by John Dreese
There was silence from Chris’s side of the phone. Keller could almost see Chris doing mental calculations and schedule changes.
Chris answered, “I’m flying out to Arizona for some interviews over the next few days. Let’s see... how about I come visit you at your place on Friday morning?”
“That’ll work,” replied Keller.
“Okay, I look forward to meeting you, Mr. Murch.”
They hung up. Keller grinned proudly. He was finally doing something great.
Chris whispered to himself, “I hope this guy’s for real.”
Keller picked the phone back up and dialed a very long number. He tapped his foot while the phone went through various switchboards. It finally rang with an odd European ringtone. He looked nervously at his watch trying to calculate what time it was in Russia. While the phone was ringing, he chanted, “Please don’t be there, please don’t be there, please don’t be there.”
“Hello! Yes, I need to speak with Tatyana. Is she available? Oh rats, then can I leave her a message? Yes. Okay. This is her old friend Keller Murch from America. Could you please tell her that I have to cancel our deal and the shipment? No hard feelings. I’ll return the money in a few weeks when it’s convenient for me. All right, thank you.”
Unbeknownst to his employees at Murch Motors, Keller was going to coast on the ill-gotten money from the Russians until the federal contracts started rolling in from NASA, if they ever did. It was a simple plan in theory, but he’d learn more when Chris Tankovitch visited him at his home on the ocean.
Chapter 5
Near Monument Valley
Northern Arizona
Seventeen astronauts stood in the broiling desert sunshine. They wore prototype space suits while waiting for a gunshot. Each made eye contact with the others nearby as an unspoken acknowledgement: this was a strange and rushed interview process. Rumor had it they would run straight through the desert for two miles before the real interview would begin.
In the days leading up to the president’s big press conference, NASA had been secretly discussing the discovery with astronauts, mostly those with space flight experience. In the end, they found thirty-two candidates, but ten were either retired or in the process of retiring.
Due to prior commitments (like those scheduled for the International Space Station), many from the remaining talent pool couldn’t make this quickly assembled interview process. Right now, only seventeen of them were standing in the late morning desert heat, waiting for that gunshot.
Two days ago, they arrived at the hotels just outside of Monument Valley to get ready for this multi-day interview process. Yesterday, they toured an existing simulated Mars habitat located deep in the desert. Earlier this morning they went through an in-depth physical along with a detailed background questionnaire. This site was near the rocky outcroppings made famous by many Old West cowboy movies. NASA chose it for its similarity to the Mars terrain.
To observe the astronauts' true behavior during the interview phase, NASA leadership wanted them to be physically stressed just prior to the interview process. Jabbing them with adrenaline syringes was not an option, so they decided a long sprint through the hot desert would accomplish the same result.
The astronauts could see Chris Tankovitch talking with a small group of NASA personnel. Only a few words here and there made it to the astronauts. He must've been telling a joke because the group laughed heartily after his final words. The astronauts didn’t catch it. Chris picked up his megaphone and walked out in front of the interviewees.
“Thank you all for coming here today. As you know, we are trying to select a crew for the first human mission to Mars. Each of you has a chance to make it onto that rocket. We’ll be choosing two of you to make that voyage. Just getting here these past two days...” he paused and looked up and down the line of candidates.
He continued, “Just getting here to this interview means that you are the best qualified individuals that our country has to offer. You should be proud.”
Chris looked up at the Sun and wiped the sweat from his brow, lifting some papers to shield his eyes.
“When I fire off the starter pistol, I want you to run straight East through the desert as fast as you can for about two miles. We’ve laid out some markers for you to follow. At the end you will find a mockup of some Mars housing units. And by mockup, I mean they look nothing like the Mars housing unit that you toured yesterday. We didn’t have a lot of time for this, so they’re just trailers. I apologize for the rudimentary nature of this. Just find the trailer with your name written on the door and go inside. Okay. Good luck.”
The astronauts looked around one more time at their fellow interviewees standing next to them. Everybody was drenched in sweat in their suits. This was very unrealistic because the real temperature on Mars would be one hundred degrees below zero.
One interviewee named Adam had correctly guessed they would be put through some seemingly pointless test like this; he’d stuffed his suit with ice-filled Ziploc bags, including inside his helmet. He was comfortable. Another, named Molly, had coated her arms and legs with the ice gel bandages that athletes use. These two astronauts were ready.
Chris Tankovitch fumbled around in his jacket pockets and produced a bedraggled starter pistol. He’d borrowed it from the local high school track team. He walked over to the side to avoid getting trampled. Chris received a nod from one of the other NASA personnel and raised the pistol to the sky.
Boom!
Seventeen engineers and scientists took off running through the desert, each footstep sending up a rooster-tail of dirt. Chris laughed out loud and said to his fellow coworkers, “Have you ever seen so many nerds getting so much exercise?”
Contrary to Chris’s comment, many of the astronauts had kept in good shape since the space shuttle program ended. However, they still stumbled and flopped through the desert at the pace of drunken sailors. The uneven ground and limited helmet visibility were wreaking havoc on their journey.
Within the first minute, three of them tripped over a cactus. Another fell spread-eagle into a patch of horse crippler cactus balls, screaming out in pain. The ice-water astronaut named Adam saw the poor competitor struggling to climb out of the prickly cactus spines. He considered helping, but he realized that getting to the test trailer quickly might be part of the test. Adam frowned as he jumped over the struggling competitor and kept running.
At the end of the sprint, the ground rose up quickly to a ridge. As they came barreling over the top, most tumbled end over end down the hill. When all was said and done, loud groans and shrieks were heard from many of the runners, with some grabbing their backs and limping. A standby ambulance was waiting nearby.
Just beyond the bottom of the ridge were four white industrial trailers with metal steps leading up to their doors. The vehicles were still attached to the large pickup trucks that had pulled them to this remote patch of desert.
The oldest looking trailer was located at the end of the group. The door squeaked open. Molly stuck her head in and quickly backed out to re-read the names list again, just to make sure she had it right.
“Come on in,” invited a friendly voice from inside. She walked in and saw a sagging banquet table. It had bent under the weight of many heavy boxes and many years. Several chairs were arranged around the table; two were occupied by NASA personnel. Molly removed her helmet and set it on the table. She flopped down into the seat, letting her brown hair fall against her shoulders.
“Nice,” she said as she closed her eyes and soaked in the frigid air conditioning.
Adam arrived just a few seconds later. He walked inside and saw the table and the three occupants sitting there quietly. Adam removed his helmet and a water bag fell out of it, splashing open on the floor.
“Excuse me. That’s never happened to me before,” joked Adam.
The NASA personnel handed out water bottles. The two astronauts chugged. They were still breathing heavily from the desert sprint.
>
Molly looked into her bottle and said, “I don’t know if cold water ever tasted this good.”
Each trailer had two NASA personnel in it. One man ran a video camera; he rarely spoke. The other one held a clipboard and was clearly in charge. Adam saw the clipboard guy’s name tag and introduced himself.
“Hi, Bill. My name’s Adam. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too mister…,” said Bill as he looked down at his clipboard to learn which last name belonged to an ‘Adam.’
Adam beat him to it.
“Alston. Adam’s my first name.”
“Yes. Nice to meet you, Adam. You can just call me the Clipboard Man. It looks like you and Molly are the only people to make it to this trailer.”
The cameraman pried open the window blinds and looked out to see if any others were coming.
“I doubt anybody else made it. I guess that sprint was harder than we expected. Oh well.”
Clipboard Man flipped through his paperwork and pulled out a sheet with questions written on it.
“Today, you two are part of a group interview. We didn’t have time to build a real simulator, so we’re going to just simulate a situation instead. An emergency meeting in the Mars living quarters. You got it?”
Molly and Adam looked at each other and nodded.
“So, oh yes, I forgot one thing. Due to regulations, I have to ask each of you a standard competence interview question first. I apologize. This is just bureaucratic policy. You first, Adam. Can you tell me why manhole covers are round?”
Adam looked confused. “What?”
“It’s a standard question. Please answer.”
Adam looked around the room and blurted out, “I suppose it’s so the manhole cover won’t fall into its own hole?”
The Clipboard Man smiled.
“That’s a good answer Adam. Now for Molly.”
She smiled and replied, “Okay, fire away.”
“You have eight basketballs. Seven of them weigh the same. One is heavier. You have an old-fashioned, teeter-totter balance scale that you can only use twice. How do you find the one ball that’s heavier than the rest?”
Molly smiled uncomfortably.
“Not that I’m complaining, but, you know, that’s a lot harder than Mr. Alston’s question.”
Clipboard Man laughed and responded, “Yes, but you’re a lot smarter too. You have a PhD in flight medicine, and you’re a medical doctor. Mr. Alston, here, only has degrees in geology and engineering.”
Molly blushed and quickly set her mind to thinking. She stared at the table while the neurons in her brain built new paths to answer the question.
“Okay, I’ve got it. Put three balls on each side of the balance. If one side of the balance drops, then the heavy ball is among that group of three. Now take two of those three balls and put them each on a scale by themselves. If they balance, then the heavy ball is the one that I didn’t weigh. If one side of the balance drops, then that’s the heavy ball.”
Clipboard Man raised his eyebrows in surprise.
He asked, “What if your original weighing with three balls on each side shows them all to be in balance?”
“Well, that means the heavy ball is among the two that I didn’t weigh originally. It’s a simple matter of putting one on each side of the balance and seeing which side of the balance drops.”
Clipboard Man raised his head and said, “Call me impressed. Not even Director Tankovitch got that one right.”
Clipboard Man leaned down and pulled another sheet of paper out of his briefcase. He added it to the stack of papers on his clipboard. Molly glanced out the window to see the beautiful rusty red landscape around the trailers. The dust from the running of the astronauts was still floating by.
“Okay, now that those questions are out of the way, we can move onto the situational question test.”
Clipboard Man drank some water and cleared his throat.
“Imagine that you’re on Mars and you’re ready to return home to Earth. However, you’ve just noticed that your oxygen condenser has broken. You’ll run out of breathable air in two days, long before you get back to Earth. Find a solution.”
Adam and Molly stared at each other wondering who would start talking first.
The cameraman adjusted his video camera on the tripod and added, “Okay, so you’re a team about to run out of oxygen and you need to discuss what you’re going to do. It’s okay. Go ahead.”
Adam was the first to break the uncomfortable silence.
“So, Molly, it looks like we’re up a 50 million mile creek without any air.”
The two NASA personnel chuckled.
“But seriously, we only have oxygen for two days, right? Do we have any auxiliary oxygen tanks left over from the excursions on the planet?”
Molly quickly responded, “We do. We have four tanks that are full. However, those will only add another day or so.”
Adam asked, “What if we somehow tap into the oxygen fuel tanks for the rockets?”
The NASA personnel were feverishly taking notes like they were observing wild animals.
Molly replied, “Well, assuming we could even do that, if we used the oxygen from the fuel tanks, then we wouldn’t have enough rocket thrust to get back to Earth.”
“Well, what if we got rid of every non-essential item to lighten the load? Would that decrease how much fuel and oxygen we have to use during our escape phase?”
Molly smiled, realizing what Adam was getting at.
“Yes, that would reduce our runtime on the rockets and would leave us extra oxygen. However, who knows if that would be enough to get us to Earth?”
Adam concluded, “Then, perhaps we could lighten the load and use the rockets sparingly once we left Mars orbit and tap what was left in the tanks to use, you know, for us to breathe. It might not be enough to last us the entire trip, but at least we’d last longer.”
Molly added, “We could also dial back our oxygen use to below the standard levels. We could keep it at just above when hypoxia effects kick in. It would be like living halfway up Mt. Everest. Slightly light headed, but still conscious.”
Clipboard Man nodded his head.
“Yes, yes, I like what you two did there. That was clever.”
Clipboard Man looked back at the cameraman to make sure he was still recording. The cameraman gave him a thumbs-up. Clipboard Man was happy with their answers and said, “Okay, let’s move on to the next step here.”
He turned to look at Adam.
“Could you please step outside for a minute? We have a few things to discuss with Molly here. We’ll invite you back in, and you two can switch places.”
Adam stood up, grabbed his water bottle, and walked out the door. It slammed shut behind him. He sat on the bottom step and guzzled more water. The mid-day sunshine roasted his salt and pepper colored hair.
“Now, Molly, you were scheduled to be on the very last space shuttle launch, right?”
“That’s right. I trained for over a year.”
“And why weren’t you on it?”
“Um, I came down with the flu right before the launch, so I was replaced. We had a backup program for that kind of unexpected event. Somebody was always in the wings waiting.”
“And how did you feel about that?”
“How did I feel about missing out on a shuttle mission? Well, I was tragically disappointed.”
“Okay, if you got sick again, would you still notify NASA personnel?”
She hesitated and didn’t look him in the eye.
“Yes, of course. I could never forgive myself for knowingly endangering the mission, especially a Mars mission.”
Clipboard Man took some notes, stopped writing, and put his pencil behind his ear. The cameraman opened the door and called for Adam. He came back in and nearly fell into his chair. Molly stood up, looking tired, and wandered outside.
Adam laughingly said, “Okay Clipboard Man. Ask away.”
“I see
that you were on a space shuttle mission once back in 2008. Your wife, Connie, was in a car accident while you were up in orbit. Tell me how you handled that stress.”
Adam stared at him in wonderment.
“How do you know about the accident?”
Clipboard Man saw his surprised look. He leaned toward Adam and replied, “I read about it in your book. It was a very interesting story.”
“Ah yes, well you must’ve been the only person who bought that book. You know it just reached three millionth place on Amazon’s best seller list? But, yes, as you say, that’s true. My wife, Connie, was in a bad car accident during my shuttle mission; actually while I was performing a six-hour spacewalk.”
Adam paused to collect his thoughts.
“My crew decided not to tell me about it until I got back inside the shuttle. It was serious and she still has to walk with leg braces. Sometimes with balancing crutches; kind of like short crutches that only come up to the elbow. No running or any quick movements.”
“Well, Adam, do you think you could be on a mission lasting many months and deal with that level of stress again?”
“I’ll ask her to avoid being hit by a drunk driver… again.”
Everybody laughed except Adam.
“I’d be fine. Connie is a very strong woman. She fights that impairment every day. She still manages to take care of our kids while I go on empty book tours and give speeches to half-empty audiences at conferences. Life has been a little stressful since the space shuttle was cancelled.”
Clipboard Man interrupted, “We’re getting that same message from a lot of your coworkers.”
The Cameraman pushed the button to stop recording while Clipboard Man was writing down more notes. He paused long enough to look up at Adam.
“Okay, I think that’s enough. You and Molly did well. There’s a bus at the other end of this line of trailers. It’ll take you back to your hotel. You can leave now. Remember, don’t tell anybody about today. We’ll be in touch.”
“Got it,” replied Adam.
He picked up his helmet and water bottle and walked out through the door. It slammed shut under the heavy spring. He saw Molly standing down in the trailer’s shadow, drinking water.