“—heading in for astronaut testing.”
I swiveled to Eugene. “What? When were you going to tell me? Congratulations!”
“They just sent the letters out.” Eugene shrugged, looking surprisingly sheepish. “You’ve been a little busy.”
“Which is understandable.” Myrtle rested a hand on his shoulder with proprietary pride. “He passed the tests be fore, so hopefully this time they’ll have the sense the good Lord gave them, and accept him.”
“Well, Parker likes you, which will help enormously.” I left alone our continuing animosity. At times it seemed as if it had vanished, but he never let me forget about the Miltown. “You said the letters just went out…? Excuse me.”
I stood and went in search of Helen. She, Ida, and Imogene stood near the punch bowl, giggling with Betty. “… still can’t belie—Shush!”
“Shush?” I stopped next to them and arched a brow. “So, you’ve either just spiked the punch, or you got a letter that none of you told me about.”
Helen bounced on her toes, face splitting into a grin that looked like it must hurt. “I get to take the tests!”
“Us too!” Ida clinked her glass against Imogene’s and Helen’s. All three of the women looked as giddy as kids starting summer vacation.
Betty grinned at me. “I’m going to walk them through the physical tests.”
“And I’ll keep up the math coaching while you’re in space.” Helen punched me in the shoulder. “I never get tired of saying that.”
Nathaniel came up behind me and draped an arm over my shoulder. “I can tell these are your friends, because they’re excited about taking tests.” He kissed my cheek and raised his glass. “Congratulations, ladies. Here’s to the stars.”
Laughing, I clinked my glass against my friends’. “Better yet: Here’s to the Lady Astronaut Club.”
THIRTY-NINE
TWO ASTRONAUTS AND AN ASTRONETTE PREPARE FOR THE MOON
KANSAS CITY, KS, July 20, 1958—The two men who will be the first to tread the moon early on Monday may find that walking is not the best way to get around. The answer may be a “kangaroo hop.” While they are exploring the surface, lady astronaut Dr. Elma York will be keeping the home fires burning in the capsule orbiting the moon, waiting for their return.
Today, I am going into space.
Everything about today is vivid in ways that nothing else in life can equal. My wedding to Nathaniel has been reduced by time to a series of snapshots and captured moments packed in a haze of joy.
But today, the light gleaming atop the egg yolk in my breakfast contains the most vibrant yellow-orange. This is the last meal I will eat before going into space. Lebourgeois and Terrazas are sitting across from me and we are talking through the last details before the flight. There is a photographer in the room—screened for health by the IAC—but he does not matter.
We are going into space today.
This is Terrazas’s fifth flight and Lebourgeois’s seventh. I am the only rookie here. I am the only woman.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with gray hair and jowls comes into the room, and for a moment, I don’t recognize him as Clemons. He does not have his cigar. The smell of it still lingers, though, in a heavy musk.
“All packed?”
I nod, pushing my chair back from the table. “My post-flight things are in my room. There’s … there’s a note.”
“I’ll hold on to it.” Clemons nods and shoves his hands into his pockets, as if he can’t figure out what to do with them without the cigar.
We walk down the hall—it might be the last time I walk down this hall—to the dressing rooms. The photographer follows us, but splits off to go with the men. I am grateful, for the first time, that I am the only woman on the flight.
That changes when I enter the dressing room, because the other two astronauts have each other for company while they are getting suited. I know the team here, of course—part of my training included dry runs of this moment—but I find that I have no words in me but the single phrase I am going to space today.
In relative silence, I strip and pull on the long underwear that will be next to my skin for most of the flight. I will wear this into space today.
They’ve dressed other astronauts, so they don’t force me to talk. Thank God for professionals. It takes all three of us to wrestle me into the pressure suit. It is designed to be snug and protect me from the elements—or the lack thereof—in space. Where I am going today.
Settling into the chair, I stare straight ahead at the concrete wall as they lower the helmet over my head. These are the last breaths of the Earth’s atmosphere that I will take for the next eight days. Someone is wearing White Shoulders bath powder. I recognize the fragrance because Grandma used it.
The helmet clicks into place, changing the sound of the room. It does not muffle the way a jet flight helmet does. It reflects the sounds of my own body back and the metallic stink of canned oxygen hisses around me. I inhale, slowly and carefully. Then I lift both stiff arms of the suit to give them a thumbs up. All good. They nod and give me the okay sign.
The outside world sits at a distance. I won’t be able to hear it until I am patched into the ship’s system. Now I have to wait for the nitrogen to work its way out of my bloodstream. If I didn’t, I could wind up with the bends when we went into space. The Earth’s atmosphere is 14.7 psi, but the capsule is only pressurized to 5.5 psi.
There is a cluster of imperfections on the cinder-block wall that looks like a dragon’s head. I wonder what the psychologists at our initial tests would have made of that. Awkward in the suit, I turn and wave to catch one of the dressers’ attention. When she looks at me, I mime opening a book.
She smiles and reaches into the cabinet for the reading material that I selected for this wait. It is the gift my brother gave me at my going-to-space party.
Superman #11. The prize of his comic book collection.
Weeping would be an unfortunate choice. I am an astronaut. I am inside a space suit. And I am going into space today.
* * *
The elevator down from the astronaut’s isolation suite is only three stories, but it is slow. The portable oxygen unit I’m carrying is heavy, but when someone offered to carry it for me, I declined. If the men can do this, so can I. Still, I am beginning to regret the choice by the time the elevator finally reaches the bottom.
Two elevator repairmen ride down with us, just in case. It would be an inauspicious start if we all got stuck in an elevator on the way to the moon. Lebourgeois is shifting from foot to foot. I have never seen him nervous before.
The doors open, and a crowd of reporters is waiting for us. They told us to expect that, so when we get outside, the three of us pause for a minute to let them take pictures. I take a deep breath of the canned oxygen and smile.
My heart has been trotting along, faster than usual, but my space suit protects me from their questions. What will people think, seeing these photos, of three astronauts in their tinfoil suits?
Inside the building, my brother, his family, and Aunt Esther are waiting for the launch. They will be in the observation room looking over Mission Control right now. Nathaniel will be on the floor, standing at his desk instead of sitting like a normal human being.
We walk away from the reporters and get into the van that will drive us to the rocket. It stands like a vast monolith, a testament to the persistence of mankind. That. I am going to ride that.
There is, of course, the possibility that we won’t go today. Launches get scrubbed all the time. A faulty wire. The weather. A man with a bomb … We might have to go through all of this again tomorrow. I’d been in Mission Control often enough when we had to scrub.
When we get out of the van, there are technicians waiting for us by the bottom of the elevator leading up the gantry. Terrazas stops me with a hand on my arm and points up.
I lean back, the only way to look up in the suit. The sound of my gasp echoes against the sides of my helme
t. The Artemis 9 steams in the morning sun like a living beast. Intellectually, I know it’s because of the super-chilled oxygen, but … my God, she is beautiful.
When I look back down, Terrazas is still looking up, and so is Lebourgeois. Both men are grinning when we finally finish gawking like tourists, and walk into the elevator. It rattles and shakes as we ride up, and the vast prairies of Kansas spread out at our feet.
Without being told, I stop on the gantry before I climb into the capsule. We all do. Inside, the windows face straight up. This will be my last view of Earth until I am in space.
The high, clear silver of the sky lays over the Earth like a blanket. In the distance, a pair of T-38s circle the perimeter of the IAC to keep our flight path clear. We’d once had to delay a launch because some tourist decided to fly in to watch the launch from the air.
The grasslands have just begun to turn green after a too-short winter with barely any snow. A patch of pink shifts in the breeze as early wildflowers greet the dawn.
I inhale, as if I could breathe in the fragrance of the Earth one last time, but all I get is more canned oxygen. I turn to face our craft, one glove against its side. Terrazas gets to his knees and crawls inside.
I give the crew time to get him settled, and then it is my turn. I’ll be in the center bench for the ride up. Lebourgeois will have the left, as is traditional for the commander of a mission. The seat cradles me, with my legs up in the air. The crew tightens down the straps that will hold me firmly in place as we launch, and switches my oxygen over to the ship’s source.
It is still metallic, but less tinny than the little portable pack. That might be my imagination, though.
Lebourgeois is settled, and then sound comes back into my world as our comms are patched in.
Lebourgeois says, “Kansas, Artemis 9. We are in position.”
Parker’s voice crackles into my ear from his seat at CAPCOM. “Position confirmed. Welcome aboard.”
The hatch closes, taking away the last view of Earth. All I can see now is the silver sky above us. All of us have checklists to run through, and I do, making sure that all the gauges and switches that I am responsible for are in the correct position. For the trip up, I will have very little to do. I am a passenger, while Lebourgeois is the pilot. Even that is mostly in name, because he will only need to take the controls before we are in space if something goes wrong.
And even then, the list of survivable errors is short. When we get into orbit, we have only two hours to prep for the transition to the translunar insertion. In theory. Everything we can do now to prepare for the TLI will buy us time, which is why we practiced this until we can do the checklist by rote.
There is something about having your legs over your head that makes you need to pee. This makes it into none of the press releases, but every single astronaut talks about it.
The men have complicated condoms and catch pouches. I have a diaper.
Two hours into our three-hour wait, I use it, sure that the urine will overflow its confines and spread up the back of my suit. It does not, but I am once again enthralled by the glamour of being an astronaut.
And then, somehow, we are in the last six minutes before launch. I have gone through my checklist four or five times, certain that I’ve missed something. Outside our tiny capsule, my family is being led to the roof of the IAC to watch the launch.
Before I was assigned to a mission, I thought that this was a kindness, to give them a spectacular view. I thought that, right up until I was asked to pick an escort for my family from among the astronauts. Benkoski’s wife once made a joke about her “escort to widowhood.” Our families were on the roof, isolated from the press, so if something went wrong …
So if we died during launch, the IAC would have control over them. The media would get no pictures of the moment grief set in.
We projected the appearance of triumph.
Parker’s voice crackles in my ear. “York. The engineering desk says to remind you of prime numbers.”
The engineering desk. He can’t say “your husband,” or just give Nathaniel a moment with the comm? On the other hand, Nathaniel should be able to hear me at this point. “Please thank engineering, and say that I’ll continue work on my theorem regarding divisibility when we return. Pending a successful rocket launch.”
“Message confirmed.” And without a pause, he returns to the technical jargon. “Engine test is Go.”
The ship shudders and lurches against its bolts. Beneath us, the two massive Sirius engines swivel, to test their range of motion. We’d been told to expect this, but they couldn’t get the simulator to mimic the moment when the engines first got power.
“T-minus sixty seconds and counting. We have passed T-minus sixty. Fifty-five seconds and counting.”
Lebourgeois says, “Thank you, Mission Control, for the smooth countdown.”
“Confirmed thanks. We’ve passed the fifty-second mark. Power transfer is complete.”
The last of our gauges leaps to life, needles spiking like my heart.
Lebourgeois nods, watching the gauges. “Confirmed internal power.”
“Forty seconds away from the Artemis 9 liftoff. All the first-stage tanks now pressurized.”
“Confirmed pressurization.” Lebourgeois is the French priest in our tiny chapel, reciting the litany of space.
“Thirty-five seconds and counting. We are still Go with Artemis 9. Thirty seconds and counting.”
“Everything is very good here.”
“Twenty seconds and counting. T-minus fifteen seconds, guidance is internal.”
“Confirmed internal guidance.” Lebourgeois lifts his hand to rest it over the clock, waiting.
I clench the arms of my couch, counting with them in my head.
“Twelve, eleven, ten, nine. Ignition sequence starts…”
The engine roars to life beneath us and the entire rocket shakes like a cabin in an earthquake. It’s always been quiet at Mission Control during this moment, but now, sitting atop the rocket, there is no delay between ignition and the sound.
“Five, four, three, two, one—zero. All engines running. LIFTOFF.”
The rocket thunders beneath us and pushes me deep into my couch. The acceleration pulls me back, as if the Earth is trying to keep us from leaving.
Lebourgeois pushes the clock start. “Roger. Clock.”
“Tower cleared.”
“Roger. We have the roll program.”
Clouds spin past the windows as we roll into the right attitude for our orbit.
“Confirmed roll program.”
We rip clear of the clouds into startling blue.
Abruptly the ride smoothes out as we push through the sound barrier, and the thunder of the rocket falls away behind us faster than we are traveling. We’re on our own now. There’s nothing that Mission Control can do until we are in orbit.
“ Artemis 9, this is Kansas. You are Go for staging.”
Now Lebourgeois’s voice sounds strained by the G-forces pressing us into our seats. “Inboard cutoff.”
“We confirm inboard cutoff.”
The blue of the sky grows deeper, into a rich velvet, then darkens to black. It is so dark that it is not a color but an absence. Ink. Velvet. Dark. None of these give the sense of the depth of space.
“Staging.” His hands move over the controls, flipping switches.
The G-load vanishes and I fly up against my restraints. Past our windows, the dark sky flares red and gold. Pieces of housing whip past, trailing sparks.
“And ignition.”
And then silence.
Beneath us, the smaller engine pushes us higher, out of the Earth’s influence. But without an atmosphere it is largely silent, letting us know its presence only through the vibrations of the ship. We are technically in space, but if Lebourgeois and Mission Control don’t get us into the right orbit, we’ll fall back to Earth.
A loose end of my harness floats up in front of me. Up.
I tur
n my attention from that and watch the gauges, doing the first task of the navigation that will be my job for the next eight days. “SECO. We are showing 101.4 by 103.6.”
Parker replies with the same calm he has for everyone. He’s probably tossing his tennis ball in the air. “Roger. Shutdown. We copy 101.4 by 103.6.”
The capsule is silent, save for the sound of my breath and the hiss of the oxygen fans. One hundred and one miles below us, the tracking stations are following our flight path and sending numbers through the Teletype to a table in Kansas City. Two computers are there, Basira and Helen, who will convert those numbers into elegant equations.
“ Artemis 9, this is Kansas. You are confirmed Go for orbit.”
Lebourgeois turns his head and grins at me through his helmet. “Congratulations. You are officially an astronaut.”
My face hurts. I’m smiling so hard that my cheeks are tight balls of joy. “We have work to do, right?”
“No shortage of it. But, wait—” Terrazas puts a hand on my arm and then gestures to the windows. “Look.”
There is nothing to see but that vast blackness. Intellectually, I know that we’ve passed into the dark side of the Earth. We slide into her shadow and then magic fills the sky. The stars come out. Millions of them in crisp, vivid splendor.
These are not the stars that I remember from before the Meteor. These are clear and steady, without an atmosphere to make them twinkle.
Do you remember the first time you saw the stars again?
I am sitting in a capsule, on my way to the moon.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is filled with the power of other people’s brains. Let me tell you about some of them.
Very early on, Brandon Sanderson talked me through plot problems when I realized that I had not one book, but two. Stetson Parker’s existence is directly his fault.
Liz Gorinsky, my editor, and Jennifer Jackson, my agent, both rolled with it when I came to them and said, “Um … two books?”
Many thanks to Diana Rowland. She and I were both on tight deadlines and she’s an amazing cheerleader.
The Calculating Stars Page 36