by Mike Jenne
“Thank you, thank you,” said Bea, hugging Mama Ourecky. “Thank you so much.”
As she tore open the bright paper, she turned to Ourecky and asked “So why did we all have to get up from the table at once?”
“Tradition,” he answered. “No one gets up before dinner is finished, and we all get up together because the first person to leave the table will be the first to die in the coming year.”
“Oh. Good reason.”
Hours later, they gathered in the darkened living room. Straw and sleeping children were strewn everywhere. “It’s about to start!” whispered Papa Ourecky excitedly.
Mama Ourecky waved at Bea and patted the faded green fabric of the living room couch. “Bea, Scott, you young people sit here. The place of honor!”
“Another tradition?” asked Bea quietly, nudging Ourecky. “Please, please let your mother know that I can’t possibly eat another cookie or any more fruit cake. I am absolutely stuffed!”
“Relax, dear. It’s not a Czech Christmas tradition,” replied Ourecky. “Apollo 8 is in orbit around the moon. They’re going to have a live broadcast.”
“Apollo 8? The moon?” she asked, sitting beside him. Mama Ourecky refilled Bea’s wine glass as Papa Ourecky adjusted the rabbit ears antenna on the television. A low fire crackled in the hearth, warming the large room and decorating the walls with an undulating red glow. As pajama-clad children snored in the background, the adults sat silently, watching the grainy images of the stark lunar surface passing by seventy miles beneath the Apollo spacecraft.
They leaned toward the television, cupped their ears, and listened to the words of Astronaut Frank Borman, the Apollo 8 mission commander: “The moon is a different thing to each one of us. I think that each one of us—each one carries his own impression of what he’s seen today. I know my own impression is that it’s a vast, lonely, forbidding type existence, or expanse of nothing, that looks rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone, and it certainly would not appear to be a very inviting place to live or work.”
The broadcast went on for several minutes, with the distant astronauts describing various aspects of the foreign surface. At the conclusion of the live broadcast, they heard the voice of Astronaut Bill Anders: “For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”
And then Astronaut Jim Lovell’s voice continued the reading: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day . . .”
After reading the final passage, Astronaut Frank Borman, the Apollo 8 mission commander, concluded the broadcast by saying, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth.“
Obviously moved by the event, an awestruck Walter Cronkite wiped a tear from his eye and offered a few brief comments before the channel returned to regular programming.
“Men in orbit around the moon,” commented Papa Ourecky, daubing a tear from his own eye as he switched off the television. He tucked his handkerchief into the bib pocket of his Liberty Brand denim overalls. “And they’re supposed to land there soon.”
“True. But there’s still a lot of work yet to be done, Papa. They still have to rendezvous, and that’s not an easy thing to do, trust me. And they’ve never flown the Lunar Module in space.”
“No, Scott, NASA has flown the Lunar Module in space,” interjected Papa Ourecky. “Back in January, on Apollo 5. It was unmanned, of course, but they did fly it.”
“Right, Papa, but it’s a giant leap from there to landing it on the moon with men in it.”
“Your father sure seems to know what he’s talking about,” commented Bea. She drained the last of her wine; Mama Ourecky rushed forward to refill her glass. “How in the world do you know so much about the space program, Papa Ourecky?”
“Oh, we all used to follow it very closely while Scott was still at home. I’ve just kept up with it. It’s all very exciting to me. Did you know that Borman and Lovell flew together on Gemini Seven?” he asked. “Can you believe that those two spent fourteen days in orbit together?”
Shuddering, like a giant icicle had been traced slowly along his bare spine, Ourecky closed his eyes tightly and muttered, “No. I couldn’t possibly imagine that.”
“So, Bea, what do you make of all this?” asked Mama Ourecky. “Isn’t it so exciting that men are going to the moon?”
“I know we’re going to the moon because Kennedy wanted us to,” replied Bea, taking a sip from her wine. “Beyond that, I really don’t know much. I just haven’t followed the space program too closely. The first launches were exciting, I’ll admit, but it’s just gotten so boring after that.”
“You don’t follow it?” said Papa Ourecky. “I just assumed that since you and Scott were so close, that you must be a big NASA fan. After all, that’s why he joined the Air Force, to be an astronaut. He wanted to be an astronaut ever since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.”
“Really? He wanted to be an astronaut? That’s funny. He’s never mentioned that to me.”
“Oh, Bea, he was deadly serious about it. He and some friends of his even built a mock-up of a Mercury space capsule. They even wrote to NASA to ask for information. On the weekends, they used to do practice missions. They would take turns; a few would be Mission Control while one would be the astronaut in the capsule. They took first place in the science fair that year.”
Ourecky jumped in. “Papa . . . please. Please! Bea doesn’t want to hear any of this.”
“Oh, but I do,” said Bea, laughing. “Please, please . . . tell me more.”
“Bea, this boy was just head over heels crazy about outer space,” related Papa Ourecky. “If he had drunk any more Tang, he would probably be orange today.”
“Oh, this is just too much,” blurted Bea. “Scott, I hope you aren’t too offended, but I just have a really hard time picturing you as an astronaut. Your own space capsule? I’m sure it was something to behold. I just wish I could have seen it.”
“But you can, Bea,” exclaimed Papa Ourecky. “It’s still out in the barn.”
“Papa, I’m sure that Bea has no interest in seeing . . .”
“Oh, but I insist,” exclaimed Bea. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Well, it can wait until the morning, can’t it?” asked Ourecky.
“But I want to see it now, Scott,” she urged. “Lead the way, dear, please.”
“If you insist. But grab your scarf and coat. It’s cold out there.”
Drawing in the familiar musty smells of the barn, Ourecky tugged a dangling cord and a single 60-watt bulb flickered on. The spacecraft mock-up was exactly as he left it, next to several neatly stacked bales of hay. Constructed primarily of scrap plywood and roofing tin, it was a very accurate model. Perhaps not worthy to be featured in Gunter’s hangar of horrors, but certainly an engineering accomplishment for a bunch of high school kids.
“Wow,” exclaimed Bea, looking at it in awe. “You really were serious!” She peered in the rectangular hatchway, admiring the precisely painted instrument panel. “But it’s so tiny.”
“It’s life-size, true to scale,” stated Ourecky. “That’s why the original seven Mercury astronauts could be no taller than five feet eleven inches. They had to squeeze in there.”
“Really? So you could fit in there? Why don’t you climb in so I can see?”
“Uh, Bea . . . I’d rather not,” he replied, looking into the cockpit. He shuddered as a chill passed over him, like a brisk wind had somehow blown through the barn’s rough-hewn walls.
“Please, just this once. Just climb
in so I can see what you would look like as an astronaut.”
“No,” he said firmly, shaking his head vigorously.
“Sorry,” she said, cinching her scarf and blowing into her fingers. “I suppose I didn’t know that it might dredge up bad memories. I guess if you were so keen to be an astronaut, it must have been quite a disappointment not to make it. Scott, I’m really sorry for dragging you out here. I was just goofing around.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, embracing her closely. “Maybe it’s just as well, though. Bea, I’ve wanted to get you alone ever since we’ve been here.”
“Well, I want to be alone with you, too, Scott, but don’t you think it would be a little uncomfortable out here? And it’s so cold.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant, Bea,” he said, laughing quietly. He took off his gloves, then turned away and dug in his pockets. Kneeling in the straw before the mock-up capsule, he held out an engagement ring and solemnly asked, “Beatrice Harper, will you marry me?”
“I will,” she answered. “I will marry you, Scott. But there’s one thing I have to ask.”
Surprised that she answered so quickly, as if she had already contemplated the question, he stood up and kissed her. Gazing into her eyes, he said, “Anything. What is it?”
“Scott, you do know that I love you, don’t you?”
“Well, since you’ve just agreed to marry me, I kind of suspected as much.”
“Funny. Don’t make me change my mind. Anyway, Scott, I’ve come to realize why I was attracted to you in the first place. You reminded me of my father, when we were all together as a family and we were happy.”
Bea continued: “Scott, I don’t know what you do at the base and I’m not going to ask, but I do know that you spend a lot of time with Drew Carson and it’s not just a working relationship. It seems like you’re always hanging out with him, at least when you’re not with me.”
“I know, Bea,” he blurted, shivering against the cold. He bent over to brush straw from the knees of his corduroy trousers. “But . . .”
“Hear me out, Scott, please. I’m familiar with men like Drew because I grew up watching them. I don’t know if you see him as just a friend or maybe some sort of hero, but I don’t want to lose you like I lost my father. You probably think that I sound like a broken record, but I want you to keep your feet planted on the ground. Yeah, I know you have to fly sometimes as part of your job, but I don’t want you going to flight school just so you can be more like Drew. Fair enough?”
Ourecky was tempted to laugh. With all the insanity and uncertainty in his life right now, she was asking for the one promise he could actually deliver. “Fair enough, Bea. No flight school. I promise. Now, are you still sure you want to marry me?”
“I do, Scott.”
“Then let’s get out of this cold and tell my folks the good news.” He took a last look at the mock space capsule he had built as a teenager, not too many years distant, and then tugged the cord to switch the light off. He and Bea kissed in the cold darkness, then strolled back to the farmhouse, arm in arm.
As Ourecky reached to open the screen door, Bea said, “Hey, Scott Ourecky.”
“What?”
“Vesele Vanoce.”
28
ENDURANCE
Simulator Facility, Aerospace Support Project
10:15 a.m., Tuesday, January 21, 1969
The day had finally arrived for the forty-eight-hour simulation, the acid test that would make or break the entire project. Carson and Ourecky stood at the base of the simulator platform as the suit technicians made their final adjustments.
Sipping coffee from a blue-enameled camp cup, Wolcott stood off to the side, quietly assaying the pair to determine their readiness. Carson looked as cocksure as ever, like a high school track star casually stretching before a race that he was sure to dominate, but Ourecky looked apprehensive, perhaps even more so than usual.
The next two days will be plenty busy, mused Wolcott. First, he would watch as the two boys were buttoned up in the Box, then stay on to ensure that things progressed smoothly. On Thursday, he would fly to D.C. to meet Tew at Walter Reed, where he was still recuperating from open heart surgery, and the two of them would go on to the big meeting at the Pentagon.
Ever a stickler for potential contingencies, Tew had insisted that two briefing charts be prepared for their progress report: one chart reflecting that they were successful in achieving the forty-eight-hour simulation requirement, and the other showing that they had missed the mark.
Wolcott finished his coffee and placed the metal cup atop a console behind him. He watched Heydrich conferring with his simulation controllers, reviewing final details before the Box was sealed and the scenario commenced.
Trying his best to stack the deck to favor Carson and Ourecky, Heydrich had agonized over the scripted profile for the mission. The exercise wasn’t entirely canned; some key aspects would be randomly decided, so there could be no question later that the participants didn’t have an unfair advantage or “cheat sheet” to skew the odds. Despite the random aspects of the exercise, Heydrich had painstakingly tuned the playbook so that the exercise would conclude almost exactly at the forty-eight-hour mark, and hopefully not a minute more, since he was certain that they would be treading on the fringes of Ourecky’s endurance.
As if the forty-eight hours weren’t enough, there were yet other unwelcome twists to the simulated mission. To ensure an unquestionably accurate replication of the pressures the men would endure in flight, an edict had come down decreeing that there would be no fifteen-minute breaks every six hours to stretch cramped muscles or pay a visit to the latrine. Carson and Ourecky would remain locked in the Box for the entire duration, hatches latched securely, until the final few minutes when they transferred over to the Paraglider Landing Simulator for reentry and landing. Additionally, the “loiter period,” in which the spacecraft was powered down as they waited for an appropriate reentry window, would not be simulated. Consequently, the pair would execute the extremely stressful reentry and landing sequence without benefit of their customary twenty-minute nap.
Unlike most previous Box runs, not only were they wearing their full space suits, but they had also been fitted with the special super-absorbent diapers worn under the bulky ensemble. As in a real mission, where it was unlikely they would have adequate time to work through the elaborate procedures to capture and manage bodily wastes, everything would remain in the suits until the men emerged at the end.
Last but not least, the instructions dictated that the only foodstuffs authorized in the cabin were those items cleared for actual missions. That was a hugely significant deviation from previous Box runs, since it meant no instant coffee granules to energize Ourecky when his endurance started to flag. But it was only fair; with no fifteen-minute breaks, there would also be no Cokes to jump-start Carson.
Wolcott frowned as he observed Russo trying to chat up some of the simulation controllers. The situation with Russo had placed him in an uncomfortable position, particularly since it was now causing some dissension in the ranks. When he first raised the prospect that Russo might be a viable candidate to fly with Carson, Wolcott had inadvertently hatched a monster.
First, it was becoming painfully apparent that Russo was destined to fly, simply because there was no one else to pair with Carson. Second, although he was assigned here as a liaison officer, Russo now seemed intent on inserting himself in all aspects of Blue Gemini, even to the extent of usurping Heydrich’s authority in the simulator hangar. And if he stood to fail at some juncture, that was the most likely, because the simulation crew was fiercely loyal to Gunter.
Beyond their devotion to Heydrich, the simulation crew—as a group—didn’t appreciate that Russo had provoked the incident with Carson last month. Although Carson could often be abrasive, the controllers admired him for his competence and tenacity. Even more so, they respected that he had defended Ourecky; the simulation crew was an oddball bunch, and t
hey probably saw much of themselves in the engineer, so anyone who attacked Ourecky—even verbally, even in a joking manner, as Russo had—was their sworn enemy.
Obviously steeling himself for the long haul, Russo wore the dark blue flight suit issued to the MOL “Can Men.” A shiny stopwatch dangled from an orange cord around his neck. Trying his best to blend into the crowd, as if he were an active participant and not a caustic emissary, Russo stood out like a rodeo clown at a monastery. The more he tried to pal up to Heydrich and his white-shirted controllers, the more that they shunned him like an unwelcome leper. They had little time or patience for an interloper who had upset their otherwise happy family.
In wearing the MOL flight suit, Russo was effectively displaying his true colors; it was an outward display of his true allegiance. Although the MOL program and Blue Gemini were parallel efforts with wholly different objectives, they both drew from the same pool of dwindling resources, and it was only a matter of time before cooperation gave way to competition.
The suit technicians had finally completed their tinkering, and the two men were ready to enter the Box. Wolcott walked over and joined them. “Ready, hoss?” he asked Carson.
“Ready as we’ll ever be, Virgil,” answered Carson. Flexing his fingers in his stiff pressure suit gloves. Ourecky nodded in assent.
“I guess it goes without sayin’ that we’re counting on you two hombres to close this deal,” said Wolcott, patting each man on the shoulder. “General Tew sends his regards, and he wishes you the best of luck. No matter how this thing shakes out, we’re beholden to you both, and we’ll make danged sure that you both get what you rightfully deserve.”