The Glass Lady

by Douglas Savage

  “Then, Skipper, let’s do it!” Jacob Enright beamed, filling his youthful face with teeth.

  The weary Colonel thought about tomorrow, which was already two hours old. In only six hours, they would again get their feet wet in the Johnson Center’s huge, neutral buoyancy pool to simulate working upon their deadly target in watery weightlessness. With his mind full of slow-moving, exhaustion-numbed thoughts, the Colonel faced his excited partner. Jack Enright’s boyish grin infected the Colonel’s deeply lined, pilot’s face.

  “You betcha, Number One,” the Colonel smiled as he pried his long body from the cold, damp cockpit.

  4

  December 15th

  “Moscow wants its piece of the pie.” Admiral Hauch shrugged wearily. Three nights of midnight meetings were darkly written upon his face. “Joe, would you, please?”

  Joseph Vazzo extracted a notebook from his briefcase. Opening the binder inscribed “Confidential Cables,” he addressed the midnight assembly of officers and diplomats.

  The ventilators filled the plastic cave with the chill, scentless sigh of filtered air. The man from State adjusted his bifocals.

  “Following our Vienna connection, the Soviets informed us through direct communications that they are agreed to maintaining a secrecy lid on LACE, but at a price.”

  Even the somnolent Marine stenographer opened his eyes to hear what his fingers were tapping as the diplomat continued.

  “The Russians will observe a news quarantine only if they are permitted to have a cosmonaut crew on-station in space for the Intelsat-6 operation. I am advised that a Soyuz, Block-TM spacecraft is already stacked and ready for launch . . .”

  “Do the bastards understand the risk to their crew, Mr. Secretary?” demanded a Colonel in shirtsleeves.

  “May I suggest, sir, that our colleagues behind the Kremlin wall understand the risks of LACE, and that they did even before your special projects people.” The graying diplomat glared coldly over his glasses toward the officer. “We believe that’s also why Moscow is sending their people up in the Soyuz-TM spacecraft. The TM version is new, but the basic Soyuz design is old, reliable—and expendable. They are not risking their new, more efficient, but radically more expensive Buran space shuttle.”

  “Thanks, Joe. The new crew of Parker and Enright received their initial briefing earlier this evening. Our people here and at NASA’s Office of Space Science in Houston are confident that our substitute crew is the likely choice and in need of virtually no retraining. After all,” said the Admiral as he lifted a coffee mug to his round face, “Parker and Enright have trained for months for this precise mission. We’re only changing their target and the applications package to be attached to it onorbit . . .”

  “Not to mention that your mislaid communications satellites could only have winked at them,” Deputy Under Secretary Vazzo offered dryly. “LACE can crisp them . . . and the Shuttle Endeavor . . . and the Soviets in Soyuz.”

  “Joe, Joe,” muttered the tired admiral, pleading from the head of the table.

  “Admiral,” interrupted a gray-suited National Security Council representative.

  “Pete?”

  “NSC remains curious about Endeavor’s extraordinary turnaround schedule. How confident are you about going up in three and one-half days?”

  “I think the KSC people are better informed than I on that one. Colonel Stermer?”

  “Sir: as Commander Rusinko pointed out last night, Endeavor is already rolled out to Pad 39-A at Kennedy. With a fully automated checkout and countdown, the LPS—that’s Launch Processing System—can get her off in 80 hours. That’s not our critical weakness. Let me be specific.”

  As the liaison officer between NASA and Defense shuffled through his stack of papers, a dozen hands raised coffee mugs toward faces sagging with midnight fatigue.

  “Systems integration is a serious constraint on our timeline. Endeavor’s payload bay is stuffed with the communication satellite payload. We must get the bird out of Shuttle and lay in the Mylar reflector blankets. Also, the Payload Assist Module and an OSS pallet with a plasma diagnostics package must be mated, connected, integrated, and checked out in the payload bay . . .” The speaker paused to catch his breath. “Ordinarily, this complex operation would be executed with Shuttle in the horizontal position in the Orbiter Processing Facility. To go in three days, this operation must be done with the system stacked vertically on the pad. We are pushing the time-line, pushing the structural limitations, and pushing the launch team.”

  “Dale, will your people be configured for vehicle closeout in time?”

  “In time and on time. Barely.”

  “Good. Joe, what about integration with the Russians once Endeavor is airborne?”

  “The Soviets will launch a little after midnight our time the morning of the 18th. As I understand it, Shuttle will launch at 10 o’clock that morning Eastern Time. Soyuz should arrive at the target about 90 minutes later, just before Shuttle’s rendezvous with LACE. Because the SoyuzTM has rather limited, orbital maneuvering capabilities due to her small fuel reserves, they will need the whole eleven hours to shoot their rendezvous with LACE. Their rendezvous will require just less than eight orbits.”

  “What about air-to-air communications with the Russians?”

  “General Breyfogle, there probably will not be any Soviet comm with our ground stations. They use very different radio frequencies from our FM channels, as you know. Soyuz and Endeavor may have air-to-air voice contact by UHF radio, normally only used by Shuttle for the last minutes of the approach and landing sequence. Am I correct, Admiral?”

  “As always, Joe.”

  “What about the risk to Soyuz from LACE? Can Soyuz be damaged by another lucky shot by LACE, Mr. Secretary?”

  “We don’t know for certain, Major. Our best intelligence suggests that all Soviet offensive missiles and military satellites are ‘hardened,’ as we say, against laser attack. We estimate their offensive missiles for the last few years have been hardened against laser radiation along the lines of two-tenths kilojoules per square centimeter. That is a measurement of laser focusing energy. Their warheads are hardened against seven kilojoules per square centimeter. That may insulate Soyuz sufficiently if it is also hardened to the warhead range of protection. As most Soyuz and Salyut space station missions are military in nature, we can only presume that they are hardened. That kind of armor may account for their limited maneuverability. We are not sure.”

  “Seems you are not sure about a lot of things, Mr. Secretary.”

  “That may be, Commander Rusinko . . . But our people have never shot down a Russian satellite with an offensive weapon which was not supposed to be there in the first place.”

  Joseph Vazzo spoke through clenched teeth at the silent Navy officer. The Admiral shuffled his papers and all eyes were on him.

  “Gentlemen, it’s two o’clock in the morning and we’re all a little tired and short on patience . . . One more detail: What about handling the press on this one—a joint space flight out of the blue and a bumped Shuttle crew, all in three days? How are we going to ice the cake? Mr. Young?”

  “Admiral, we’ve worked out this scenario at the Cape. Tomorrow morning, we will issue to the wire services a routine statement announcing an emergency repair mission to the lost Intelsat-6 satellite. No press conference, no hoopla. We’ll announce the mission on the premise of a sudden degradation of the Intelsat’s orbit. We will analogize the situation to the unexpected re-entry of our Skylab space station over Australia in ’79. We’re still smarting from that one. The Soviet participation will be announced by stating they will be there to confirm that Intelsat does not re-enter the atmosphere over Soviet air-space. We’ll thank the Russians for their rapid, international cooperation. A true handshake in space equal to the joint Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flown in 1975. All quite tidy.”

  “About tidiness. How is it that the Russians are ready to go so quickly, and with an English-speaking crew?”
r />   “Maybe Joe can respond to that one?”

  “We’ve wondered about that, too, General. Our theory is that Soyuz was already set to go, probably to back up a ferry Cosmos, such as Cosmos 1267, which is their killer-satellite series. They were probably already targeted for LACE. As for their English-speaking crew, they may have changed crews just as we have.”

  “They wouldn’t dare go after LACE alone . . .

  “Dare what, Colonel? Wouldn’t dare attempt to take down a rogue satellite? Do I have to remind you of the applicable law of the sea here?” Joseph Vazzo rubbed his tired eyes. “Our crime here is nothing less than space piracy . . .”

  “Piracy, Mr. Secretary?”

  “Complete with the black flag, as far as our space treaty with the Russians is concerned, Admiral.”

  “Early for a swim, isn’t it, Jack?”

  The brawny technician smiled at Jacob Enright, who was raising his fish-bowl helmet to his head. The clock above them on the wall read 7 a.m., Houston time.

  “You know that the Colonel and I work the swing shift, Chief,” Enright grinned.

  “From the poop I hear upstairs, I’d say your night-shift days are about over. What say?” The big man fiddled with a hose connection on Enright’s bulky white pressure suit.

  “Think so?”

  “Poop has it you ’n’ Colonel are flying, and soon. Somethin’ hush-hush.” The smiling deck-crew chief spoke toward Parker, who stood in his faded flightsuit beside Enright. “You boys must know someone.”

  “Reckon so,” the Colonel drawled.

  With his helmet secured to his full suit, Jacob Enright balanced on the wire basket at the side of the Johnson Center’s neutral buoyancy pool. Submerged 40 feet deep in the 1.3-million-gallon pool, a full-size mockup of an open Shuttle payload bay shimmered. Both Enright and Parker felt an eerie twinge reminding them of Monday’s simulated landing which ended in the drink, at least on paper.

  Strapped to Enright’s back was a full-size model of the Martin Marietta Manned Maneuvering Unit, the MMU.

  Ordinarily, shuttle crews train in watery, simulated weightlessness in the pool at the Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville. But there was no time to fly from Houston to Alabama.

  “Tell you boys another thing,” the technician said as he gave Enright a cheery thumbs-up. “That ain’t no Intelsat down there, either.”

  The engineer regarded the cylindrical black hulk which floated 10 yards to the side and slightly above the sunken payload bay’s sill, near where the open bay door would be in space.

  Neither pilot replied.

  “Basement, please, ladies’ intimate apparel.” The voice crackling from the wall-mounted loudspeaker belonged to the space-suited Enright, who perched ankle-deep in water upon the grating of the steel elevator at poolside.

  The lift groaned and descended into the clear water. Enright’s helmet just cut the surface as a Navy safety diver below the surface reached up for the weights fastened to the ankles of Enright’s bulky EVA suit. Two divers on either side of Enright steered him from the submerged lift toward the Shuttle payload bay. With one diver holding each of Enright’s legs, they guided his feet into the foot restraints bolted to the bay’s floor.

  “Don’t make a wish,” Enright’s voice laughed over the wall speaker as each diver held one of his legs.

  Behind the neckring of the suit, a few bubbles percolated upward from the MMU’s air supply. Quickly, the bubbles stopped. As in space, the cumbersome manned maneuvering unit on the pilot’s back did not vent his breath overboard.

  With weights precisely positioned about his ankles, thighs, wrists, and lower back, Enright’s air-filled space suit was perfectly balanced in the water. He was, in fact, weightless, as he would be 130 nautical miles into the airless sky.

  With his feet wedged into the foot restraints, Enright let his body float backward until he was nearly horizontal in the open bay. His heavily gloved hands floated before his helmet. The two safety divers floated at his elbows. Behind them, two NASA utility divers straddled each ledge of the 15-foot-wide shuttle bay.

  “Okay, Chief. All set down here.” Enright peered over his neckring at the dials and controls strapped to his small chestpack. As with the helmet he would wear in space during extravehicular activity, the bottom portion of his clear faceplate on the helmet was optically ground to magnify the chestpack dials under his chin. “Air at 28 PSI, suit inlet temp at 65, outlet at 75 degrees, nitrogen at 2500 PSI each tank. Don’t feel any fish inside the suit. Real snug here, Chief, and ready to engage the MMU.”

  “Copy, Jack,” the deck chief replied into his microphone headset from behind his poolside console. “Go for MMU activation.”

  At the chiefs side, Colonel Parker scanned the console’s digital numerics relaying Enright’s pulse and suit temperatures from the water.

  In space, the MMU maneuvers about by 24 compressed nitrogen jets. But in the water simulation, the MMU scoots around propelled by water jets. Enright’s nitrogen gauge on the chestpack was one more simulation, one more meter to read too high or too low, one more caution-and-warning light to flash in simulated catastrophe.

  “ ’Kay, Chief,” the speaker crackled. “Powering up.”

  Strapping the 300-pound MMU to one’s back, a pilot nestles his behind into it. Like sitting in Grandfather’s great chair, the pilot becomes part of the MMU.

  A boxy wing projected from the upper corners of the MMU outward along each side of Enright’s helmet. Each of the eye-level booms contained forward-shining work lights. A tiny thruster nozzle was positioned on each wing, level with the pilot’s jaw. In space, each small jet fires nitrogen gas with one and a half pounds of thrust to maneuver the pilot in a backflip. Two similar nozzles faced outward from the side of each neck-level projection. These thrusters maneuvered the pilot either sideways or in a slow roll, clockwise or counter-clockwise. At the outside of each of Enright’s knees, two matching wings projected from the base of the MMU backpack. Each of these pods contains one knee-level, forward-thrusting jet and two outside-thrusting jets. One jet in each of the head wings and in each of the knee-level wings points backward.

  “Telescoping arms deployed,” Enright called from 35 feet under water. From beneath each armpit, he adjusted an arm-length boom which locked into place under each of his arms. These booms fit the length of the space suit’s arms. The pilot cradled each of his forearms upon the white arms of the MMU which projected nearly perpendicular from the backpack. At the end of each arm, Enright grabbed a T-shaped control handle between his gloved fingers.

  “Rotation Hand Controller engaged.” Enright’s right hand flicked the switch, energizing the MMU’s right-arm control handle. This handle would control his in-place attitude. By firing the water jets with the handle in his right hand, his wrist movements would “pitch” him forward or backward, “roll” him clockwise or counter-clockwise, or “yaw” his heels sideways left or right.

  “THC engaged,” Enright called topside.

  “Understand Translational Hand Controller activated,” the chief confirmed. In his gloved left hand, Enright gripped the translational T-handle which would activate the MMU’s jets to shove him through the water upward or downward, left or right, and forward or backward.

  One of the divers slowly circled Enright and carefully touched the pilot’s helmet neckring and hoses locked to the suit from the PLSS—the Portable Life Support System backpack permanently attached to the suit’s upper torso. The PLSS pack was nestled inside the MMU backpack as it would be in space. The diver gave Enright a wet thumbs-up sign.

  “Ready, Chief,” Enright radioed over his single umbilical line, which reached to the surface and to the deck chiefs console. There would be no such safety tether in space. Colonel Parker’s face moved from the console’s dials and caution lights to the shimmering image of his sunken partner.

  “Go to secure the flying grapple fixture, Jack.”

  “Rogo, Chief.”

  The four wat
chful divers gave Enright room to twist his cumbersome body attached to the bay’s foot restraints.

  Gently, the submerged astronaut leaned toward a breadbox-sized fixture mounted on a tubular brace in front of his position. Facing the chest-high structure, the pilot carefully grabbed the grapple device in his gloves. He pulled his body toward it until he aligned his chestpack with the device’s corners. The grapple fixture snapped into place upon Enright’s chestpack brackets.

  “Grapple fixture secured,” Enright called. “Coming free.”

  Enright pushed a release lever atop the grapple unit, and the fixture parted from its bay support stand.

  “See you free, Jack,” the chief confirmed.

  Flexing his weighted ankles, Enright straightened his body. Each of his weighted arms found the MMU’s forearm cradles. Each of his gloved hands clutched a T-handle.

  “And we’re flying,” Enright called as his left hand moved the THC handle. Water jets squirted from the base of the MMU.

  “TVC direct, Chief.”

  “Copy, Thrust Vector Control to direct, Jack.”

  The jets thrusted upward as long as Enright pushed the left-hand T-handle upward. The pilot rose. Ten feet above the open bay’s floor, Enright fired downward-shooting jets behind his ears. The flier stopped and floated near two windows in the submerged simulated flightdeck.

  “You’re a tad out of my field, Jack,” the wall speaker crackled with a garbled, water-filled voice. The diver behind the windows in the rear of the boilerplate shuttle flightdeck peered through the window which faced aft into the open bay. “Only have your feet, Jack.”

  “Okay. Comin’ down.” With a downward push on the THC handle, Enright dropped 12 inches and arrested his descent with a brief burst from the downward-thrusting jets beside his knees.

  “Gotcha now, Jack,” the diver gurgled behind his window.

  “RHC checkout,” Enright called. Topside, the deck chief touched the digital readout of Enright’s pulse. Colonel Parker followed the chiefs fingers. The numbers read 80.