more comprehensive Moon program,” another panelist adds.

  “What is NASA going to even be doing now? Is he ending NASA too? I mean, is this guy dedicated to making America average or what?”

  “This is the end of NASA. Obama just killed it. So much for America's place as a world power.”

  “I thought Republicans were all about getting rid of NASA because they think it's wasteful,” Hannah says.

  “FoxNews is against anything Obama is for, don't read too far into anything on here,” Caroline replies. Kingsley answers one of the dozens of calls and gets Brittany Hammersmith on the phone. “What do you know?” K asks.

  “This came out of nowhere,” Brittany replies. “The first I heard of it was when a reporter called me and asked for a quote.”

  “Why don't we know about these things ahead of time?” K asks.

  “Because we don't have spies in NASA or the White House,” Brittany replies.

  “We could have spy satellites, why don't we make our own intelligence agency.”

  “Anybody from the NSA who's listening, he's just kidding, I promise.”

  “I guess I should have seen this coming,” K says.

  “Don't beat yourself up, it's hard to predict what comes out of the pork complex, you know, laws and sausages.”

  “Well, I mean, I told Barry to do this like a week ago.”

  “You did what now?” Brittany asks.

  “I didn't think he'd really do it,” K says, “What about our cargo missions, are those safe?” K asks.

  “Sorry, I'm still stuck on the part where you call the President Barry.”

  “We talk sometimes. What about our cargo missions?”

  “You mean ULA's cargo missions?” Brittany says. “I don't know. I'd say everything after next January when we have a new president is up in the air.”

  “So we have two, maybe three cargo missions and that's it?”

  “Possibly,” Brittany says. “You can forget any chance at crew missions to the ISS being awarded until then. If we get a president who doesn't like space, the ISS loses most funding, they go with Antares/Cygnus for cargo, pay Russia for a few more
Soyuz and then pull out of the whole program by 2020. There's no SLS replacement. NASA becomes a robotics agency, no more Buck Rogers. SpacEx survives as long as our space hotel is popular, otherwise we die in two or three years, or maybe we just eek by long enough to get reusability going and start to bring the price down.”

  “Or, we get a president who loves space, they announce a whole new space program, we get to do more than just ferry bananas and scientists up to the ISS, NASA leans on us to launch half of their stuff as we do some big new project, Moon, Mars, something. We make mega bucks, pay for all the development we need, retire on Mars in twenty years.”

  “That's quite an optimistic angle,” Brittany replies.

  “And that all comes down to who is elected president,” K sums it up.

  “Pretty much.”

  “God I hate politics,” K says. “So until November, we won't have any idea what the future will look like.”

  “Not unless you can predict the election,” Brittany says.

  “So we need to make Excalibur the most happenin' destination.”

  “And Zero-G just killed somebody and our passenger manifest just became a ghost town.”

  “If I don't retire on Mars because of one of these damn sub-orbital companies, I'm gonna straight up murder somebody.”

  The TV abruptly cuts to a view of a hallway in the West Wing as President Obama walks toward a lonely podium to look into a camera and address the American people.

  “My fellow Americans,” Barry Obama begins. Caroline and Hannah walk up behind K, staring up at the President. “President Kennedy challenged the best among us to go to the Moon, and to do it in less than a decade. And we did it. It used to be that we Americans, could come together, work toward a common goal, and accomplish great things. We would put men on the Moon or create a new stealth aircraft to defend our freedom from Soviet aggression. We would accomplish our goals on time and on budget. But those days are over. Since the end of the Cold War, we've seen prices skyrocket, projects fall years behind schedule and slip billions over budget. Clearly some folks out there have been more concerned with profiting off the American tax payer's hard earned money than they have been with making America stronger, our world safer, or exploring the cosmos.

  That is why I am today directing NASA to cancel the Space Launch System, and directing the Pentagon to end procurement of any further F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. I'm cutting ties with previous choices, and I'm promising the American people that this will be fixed. President Eisenhower warned us of a military-industrial-complex, and today, that complex is more powerful than ever. We cannot let corporate interests trump America’s interests any longer.

  No longer will we sign decades long deals, sight unseen, on projects that end up being lemons. You wouldn't commit to buying a car before a test drive, and neither should your government commit hundreds of billions of your dollars on a program that is untried and unproven.

  I have directed both NASA and the Pentagon that the key to our future is competition and innovation. Our aerospace industry will thrive, competing against each other, designing and testing cutting edge technologies. This is the key to our success.

  We will have real, fair, free-market competitions and may the best companies and best products win. I ask all of you, from the modest tax payer, to the journalists in the media, to the congressmen, senators, and whoever has my job a year from now, to hold these folks accountable. We must not allow these competitions to be rigged. We cannot let our nation's coffers be raided by corporate pirates. No longer will American tax payers be taken advantage of by folks that are gaming the system. Thank you. And may god bless America.”

  “Jesus,” Caroline whispers. “You did it.”

  “Did what?” Hannah asks.

  “We're living in an alternate history now,” Caroline says. “One of those weird what-if scenarios.”

  “I'm sure people who listened to Kennedy's Moon speech were thinking the same thing,” K replies.

  Chapter 14

  “The Koke's can try again to kick Kingsley out of here on January one,” Brittany Hammersmith announces on Monday morning in the main SpacEx conference room to the heads of every department from Weller, the head of Propulsion, to Tim Bowe, the new head of the Astronaut Office, to Angela Fogel the head of Legal.

  “Peter Wilke is the swing vote,” K says. “If he doesn't think reusability is viable by then, he'll kick me out. We can't try FSR on Dream Chaser flights. So this is it for the year: Two cargo, two Tantalum commsats, the Heavy flight, and hopefully two tourist jaunts to Excalibur. That's six Eagle 9s and the Heavy launch. So we have eight tries left to show Wilke that we're capable of doing this. ”

  “Actually,” Weller interrupts. “We can't do FSR (First Stage Return) on the Tantalum missions.”

  “What?” K is stunned.

  “They beefed up the specs, they're at 12.4 tonnes,” Weller replies. “That's cutting it too close to leave fuel in the first stage for the return burn. I mean, we could try it, but we would need stage two to perform flawlessly.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “A couple months ago,” Weller replies, “they beefed up the monoprop tanks for station-keeping to boost the lifespan from 15 to 30 years.”

  “But that means we can't do FSR, why did we okay that?” K asks.

  “You approved it,” Weller replies.

  “I did?” K asks.

  “Indeed. You said we had plenty of other flights.”

  “When was this?”

  “Couple of months ago. We had ten or twelve ISS cargo missions on the manifest, so it didn't seem necessary then. They are already being upgraded, and they'd get pissed if we changed our story, and I don't think we can throw money at a problem right now.”

  “No,” K admits. “Okay, so we have two cargo missions, hopefully two passenger missions, and the Heavy flight to test FSR. That's six Eagle 9s falling out of the sky. Let's land at least one of them.”

  “Actually,” Brittany says cautiously, bad news coming.

  “What now?” K's forehead meets the heavy wooden table.

  “Wilke says no more explosions on manned flights,” Brittany says.

  “What does that mean?” K asks.

  “Well, he was upset when we almost killed the Timberlake guy.”

  “For the last time, they were miles away from the first stage when it blew up,” K says, exasperated.

  “But he doesn't want the news talking about celebrities and our rockets exploding at the same time. So he said no more experimental stuff on manned flights. So those passenger flights are out.”

  “Did he say no explosions, or did he say no experimental stuff?” K asks.

  “He meant no experimental stuff,” Brittany says sternly.

  “But if he said no explosions, that means we can try it, we just have to not screw it up.”

  “That a risk you really want to take?” Brittany asks, “First stage return works on one specific flight or you lose the company.”

  “It can fail without exploding,” K says defensively. “Fine, so we have two cargo missions, and the heavy, and that's it. That's four Eagle 9s falling out of the sky, not counting the core of the Heavy. We got four shots at this. We don't get any of them back in one piece and reusability will be canceled, I'll be kicked out of my own company, and you guys won't get to hang out with me or meet Tom Hanks or any of that cool stuff.”

  “I've never met Tom Hanks,” Weller says.

  “I met Gwenyth Paltrow,” Hannah says.

  “What was she like?” Angela Fogel from Legal asks.

  “Well she was unconscious at the time,” Hannah replies quietly. K glares at Hannah to shut her up. When K looks away, Hannah mouths the words, “Huge bush,” and mimes a pubic fro.

  “Not that I don't want to talk about celebrity crotch grooming,” Weller says, clearing his throat, “but that also means we've only got two shots at a Griffin powered landing.”


  “What about getting more passenger flights to raise money?” Bowe asks.

  “Zero-G screwed us,” Missie Schwinghammer from Customer Relations chimes in, “We've been losing customers left and right. We hope we can at least fill the second flight. At this rate, it'll take a miracle to get a third passenger flight.”

  “So, what happens next year?” Bowe asks.

  “No idea,” Brittany replies. “We won't know until we know something about the next president, and until then, everything is up in the air.”

  “I'm working up a plan in case all NASA money goes away,” K says.

  “Really? What does that plan look like?” Bowe asks, barely believing him.

  “Tourist trips to lunar orbit and then vacations to the lunar surface,” K says simply.

  “We can do that?” Bowe asks.

  “We can do a free-return lunar orbit with a Heavy lofting the departure kicker and a 9 to launch the crew up at a price of about 300 million. Depends on how much the departure stage costs, there'd be some development costs there too.”

  “And that's not until we move to the Raptor-powered methane-fuelled larger upper stage,” Weller adds.

  “We can do a lunar landing with a 9 and two Heavys. But we'd also need to develop a lunar lander or a landing module to strap to the Griffin,” K adds. “So for an extra Heavy, and the lunar module, we're looking at another 200 mill, so 500 million. Maybe one pilot and three passengers, it'd cost us 167 million per passenger, so say we charge 180 million a seat.”

  “Or we charge 200 million a seat,” Brittany adds.

  “As long as we break even, I'm fine with it, keeps the company running,” K says.

  “This is why you're not the CFO,” Brittany replies.

  “Would people spend 200 million to go to the Moon for what, two days?”

  “Obviously we don't know the specifics,” K says, “but it would be something like this. You launch into Earth orbit, that's pretty awesome and already worth 40 million to some people. You orbit Earth for half a day perhaps, dock with the kicker stage, then you burn for the Moon. Then you have three days on the way out, you get some kick ass views of the Earth growing smaller and smaller. Only 24 people have ever been farther out than low Earth orbit, so that's a pretty unique experience. Then you get to lunar orbit, get to see the Moon from a couple hundred miles up for a day, then you go down, get to walk on the Moon, something only 12 people have done, and hang out on the Moon for about two to four days. Then back up to lunar orbit, then another three days in zero-g on your way back to Earth. I'd say that's worth 200 million bucks. Some asshole in Mumbai just spent a billion on a giant house.”