Obviously this office was a honeytrap, designed to impress visiting decision makers. Like me. I suppose I should be flattered.
‘We’re alone here?’
‘Doctor Dana, this is a big day for us – the first integrated test firing – and I particularly wanted you to be here to see it. As my guest. Come; sit down. Let me take your briefcase. Would you like some coffee? – or perhaps cold beer –’
Dana accepted a glass of orange juice – chilled, it felt like, almost to freezing – and he sat on a stackable chair.
Udet was already moving into what appeared to be a standard sales pitch. ‘I want you to be aware of the full background of our SRB project,’ Udet said smoothly. He pointed to a chart showing the intended launch profile. ‘The Solid Rocket Boosters will stand one hundred and fifty feet tall from engine bell to nose, and will be twelve feet in diameter; in the Saturn VB’s launch configuration four of them will be strapped to the core MS-IC first stage. The SRBs will supplement the MS-IC’s thrust with more than five million pounds of thrust combined, making the VB capable of raising more than four hundred thousand pounds of payload to low Earth orbit: that is, twice as much as the base Saturn V. The MS-IC itself features many upgraded features, including the new F-1A main engines, manufactured with new techniques and materials. The SRBs will be the largest solid-fueled rockets in the world – and, for economy, the first designed for reuse …’
‘And the first used on a manned booster.’
‘Yes, that is so.’
Dana opened his briefcase and spread a briefing document across his lap. ‘Doctor Udet, our time is limited. Can we get to specifics? It is the launch sequence which particularly concerns me.’
Udet’s eyes were pale blue behind his glasses. The German studied Dana, analytically, as if computing the way forward. Then, every movement evidently calculated, he sat down beside Dana; he sat easily, with his arms open, in a friendly and welcoming posture. ‘I understand your concerns, Doctor Dana; I have read the memoranda you have prepared for Bert Seger. My purpose today is to alleviate those concerns – to assure you that they are groundless.’
Despite himself, Dana felt disoriented by Udet’s control, his Prussian-aristocratic command. Dana’s glasses had slipped; he pushed them back, and tried to speak forcefully. ‘And my concern is that no compromise in safety is being made, for the sake of subsidiary goals such as reusability, or schedule, or economy.’
‘Of course. And if I –’
‘Can we return to the question of the launch?’ Fumbling in his case, he extracted a brief, handwritten note. ‘I have completed a preliminary analysis of some failure modes during launch. I will of course document this formally.’
‘I’m sure we have considered every failure mode, Doctor Dana.’
‘I’m sure you have too,’ Dana murmured. ‘But perhaps we could review this. As an example: it appears that just before launch the Solid Rocket Boosters, and the rest of the stack, will be subject to what my son calls a “stretch” – when the MS-IC’s engines fire up a few seconds before the release of the stack’s hold-down posts.’
Udet’s smile was thin. ‘I am familiar with the astronauts’ term.’
‘The structural loads stored in the assembly by this “stretch” will cause the whole stack to vibrate on release, shivering back and forth for the first few moments of flight, with a period of three or four seconds.’ Dana prodded at a part of the page he had underlined heavily. ‘According to this rough outline, you will see that the greatest stresses on the joints of your segmented rockets are likely to occur during the “stretch” and the subsequent bounce; I believe the stresses at that time might even exceed those of the period of maximum dynamic pressure during the flight.’
‘The joints are designed to resist such pressures. All of this is under consideration,’ Udet said, sounding a little testy.
‘I’m sure it is. But I will want to see documentary evidence of tests before I could consider signing off the Critical Design Review. I have further recommendations.’ He dug out more pieces of paper. ‘I would like to see the rubber of the segment seals replaced with a composite, temperature-resistant material. The field joints should be redesigned. All of this will reduce the possible flexing of the joints during the “stretch” by many orders of magnitude. In addition, viewing ports for launch-site testing and electrical heating for the joints should be installed …’
As he went through his points, Udet listened politely, imperturbable.
A new announcement, incomprehensible to Dana, came over the sound system, and Udet turned his head to listen. When he turned back to Dana his smile was restored, creasing his papery cheeks. ‘We will talk further,’ Udet said. ‘But the test fire will begin in a few minutes. If you will accompany me – you may bring your drink if you wish …’
Dana followed. Oddly, he felt as if he had acted without manners – as if it had been crass to raise all these niggling objections, on a day of such visionary significance.
Udet drove Dana out to the test range, in an open cart like a golf buggy.
They stopped perhaps a mile from the booster. Udet, with an outstretched hand, helped Dana from the cart, and then to climb down a short metal ladder into an open trench. The trench was maybe four feet deep, a crude affair lined with rough-finished concrete. A technician handed Dana a set of goggles and a white hard-hat.
The test booster was a cylinder of slim white, lying flat against the orange ground. The booster was strapped to the Earth by huge rectangular frames, and its nose was capped by an immense, open half-sphere. As if it is a fallen god, pinned down, lest it escape. The field joints between the casing segments gleamed gold in the sun, which was now climbing toward noon. The big engine bell flared toward a low hill.
Men walked around the booster, dwarfed by its white flanks; instruments and cameras, mounted on delicate-looking tripods, clustered about the rig, and there were probes inserted into the black mouth of the engine bell itself.
Udet tapped Dana’s shoulder and leaned toward him. ‘We still have a couple of minutes. Let us speak freely, you and I.’
Dana studied him suspiciously.
Udet said, ‘I want to talk about risk. I think this lies at the heart of the debate we are engaged in. We have accumulated, in this country, the best part of two decades’ experience in designing and operating manned spacecraft systems. And in that time, the concept of risk has –’ Uncharacteristically Udet hesitated, evidently searching for the right word.
‘“Evolved?”’ Dana suggested dryly.
Udet arched an eyebrow. ‘Very well. “Evolved.” We have found it necessary to develop principles more sophisticated than simple admonitions to “protect the crew at all costs,” and so forth.’
‘“We?”’
‘Yes,’ Udet snapped. ‘We who are responsible, ultimately, for the safety of the young men we loft into orbit, as opposed to those – with all respect – who merely stand to one side. Such as yourself.
‘The evaluation of “risk” itself evolves during the progress of a mission. Consider this. The Apollo 12 booster was hit by lightning during launch. The spacecraft reached orbit safely, but Apollo’s electrical systems had been severely battered, and it was impossible to check if the parachutes in the Command Module would function correctly. On balance, it was decided to continue the mission; once we have survived a launch, however problematic, if we do not proceed we must subject another crew to the greater risks of a further launch to reach the same point. And as for the parachutes, if a return to Earth would kill Conrad and his crew, it may as well be after a lunar landing as before.’
‘I know the story, Doctor Udet. What is your point?’
‘Simply that this whole business –’ Udet waved a hand ‘– is just the realization, the fabrication in metal and rubber and cryogenic liquids, of a dream. A dream which you and I share. But it is not a dream which can be achieved without risk. Our mission, therefore, is not to eliminate risk but to manage it. And it is th
is perspective which must inform your review of the project …’
Dana felt uncertain, once more, in the face of Udet’s calm competence and assurance. Could he really oppose this man’s powerful conviction?
Over a remote PA, a countdown began. Udet stood upright in the trench, his silver hair shining in the sunlight. It is for moments like this that Udet is alive, Dana thought.
‘Later,’ Udet murmured to Dana, ‘I would like you show you the manufacture of the propellant, here at Wasatch; the compound is mixed in great bowls and then poured straight into the casing segments. It has the look and feel of rubber …’ Thirteen. Twelve. The rocket was clear of personnel now; it lay, alone and shining, on the desert floor.
‘… The final compound will ignite only under extreme heat, and is not sensitive to static, friction or impact. It is very safe, you see.’
Six. Five.
‘Indeed, a small rocket motor is required to fire inside the casing to ignite the propellant. And once ignited there is no need for pumps, or cryogenic storage; a solid rocket simply burns …’
Yes. And, once lit, it can’t be doused.
Two. One.
White flame lanced from the engine bell, in an instant of eerie silence. The flame reached out toward the bland hillside behind the tethered rocket, and to Dana, dazzled, it was as if the desert sunlight had been dimmed, the blue and orange of the landscape leached to gray by comparison with this fire – rocket light, hotter than the surface of stars – which humans had brought to Earth.
And now the noise reached him.
At first there was a deep rumbling which seemed to emerge from the depths of the Earth. And then came a fierce crackling, a pulse of high-frequency sound that was like the tearing of an immense sheet of canvas, a sound that flapped his clothes and blew at his hair. He felt the ground shake, as if suffering repeated blows from a great invisible hammer.
Udet leaned over toward him and shouted. ‘This is the dream, Doctor Dana.’ He stared at Dana, his hair mussed and coated with orange dust. ‘Zero to twenty million horse power, in less than a second! This is what I wanted you to see; this is what we are working for, you and I; this is what you must always bear in mind, as you make your studies, and file your reports.’
Dana felt overwhelmed by the man’s intensity. Of course, Udet was right. It was indeed a dream, a dream of rocket light, made real in the deserts of the western United States, before the eyes of two battered old men from Europe. The dream of the Mittelwerk.
The flames from the captive rocket continued to plume, and smoke billowed against the hillside, stained orange and gray by desert dust.
February, 1979
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston
The room was dark and warm. Several of the trainees around York had their feet up on their desks. One – Bob Gold, a big-eared Texan, a few feet ahead of York – had his head resting on the fold of fat at the back of his shaven neck, and he was snoring in a thin, bird-like cackle.
The instructor at the front fumbled another Vu-graph slide onto the projector. The focus of the projector was out, so the image was blurred at the center. The instructor, an astronaut called Ralph Gershon, picked up his extensible pointer and tapped at the projection screen, making it oscillate and blurring the image further.
Gershon didn’t fumble like this because he was nervous, York perceived wearily, but because he didn’t care enough to concentrate hard on what he was doing.
‘This here is the ECLSS of your basic MEM configuration,’ Gershon said. ‘Take a good look at it. Maybe your life is going to depend on knowing your way around this baby some day.’
The new slide was a block diagram of bewildering complexity, covered with spidery arrows and puzzling acronyms. This new picture showed no resemblance, as far as York could see, to anything she’d been shown before.
The snoozer ahead of York gulped, and chewed on a loose piece of phlegm.
‘Now,’ said Gershon, tapping the diagram again, ‘here you got your basic ECLSS concept, which is likely to fly whatever choices we make about the rest of the MEM’s engineering. You got your standard two-bed molecular sieve here for cee-oh-two scrubbing. And the aitch-two-oh management is by means of this multifiltration unit here.’ He pronounced the prefix mult-eye. ‘That supplements the output of your fuel cells. And your atmospheric gases are cryogenically stored, of course. As opposed to being stored under pressure.’ Gershon blinked around the room. ‘Anybody figure out why that is? Because it’s a better weight-to-volume ratio. And we don’t operate any kind of oh-two recovery system here. We take all our breathing air along with us, and just vent the waste. You want to tell me why? Because the MEM is a short-duration craft, and the weight of the recovery systems wouldn’t be justified …’
York realized that this trick of Gershon’s – of asking a question of his class and carelessly answering it before anyone got a chance to speak – was slowly driving her crazy.
Gershon told the class they should complete the copy of the diagram in their books, and he wandered out of the room in the direction of the coffee machine.
Although Gershon clearly knew his way around MEM designs, he was not a trained educator. He was a short, wiry, black man in his mid-thirties. Apparently he hailed from Iowa, but he’d been hanging around Houston long enough for a Texan drawl to color the way he pronounced his vowels, making the acronyms even tougher to cut through; ECLSS came out like ‘Aye she ale esh esh …’ And after so many years here Ralph Gershon was just another rookie astronaut, still waiting for his first flight, ploughing through another lousy assignment, lecturing to a new class of bright-eyed hopefuls.
Gershon was a depressing role model, for York.
She flicked desultorily through her coloring book. That was what the students called the volumes that were passed out at the start of each lecture; they were fat books containing diagrams, no text. The diagrams on the Vu-graph charts were supposed to be identical to the diagrams in the books, except for the colors, and the rookies – all of them highly qualified specialists – had to work like grade school students, coloring in their copies of the diagrams with pens. They were supposed to memorize every transistor and valve and duct and pipe and wiring conduit in every goddamn spaceship, planned or actual.
Coloring books were a fantastically dumb way to teach anybody anything, she’d quickly decided. And besides, all the systems knowledge in the world wouldn’t have helped Jim Lovell’s Apollo 13 crew when that oxygen tank blew.
And you also had the problem that the MEM design in particular was a moving target. The MEM was being built in a different, more leisurely manner from previous generations of spacecraft, with the basic research – into biconic shapes, ballutes, plug-nozzle rocket engines – being proven before the first ships were assembled. It was all a marked contrast to Apollo, and, she supposed, a lot more logical; but because of that the ECLSS diagram in her book didn’t match in all its detail the diagram on the screen, which in turn, probably, didn’t match the reality of what anybody would build, one day. So why did she need to fill her head with all this crap?
It was all part of their ascan syllabus, a document that was, incredibly, set out like a flowchart. You followed the flow, doing a one-hour module on subsystems here, a couple of hours of reading on space medicine there, until you passed barriers in the flowchart which proved you’d reached another level of skill. It was formulaic, an education system designed by an engineer, not a teacher.
It was typical NASA, really. Not that she could get anyone to listen to that kind of complaint.
The rookies got to bring in their own pens, though, and York derived some ignoble pleasure in producing books full of Day-Glo orange engine bells, puce oxygen tanks, and electric blue reaction control solenoids.
After the class broke up she ran into Ben Priest. Ben was heavily caught up in the training for his own first flight: Apollo-N, the NERVA 2 orbital proving mission, planned for the end of next year.
Today he was frust
rated too, hot as hell and irritated after spending all day in a niggling integrated sim.
For some reason, the usual silent barrier between the two of them wasn’t working today. They just stood in the corridor, close together, facing each other, Ben’s shirt crumpled and open at the neck. Maybe it was their shared frustration. Anyhow, today she just knew.
They got in Ben’s car and went back to her apartment.
It was their third time, in as many years.
‘Those damn coloring books. It’s like learning to drive a car in a classroom,’ she growled. She took another mouthful of Coke and rested the chilled, dew-coated can against her chest.
Ben, lying back in her bed, laughed and lifted his own drink, a Budweiser. ‘Well, if you’re sick of the classroom, grab time in the simulators.’
‘Christ, Ben, we can’t get near the sims. That’s another problem. They’re too damn full of astronauts. I mean real astronauts,’ she said bitterly. ‘Dumb fighter jocks like you, who are really getting to fly.’
‘Never mind that. Find time anyway.’
‘The sims are booked until three a.m.!’
He looked impatient. He pulled a sheet up over his flat stomach. ‘Then come in at three a.m. What do you want, Natalie? Nobody said it was going to be easy. You got to get ahead by getting ahead around here. Put yourself out. Make them notice you. Bang on Chuck Jones’s door, demanding assignments.’
She grunted. ‘It’s a damn stupid way to run a space program.’
‘Maybe so, but it’s our way.’
Lying there he looked oddly restless, though she wasn’t sure how she could tell. She knew he was going to have to go back to JSC later this evening. But she felt a need to keep him here, to keep talking. She was imposing on him, but Ben was the only intimate York had out here.
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