A Disruptive Invention

by Peter Shackle

  Chapter 54

  That weekend the Dreamlifter came in on the Saturday. Following through on Terry’s suggestion, the Delias were loaded into the hold by having Terry fly them in under their own power. Technicians inside guided the vehicles to the exact position by pushing and pulling with their hands, and the loading procedure that took several hours before was accomplished in a half hour. At first the technicians would try and lift the vehicles by say, an inch, with their hands, and the result was that the vertical stabilization loop would just push the vehicle firmly back where it was. It soon sunk in that although they could easily push sideways, the only way to get the Delias to move up and down was to call to Terry in the pilot seat.

  The same procedure was followed in reverse at Homey airport where Terry first started the inverters driving the anti-coils to lift them up an inch and then started up the APU once each vehicle was pushed out of the loading hatch of the Dreamlifter.

  On the Monday, the first order of testing was to try out the gen 7 software. Terry took the controls of Delia 1, and Harold was strapped in beside him as flight engineer. He had already configured the two flight processors to operate separately – each one received all the sensing inputs but only the selected one was allowed to control the vehicle. He had already tried this out with the vehicle tethered in the hangar back at Huntsville, so he knew full well that it was basically going to work. Once the clearance was given, they took Delia 1 up to 5000 feet and parked her there. Then with fingers crossed, Harold flipped the switch which moved control over to the processor running the gen 7 software. “OK – you are live with the gen 7 flight control software,” said Harold, his voice being relayed down to the anxious team below in the hangar. “Have fun!” he commanded.

  Terry cautiously put Delia 1 into forward motion, and then after a few seconds he applied pressure to the right foot pedal. Delia 1 obediently banked over to the right and executed a graceful arc in the sky. Terry kept her circling. The software had precisely adjusted the angle of the deck so that it still felt as if down was towards the floor. “That’s awesome!” remarked Terry. Harold in the flight engineer’s seat felt that it was just like being in a commercial airliner. Down on the ground the team was watching through binoculars. In the KXTA control tower the controllers were chuckling: “Look at that test pilot – he is like a kid with a new toy!”

  Next Terry put Delia 1 back in a straight line, and then pushed alternately left and right. Delia 1 traced out a sinuous path through the air, winding gracefully back and forth while exerting only the most minimal G forces on Terry and Harold. “I’m tickled pink!” said Harold. “That’s just how I imagined that it was going to be.”

  Then Terry took Delia 1 up to roughly 500 mph and tried turning it left and right. Since she only had limited amounts of left and right thrust it could not turn on a dime, but within its limits it dutifully banked over and gave Harold and Terry as comfortable a ride as possible.

  “It is going to take a while to test out that every capability still works the same,” said Terry. “Let’s take her down again and make sure that she will still land OK.”

  “I feel pretty relaxed about that,” said Harold, “because I put her up and down a dozen times inside the hangar.”

  “To me this feels so good that I never want to go back,” said Terry. “It used to be that whenever you went round a corner it felt like your head was being pulled to one side and you instinctively leaned your head over just like a motorist going round a corner. Now everything feels just like in an aircraft, is the only way I can explain it.”

  When they got back to the hangar nearly everybody in the Electrolev team crowded around, wanting to hear first hand how it felt. John and Judy were practically burning with excitement, because they had each got their helicopter pilot’s license in the last two weeks after following the army training course at the Redstone Arsenal. Today would be the first time that they could legally fly the Delias. Pulling a little bit of rank, John twisted Harold’s arm to load gen 7 software into both Delias, although with Gen 6 software still in reserve in the second processor. Then for the first time both Delias took to the air together. Separately they flew solemnly around the airport at about 500 feet, John was in Delia 1 with Harold and Judy was in Delia 2 with Terry. After a few minutes, they flew into tighter and tighter turns until they were flying in a circle of about a hundred yards diameter, opposite each other at about ten miles an hour. “Wow – this is so much fun!” exclaimed John. “Well these two vehicles have cost about $200 million each,” said Harold, “so maybe we had better get back on with some work.”

  “I guess you are right,” chuckled John. “For me this has been the most fulfilling moment of the last two years.” With that he broke off from the merry go round formation and slowly and gently brought Delia 1 back to the hangar, with Delia 2 following smoothly behind.

  Chapter 55

  When they came back to the hangar James Harper was waiting for them with a grim look upon his face. “There has been an international incident which affects us,” he said tersely. “I need to have all the Electrolev managers in the main conference room in five minutes.” John looked at Judy, and then at Terry and Harold. Feeling bewildered, he had a sinking feeling in his stomach, obviously something was terribly wrong and Electrolev had just got to a stage where everything was going wonderfully right. They had no choice but to round up the managers and get everybody herded into the conference room. Around the table were John, Judy, Terry Mettle, Harold, Terry Entmann, Cynthia, Irena, Fred, Ian, Jim, Tanya, Anthony and Reginald. Their faces were tense and drawn, because such an abrupt meeting was essentially unknown in Electrolev culture. Something quite extraordinary must have happened and nobody had a clue what.

  James Harper did not keep them waiting. “There has been a communication from the Russian Embassy this morning. A space vehicle of theirs has become stranded 20 miles over the North Atlantic with four cosmonauts on board. There has been some kind of failure of the systems on board, and they are stuck completely stationary at a height of 20 miles at about 34 degrees 25 minutes north and 48 degrees 13 minutes west. It is about 3660 miles from here.”

  John looked solemn and tense: “I can guess the answer, but what does that have to do with us?”

  “Apparently the vehicle in question is the one that Terry and Judy encountered 20 miles over here on the very first high altitude test flight. One of the cosmonauts is the daughter of the Russian Premier. Their engineers went so fast developing that space ship that they only have this one vehicle, hence there is no way that they can stage a rescue. Apparently they will run out of air in 3 days at most.”

  Judy practically exploded with rage: “Those are the rotten bastards that shot Tony, Julie and Hippy! How have they got the cheek to come to us asking for help? If they hadn’t committed that awful crime they would not be in the trouble they are in now. As far as I’m concerned they can burn in hell!”

  James countered in a very controlled voice: “That is not our decision to make. The Russian nation came to the American nation asking for humanitarian help. Our government has to decide what to do. Our role is to provide accurate, reliable technical information on what is or is not possible.”

  Full of emotion, Judy said: “I think it totally sucks! – they murder Electrolev employees while they steal American information, then get themselves into trouble with what they do with it, and have the temerity to come and ask us for help!” Judy buried her face in her hands and a handkerchief and sobbed.

  John said: “We have got to know more about what has happened in order to know if it is possible to help them. To make a vehicle to vehicle transfer at 20 miles high is no joke. We have to know what the parameters are, for example what has happened. Do they have pressure suits and so on? Can we get a communication link through to them?”

  “I will ask immediately,” said James. “Let’s break for ten minutes while I send that request through. Tanya, can you stay with me in case I need an interpreter pleas
e?”

  James picked up the phone and made a few calls. Eventually he turned to John and Tanya, and said: “They have agreed to patch us directly through to the Russian vehicle. I am going to put them on speakerphone.”

  With Tanya translating, John asked the Russian cosmonauts what the problem was. The voice on the other end of the line was female and came across with a soft, musical quality to the ears of the listening Electrolev staff. Apparently the vehicle had been developed so hastily that instead of having twin processors as Delia had, it only had one central processor to run the whole thing. In the case of Delia, if one processor did crash then the other could run the show alone while the one was rebooted. But in the Russian case they only had the one, and it had locked up in the park configuration and would not respond to any commands from the console. It would take five minutes to reboot it, and during that time the vehicle would be falling to earth like a meteorite in such a way that it could never recover control without burning up the anti-coils. The inverters were running off the solar cells and that aspect was stable, but they only had air left for three more days after which they would die. They were three days into what had been planned as a six day mission.

  Anthony passed the question: “Do they have pressure suits?” to which the answer was yes, they had individual ones with an oxygen pack that could last for half an hour at a time.

  Reginald asked the question: “What means of egress from the vehicle do they have?”

  The answer came back that they had only one hatch underneath the vehicle.

  “Can they depressurize the vehicle and open it?” asked Reginald.

  “Yes, that is possible,” came back the musical, soft Russian female voice.

  “OK – I think that we have all the information that we need,” announced John. “Give us a little time to think about it.”

  They hung up the phone and looked at each other. Judy’s tear stained face was like a thundercloud, and everybody else looked strained.

  Fred was the first to speak. “It looks to me like we could do it, James,” he began. “We would need to send both Delias up to get the four of them. Maybe Terry and Judy could man one and John and Harold the other. We have never tried out the Delias for a long journey outside the atmosphere before, and so my recommendation would be to stay at the highest altitude where we can still run the APU, say 70,000 feet, for the main part of the journey. The Delias can get roughly 1000 miles per hour at that altitude. Then turn off the APU and go up the last 30,000 feet using the batteries. That way we would minimize the use of hydrazine which we have not proved in yet for a long distance journey in near space. We know that the Delias maneuver around fine using hydrazine for short distances; we just don’t know how it would work out for a long journey. It looks like it would take about four hours to get to where they are.”

  Reginald chimed in: “Yes, I think we could do it like that. We would need to take along pressure suits for our people and maybe some spares for the Russians in case of emergency.”

  Anthony agreed: “Yes, I’m convinced we could do it.”

  Everybody looked at John, disregarding Judy who was sitting there looking distraught and out of it. “I think you should tell the people in Washington that we could do it – Its possible for us to be there in about six hours, allowing time for fuelling and getting pressure suits and stuff together.”

  “Ok, I want you to start making preparations as if you were going, and stand by for a signal from me from Washington,” commanded James. “If you think that this was a tough meeting then imagine what I am going to have to go through at the White House! I am going to be taking one of the Air Force executive jets straight to Washington. John – since you are the president of Electrolev you had better come with me.” With those words he stood up and with John following he abruptly left the room.

  Chapter 56

  A few hours later, Harper’s Air Force executive jet landed at Andrews Air Force base. The skies were grey and overcast and he and John briefly shivered as they crossed the tarmac to where one of the presidential helicopters was waiting for the short journey to the White House. They had been in communication all through the flight and knew that a presidential level decision making meeting was scheduled in about an hour’s time at the White House. They were to meet in the White House situation room.

  James and John were shown into an empty room dominated by a huge long polished wood table. In the course of a few minutes the Secretary of State came in, then came Joe Helman the Director of Defense Research and Engineering accompanied by the Secretary of Defense. Minutes later the Director of National Intelligence came in. Finally the President sauntered in, looking comfortable and relaxed, and sat himself down at a place midway down the table. John intuitively perceived that he always sat there and that place had been left open for him by custom.

  “Major General Harper, please give us a briefing on this situation,” led off the President.

  “Sir, the Air Force has developed a new flight technology in the last two years. It allows, for example, a vehicle to operate in near space without orbital speeds, or even to be parked there and remain stationary for prolonged periods. If the vehicle uses stealth technology then it can be used for covert purposes. These vehicles are fundamentally inexpensive to build, compared to say, a jet fighter, and clearly the whole of western civilization is going to be eventually transformed by this technology. For example, such a vehicle can be used for police and anti-terrorist operations, able to move silently and to be parked in the air at any altitude from 1 foot to twenty miles. They are superb for surveillance and for say, air sea rescue.”

  “At the present time the whole development project is proceeding inside the security of the Redstone Arsenal. Unfortunately, before we understood the ramifications of this new technology, foreign agents broke into the laboratories and seized all the fundamental information on the technology, shooting three US citizens as they did so. So we have known for some time that a foreign power was racing against us to exploit these discoveries.

  “Two months ago we discovered a foreign vehicle of this type, using stealth technology, parked invisibly twenty miles over Homey Airport, our most secret Air Force test and development installation. At this time we did not know for sure from which country it came, and it departed at high speed once they knew that we were observing them.

  “Now this morning we have had this communication from the Russian embassy asking if the United States would help rescue four Russian cosmonauts whose vehicle has malfunctioned and is stranded twenty miles high over the North Atlantic. One of the cosmonauts is the daughter of the Russian President. They will run out of air and die in two and a half days from now if we do nothing.

  “I have ascertained that we have the capability to do this. A rescue mission could be on site in about six hours from a decision here.”

  The Director of National Intelligence was the first to respond: “I am concerned that we send a wrong message here. The Russians go and break into our laboratories, kill Americans and steal our technology. Then they expect us to reward them by fixing the mess that they have gotten themselves into? To me this is rewarding the wrong kind of behavior and just asking for the same thing to happen again.”

  That is surely how Judy feels, thought John to himself.

  The Secretary of Defense said: “My concern is that already the Russians have established free run for themselves of the near space over the United States. We have got to send a message that we are going to control and police this “near space” just as we do our own air space. I am concerned that our whole industry of satellite technology has become obsolete overnight. We need to use this situation to get as much strategic advantage as we can.”

  Joe Helman, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering spoke next. “It is apparent to me that this technology has the capability to destabilize the economic order as we know it. It is unfortunate that the Russians of all people, possess the technology almost equally to us. For the time being, th
e fewer countries that have the technology the more secure we are as we develop it ourselves. The situation is very analogous to the space race of the sixties which has culminated in the International Space Station that we have today, where we have essentially a partnership between the USA and the Russians. To my mind we should steer towards a similar situation, and do everything we can to prevent the spread of the technology.”

  The Secretary of State then gave her thoughts: “At the present time we have all kinds of initiatives underway between ourselves and the Russians aimed at reducing tension and increasing cooperation. Before the present administration the Russian Air Force had started routine patrols of their strategic bombers in international air space around the USA. Today these patrols are becoming more infrequent. I would like to see the USA use this situation as an opportunity to foster more cooperation in the future. I prefer to see us turn a blind eye to the gruesome way in which they got themselves into this position. It has taken a lot of humility on the part of the Russian Government to come and ask us for help in this way. I would like to see that humility rewarded with the hand of friendship and cooperation.”

  The Director of National Intelligence then spoke again: “That’s a good point. Taking all these points into consideration, I propose that we rescue the cosmonauts, but ask for a gentlemen’s agreement that: