Red Hope: An Adventure Thriller - Book 1

by John Dreese

  Watsonville, California

  “It’s 7:00am guys. Why aren’t you working your butts off?” commanded Keller Murch to his team. They scattered like bugs to their desks.

  The only reason this mission was going to happen on time was the combination of Keller’s magic motors and the constant pressure he put on his team. Any project can come together with the proper motivation. Keller wanted to be on that first trip to Mars. He wanted it badly. If they missed the short launch window in the late summer and autumn, they would have to wait another 26 months to try again. His number one priority in life was the conversion of his motor technology from a hover ship platform to a spacecraft.

  Keller needed a manufacturing building much larger than the one he had at the Murch Motors headquarters. At first he looked for warehouse property near their existing facility in Silicon Valley. That area proved to be prohibitively expensive, thanks to the illogically funded and pre-failed startup companies that littered the tech industry. After a friend’s suggestion, he looked just south of that area toward the farming region of Watsonville and found the ideal location, right off the runway at the Watsonville Airport. It proved to be ideal because it was within quick driving distance to his beach house in Santa Cruz, much more convenient than making the trek to Murch Motors headquarters up in Silicon Valley.

  That part of the country also had a fairly huge pool of engineering talent available due to the heavy defense contractor presence in the area. Many of them had been set adrift after the space shuttle cancellation. Keller hired away dozens of defense workers. They would help build the space version of his rocket engines as quickly as possible. The engineers jumped at the chance to live and work by the ocean, even for the lower salaries he offered.

  Large defense contractors nearby complained to the government that Keller was poaching their key engineers. The government agreed that he was poaching, but they felt the Mars trip was more important. Case closed.

  Keller was so engrossed in the hectic MM10 conversion effort that all other tasks were secondary. At one point, his home phone went dead simply because he forgot to pay the bill. Keller knew how important these motors were to the entire mission; he couldn’t be bothered by such pesky things as bills.

  With the MM10 motor, NASA had the rocket engine technology they needed to get a crew of astronauts to Mars fast. All they needed now was a design for the two Mars-bound modules and a plan to make it happen in less than ten months.

  Several contractors and government entities created the Mars Exploration Board, or MEB. The whole purpose of the MEB was to establish the goals, procedures, and module layout for the mission. Of course, Keller was the chairman, at least for a while. When the astronaut training got serious, he would have to turn over operations to his trusted flight test engineer, Tommy. Before that, Keller invited the contractors into the Mars Exploration Board for their help in brainstorming. Regardless of their input, Keller would have the last say in the design of the ship. He would constantly threaten to withhold the MM10 motors if he didn’t get his way.

  Weeks of meetings established the basic concept of how this adventure would officially operate. The main launch platform wouldn’t be Earth. Instead, it would be the International Space Station. Starting the voyage so far out in space would minimize the impact of the fuel-hungry Earth-to-space launch phase. Just getting away from the dense atmosphere of Earth gobbled up valuable fuel.

  This plan threw some flies into the ointment. Even with the amazing lifting power of the Viper9 rocket, the Mars-bound ships would be too heavily loaded with fuel and supplies to be launched from Earth up to the orbiting International Space Station simultaneously.

  Instead, all of the fuel and supplies would be sent up ahead of time over the span of many months and many smaller launches. As big as the International Space Station was, it still wasn't big enough to hold the required extra supplies. A smaller storage capsule would be designed and permanently attached to the Space Station; it would act as an orbiting storage closet.

  Keller’s engineers came up with the detailed design of the smaller storage capsule. They named it the Storage Wart because it looked like a strange growth on the Space Station. The Science and Transport Modules, to be shipped up later, would be deemed Big Turtle and Little Turtle respectively. The “Turtle” nickname came from their faceted roof shapes covered with flat solar panels. They looked like huge, shiny, black turtle shells.

  Although Keller had very smart designers working for him, their ultimate skills were not what he needed to produce the Turtles quickly. As much as he hated to do it, Keller had to contact traditional defense contractors who had experience in building lightweight robust structures.

  Some of the airframe manufacturers had small independent groups to get things done much faster than their traditional counterparts. It was well known that Lockheed Martin had the Skunk Works group and Boeing had the Phantom Works group. Keller wasn’t just after their ability to build complicated things quickly. He also needed to hire the big guys because they knew how to fill out all of the government paperwork, a critically important skill.

  Fortunately, he was able to team up with one of the small autonomous teams from the enormous Mayal-Maddox defense contractor. They got the ball rolling on manufacturing both Little Turtle and Big Turtle. Without making it publicly known, they opened a manufacturing facility along the taxiway at the Watsonville Airport. The assumption was that it would make it easy to incorporate the MM10 motors if they were next door neighbors. They humorously called their secret operation The ManureWorks to reflect the aroma that sometimes flooded the region when the wind blew in from the farm fields around town.

  While two-thirds of the ManureWorks team worked on the two Turtles, the other third completed the Storage Wart section of the Space Station; it was to be launched in early Spring. A few weeks after that, it would be used to house the fuel, food and other supplies until the two Turtles were lifted up into orbit.

  Just prior to launching the Storage Wart up to the Space Station, the president asked for a closed-door meeting with the lead engineer on the design team.

  The rather modest manager was excited to meet the president.

  “Hello, Mr. President! It’s an honor to meet you. I can’t tell you how excited I am for this whole project.”

  The president gave his political, uncommitted smile.

  “I think we’re all excited for it. And by the way, thank you for coming here today. This meeting is to discuss a small change regarding the design of the so-called Storage Wart.”

  “But we’re basically done. It’s almost ready to be launched,” explained the engineer.

  The president elaborated.

  “Well, it should be a simple change. All that I need you to do is add a storage box on the outside of the Storage Wart, roughly four feet wide by twelve feet long and maybe two feet deep. I have some blueprints here from one of my Pentagon guys. Just give it a 28 Volt power source and my guys will do the rest.”

  The president handed a large envelope over to the engineer. He pulled out the blueprints and carefully unfolded them on the desk. He held his head as if in pain while he looked over them. He looked up at the president.

  “You’re asking me to add a blank box that could contain anything?”

  “Yes. That is one way to look at it, but we’ll let you know the exact weights and mass properties before launch.”

  The president paused to think.

  “Look, in order to get this entire mission funded so quickly, we had to shift some budget away from military programs. The only tradeoff the Pentagon asked for was this container. My Secretary of Defense tells me that it’s just a small extension of our military preparedness. That’s all. I mean, it could be a radar dish for all we know! In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small detail, right?”

  The lead engineer was exasperated.

  “But Mr. President, this could add a month to the build! This might cause everything to be late.”

  �
��I know. However, this is a matter of national security, and I need you to do this. You love your country, right? Can you make it happen quickly?”

  “Um... let me think about it. I’ll talk with the team. I don’t think they’ll go for it. I’m sure Mr. Murch would be upset with anything that might delay the launches.”

  The president shook his hand and said, “Thank you for your time today. Please rethink your position on this. I know you’ll do your best.”

  The meeting ended. The next day the lead engineer received a phone call from the IRS regarding some questionable deductions he’d included on his tax returns two years earlier. He was warned not to destroy any tax records or paperwork. The IRS might have to investigate even further back, especially during the time he’d started a small business that eventually failed. The agency was considering whether to ignore these issues or not. They might act. They might not.

  The lead engineer scheduled an emergency meeting with Keller and convinced him that the added compartment was crucial and important enough to have the engineers work overtime and weekends. Keller agreed. The issue was never discussed after that. The IRS never called the lead engineer again.

  Production went surprisingly smooth despite the special presidential favor. The mating of the MM10 rocket motors went without a hitch thanks to the design & analysis software they were using: big names like CATIA, Pointwise, and DesignFOIL. Everything fit together like puzzle pieces. Very large and expensive puzzle pieces.

  On the Ides of March, the Storage Wart sat perched atop a Viper9 heavy lift rocket. Just before sunset, it was launched up into orbit and eventually attached to the International Space Station. The Storage Wart was ready to hold all of the fuel, food and oxygen that would ultimately be transferred to the Turtles later on.

  Throughout the months of March, April, and May, supply missions were being flown to the Space Station using the new Viper9 rockets from Whittenberg SLS. Everything was being tucked away in the Storage Wart.

  The large Science Module, also known as the Big Turtle habitat, was mounted on a Viper9 Heavy Lifter rocket and sent up to the Space Station on Memorial Day. Once it arrived, the laborious work of transferring supplies from the Storage Wart to the Big Turtle commenced. Moving large heavy objects by hand while floating in space turned out to be cumbersome, but the Space Station staff completed the supply movement without much complaint.

  The crew would have enough supplies to last them about one month. After that, they would return home.

  With the Turtles utilizing the MM10 rockets after leaving planetary orbit, the trip there would take about 28 days and the trip home would take about 31 days. The difference had to do with the changes in orbit location between when they landed on Mars and when they left from Mars.

  Long before any of the launches occurred, functional mockups of the Science and Transport Modules were built and located in large buildings adjacent to the Murch Motors/ManureWorks facilities. It would give the astronauts a place to train and get used to the equipment while the ManureWorks completed the flight-ready vehicles that would ultimate go into space. Later on, the mockups would be transported to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. That would allow NASA engineers to troubleshoot any potential problems using the identical ship copies. This ability to fix unforeseen problems using identical hardware had proven a life saver for the Apollo 13 crew.

  At some point in time, a Russian Soyuz rocket would be sent over to Florida and installed on a one-of-a-kind launch platform, only to be used once. Since the Viper9 couldn’t yet launch people into space, that task would be left up to the Soyuz rocket. For years, it had proven to be a reliable way to get crews up to the International Space Station.

  Prior to the start of construction of the Turtles, though, Chris faced the task of completing his team of astronauts. After more extended interviews and searching, he finally assembled a group of motivated people. Keller got his wish to be onboard. The Russians got their wish too.

  Chapter 10

  The first three members of the Mars crew mission came together quickly. Adam and Molly both accepted the challenge. Keller assumed he was included by default. The Russians demanded that NASA include a cosmonaut after Keller nixed his deal with the Russian Defense Bureau.

  Chris searched far and wide to find the perfect Russian Cosmonaut. With the team now complete, he brought them together at a training facility near the Watsonville Airport. They would spend the next several months working and training together. On the night after they all arrived, Chris Tankovitch recommended that the four crewmembers have a meal together to get to know each other.

  Keller arrived late, even though his beach house was literally just a few minutes away. Everybody else had already ordered their food. He sat down and opened a menu.

  “How would you like your coffee, Darling?” asked the waitress at the Denny’s in Santa Cruz.

  Since this was to be their grand introduction to each other, Adam chose the familiar Denny’s restaurant as a place to meet. He always thought it was a comfortable place to talk and share stories. Mostly, he liked the weight of the dense coffee mugs and the clunk they made on the table.

  The waitress was getting impatient with Keller and asked again, “So, how do you like your coffee?”

  He grinned up at the waitress and answered, “I like my coffee like I like my women: caffeinated.”

  The waitress laughed and winked at Keller as she walked away. Adam stirred his coffee with a clink sound that broke the silence, “I think this meal is the start of something great. This group is going to change history.”

  Keller blurted out, “Well, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. This meal is the start of a long gastrointestinal struggle; I have a very sensitive stomach, and I don’t see any organic food on this menu.”

  Keller was noticeably fidgety.

  Adam recovered from Keller’s statement and continued, “It’s okay. You don’t have to eat anything. Now, I know we’ve all heard a little bit about each other already. I figured this would be a good place to tell the whole story. I’ll tell you about myself and then we’ll go around the table, okay?”

  Adam looked over his glasses at everybody to see if they were in agreement.

  He continued, “My name is Adam Alston, and I am still barely thirty-something years old. I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. My claim to fame is that I was on the shuttle mission STS-123. That was the shuttle mission to fix the Trelm88 satellite back in 2008. After that, I wrote a book about the mission; it sold modestly well in technical niche markets. Let’s see, I have a degree in engineering and another in geology from Texas A&M. My main specialty at NASA, though, was mission safety. I’m guessing that my shuttle experience and geology degree are the main reasons NASA wanted me to lead this mission.”

  Yeva Turoskova was new to America and new to this group. Being Russian, she did not enjoy small talk at all. However, she was willing to oblige on this occasion. She sensed that Adam was done and nodded her head.

  In her broken English, she said, “I, too, have very similar qualifications as you Adam, but my work in fossil recovery is thought to be a helpful skill here. It is funny that you mention the Trelm88 satellite. I was on the mission that launched it in the first place.”

  “Really? That is a small world,” said Adam.

  Yeva replied curtly, “We launched it okay. Americans messed it up during a follow-on maintenance mission. Then they had to fix it on your mission in 2008. So, you broke it, you fixed it. Barely.”

  Adam was taken aback and said, “I can’t comment on that. It’s classified.”

  He guzzled some ice tea and continued, “So Molly Hemphill, tell us about yourself.”

  Molly, naturally bubbly, said, “Sure, let’s see, I graduated from the Air Force Academy with a degree in Flight Medicine and then went on for my medical degree from Indiana University. Um... I worked on the first Biosphere, and I’ve done years of research in life support systems for extended-stay missions. Just like this one.
I guess that made it an easy decision for Mr. Tankovitch.”

  Her effervescent personality came through easily. She set her fingertips down on the table to let them know she was going to divulge something else about herself. “To be honest, I was on the fence about this mission, you know? It seems extremely risky, and I’m not the risky type. But I knew I’d kick myself if I said no. I’ve tried hard to avoid regretting anything in life. So, in this case, I had to go for it.”

  Keller’s jaw dropped and he asked, “You try to do what?”

  “I want to avoid missing great opportunities. You know, I don’t want to look back on life and say I coulda, shoulda, woulda.”

  Keller smirked. He said, “Well, that’s like saying you want to avoid learning. Regret is natural. It’s just something that happens when we choose one path over another and things turn out crappy. The more regrets you have early in life, the better off your life gets later on. Believe me, I know a lot about regret.”

  Adam jumped in. “Okay, okay. I think she’s saying that she doesn’t want to waste this one-of-a-kind opportunity.”

  Molly got serious and said, “Thank you, Adam. That’s a good way to put it.”

  Keller pointed his finger at Molly.

  “I gotta say, Molly, I do like your charisma.”

  Keller smiled and looked at each one of them. He took a big slug of coffee and continued, “Okay, my turn, I guess. Let’s see... I never went to college. I ran a burger joint for years and then stumbled onto a friend who was making computer games for fun. I offered to help him turn it into a real company, and it did very well. Then we sold it for a fortune, and I tried my hand in other companies for many years. Then I started the rocket motor company called Murch Motors. I guess that makes me the least qualified person on this team, maybe even in this country.”

  Everybody laughed and nodded in agreement. He was very unqualified.

  Keller added, “But you will be riding on my vehicle, designed by my engineers, so I get to go for free. Think of me as your sugar daddy.” He held up his hands to make air quotes around the word sugar.