Voyage

by Stephen Baxter

  Muldoon sketched the guidelines for the meeting.

  ‘I want you to focus on a baseline mission profile of a crew of four, with a thirty-day stopover, to be launched for the 1985 opportunity. It will be a very different mission from what we thought we were doing previously: all we have available now is chemical technology, and it is going to need some smart thinking from your trajectory planners.

  ‘We need self-discipline. I can’t emphasize that enough. The objective is to devise a bare-bones program based on what must be done, and what can be done based on the technology we have, not on what you’d like the program to do. The resultant plan, including the schedule, is going to have to be honest: no promises we can’t keep, no wishful thinking …’

  And slowly, through her vague numbness, York began to realize what Muldoon was talking about, what the subject of this task force actually was.

  Going to Mars. Maybe it’s still possible.

  For the first time since Ben’s death, York felt her interest quickening.

  After a week, it seemed to Muldoon – amid the blizzard of computer printout, technical journals, Vu-graph foils, flipchart pages, half-eaten sandwiches and paper coffee cups – that something feasible was beginning to emerge.

  His gut instinct was confirmed. We really do have something here.

  He began to understand why Michaels had selected him for this job.

  The Mars program had dominated the development of NASA since 1972 … No, Muldoon reflected, more than that: it had warped the Agency’s post-Apollo growth, and that of all its programs. The Agency had become obsessed with one largely unspoken goal: men on Mars. Everything else was subordinated: the Earth-orbit programs were tailored to preparing for the long-haul flights to come, the unmanned programs were either canned or cut around to serve operational purposes.

  So he could see why Michaels had put so much trust in him, Muldoon. Because he was a monomaniac too. His own obsessions were a kind of scale model of the Agency’s.

  He was the ideal champion.

  After his couple of weeks, Muldoon had enough to put in front of the Administrator.

  Muldoon had Josephson call a meeting in front of Michaels, with Udet, Gregory Dana, representatives of the contractors, and even a couple of tame Senators: all zealots for the new, embryonic program.

  Muldoon summarized the proposed mission mode. ‘We still need an orbital transfer booster to thrust the ship from Earth to Mars and back. That was the role that had been planned for the S-NB.’ He looked at Michaels. ‘But, even without the S-NB, we have an option, Fred. A chemical technology option. We can use an enhancement of the S-II second stage of the Saturn V. We have design studies by Rockwell dating back to 1972 showing how the S-II could be upgraded for such a role, by providing it with restartable engines, insulation, course adjustment verniers, docking facilities …’

  Michaels grunted. ‘Yeah. And those studies have been comprehensively rubbished by those bastards at Marshall since their inception.’

  Udet kept his eyes fixed on Muldoon’s foil, and did not react.

  Dana said, ‘I would need confirmation that development of the S-II is possible in the timescale.’

  Michaels nodded seriously. ‘You’ll get it, Doctor.’ He made a note to himself on a piece of paper.

  Muldoon put up another foil. ‘Fuel. If we assume that hydrogen/oxygen will be used, we’ve calculated that we will need a total of a thousand tons to depart from the Earth, three hundred tons to brake at Mars, and depart subsequendy; and seventy tons to brake at Earth orbit. That’s one thousand, three hundred and seventy tons in Earth orbit at the start of the mission. It would be a lot more if we didn’t have Doctor Dana’s gravity assist maneuver to save fuel. Now, the largest mass we can loft to orbit, with the Saturn VB, is of the order of four hundred thousand pounds – about one hundred and eighty tons …’

  ‘The Saturn VB has yet to fly,’ Dana pointed out.

  ‘I realize that.’ Muldoon changed his foil. ‘But this is assumptive planning, Doctor; we do have time to remedy the problems in that area. Here’s how the mission would proceed. We would deliver, first, an enhanced S-II to orbit, empty. The S-II would be docked to a new facility, which we will call the Orbital Assembly Facility. This would be a simple affair, just struts and attitude motors; it would be put into an orbit close to Skylab.

  ‘Next, supplementary fuel tanks would be orbited, by unmanned VB launches. Each of these External Tanks will contain, when fully loaded, seven hundred tons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, securely insulated. The Tanks would be docked with the Assembly Facility. Pods of fuel will be brought up by subsequent Saturn VB flights, and dumped into the Tanks and the S-II stage itself. In all we’ll need a minimum of ten Saturn VB launches. Remember, the whole purpose of the Saturn VB configuration is its reusability – we can refurbish the four Solid Rocket Boosters and fly them again – which will reduce costs per launch. We are already devising operational facilities which will allow fast pad turnaround and rapid refurbishment of flight articles. And we can combine the fuel-delivery flights with other objectives, such as the flight tests of the Mars Excursion Module. The MEM is the main undefined article, by the way; we’ll issue a Request For Proposals in a few weeks, if we get approval …’

  Josephson orchestrated a series of follow-up presentations; there were tables and charts showing costings, development and testing timetables. The funding slides were based on the assumption that there would be an incremental program of test shots of the various components and configurations in cislunar space, leading up to an initial set of three operational missions. The presenters showed how the new technology could be extended beyond the first landings to be used for a return to the Moon, establishing a Mars base, orbital missions to Venus; the new program would serve as a base, not just for a one-shot Mars trip, but a new expansion into the solar system.

  Michaels’s jowly, politician’s face was free of expression as he listened; some of the time he sat with his eyes closed, almost as if he was falling asleep.

  As the presentations closed, Michaels massaged the bridge of his nose and the pads of fat under his rheumy eyes.

  He asked Muldoon to stay behind.

  ‘You’ve done a damn good job, Joe. What you’ve brought me is convincing. And I’m under pressure from the White House already to come up with some such proposal as this.’

  Muldoon felt his heart pump a little harder at that.

  Michaels reached into his desk and pulled out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and two glasses; he poured them both a shot. ‘Tell me what you think of NASA’s long-term plans.’

  Muldoon thought it over, and began to frame a complex, considered answer. Then he decide to short cut.

  ‘What long-term plans?’

  Michaels grunted. ‘You got that right. You got all kinds of goddamn schemes coming out of the think tanks in the centers. Well, that’s fine. But I’ve always resisted, hard, any demand for a firm long-term strategy for the Agency. In all my time here. You know why? Because there’s so much damned opposition to the manned space program. Always has been, always will be. And every plan I produce – every damn statement – is a political fall guy, just a target for the opposition to shoot at. I learned all this from Jim Webb, back in the ’60s. Webb defended Apollo at all costs – even at the expense of its own sequel. He knew what success with Apollo would mean: even more, its failure or cancelation. That’s partly responsible for the mess we’re in now. But, Joe, we’ve got to learn the lesson. Even if it means we’re mortgaging the future …’

  Michaels poured them more drinks and talked some more, about tactics, detailed aspects of the proposals, about obtaining support from the military, the aerospace industry, other lobbies.

  Slowly, Muldoon began to figure out that Michaels was thinking aloud, groping for a way forward. He’s talking tactics. He may be tired, but he isn’t played out yet; he’s telling us what he’s going to have to do to make this happen. He’s buying it.

  A
fter Michaels’s meeting, Udet sought out Dana. ‘Doctor Dana. We must speak. At heart we two are, I believe, at one in our ambition.’

  Dana’s voice was disconcertingly thin, his eyes unreadable behind his glasses. ‘Once I would have said so, I think. But, I am now not so sure. Now, I am prepared to accept that I will not see humans travel to Mars in my lifetime – if the attempt incurs unacceptable risk.’

  Yes, yes. But you did, nevertheless, accept Muldoon’s invitation to participate in this task group. If the dream was so feeble in you as you protest, then you would not even be here.

  Udet felt oddly exhilarated; he felt a surge of kinship, almost, with this odd, bitter little man. But the battle is won, Hans. Do not endanger it with recklessness.

  Udet disregarded the prompting of caution.

  ‘Doctor Dana. I think we must address what is unspoken between us. We have worked together, in our strange way, for many years now. And we have, despite personal difficulties, achieved great things. I will build this ship. And it will be a memorial to your son.’

  Dana’s head swiveled, like a gun turret. ‘My son has no connection to you, Udet. Make no claim on him.’

  ‘Of course not. I only meant –’

  ‘And as for us, you and I – we have roots far deeper than you may believe.’

  Udet felt a prickle of fear. ‘Tell me what you mean.’

  ‘That I was at the Mittelwerk.’

  Dana picked up his briefcase, now, and, with a curt nod, walked away.

  All Udet’s exhilaration, his mood of triumph, drained away from him; he felt as if he had been toying, ignorantly, with a loaded pistol.

  The Mittelwerk. He was there; one of those invisible thousands. My God.

  There may be no limit to the power which this absurd little man can wield over me.

  After Michaels’s meeting, events began to move with a speed that stunned Muldoon.

  There was predictable opposition to the new proposal from Leon Agronski of MIT. Agronski attacked NASA for continuing to give too much attention to manned spaceflight. And he raised economic objections. He had studies to show that whereas aerospace R&D attracted thirty-five per cent of the national effort into R&D, it accounted for only four per cent of the total value added by US manufacturers to their raw materials.

  But Michaels was ready with other evidence which argued that two-thirds of all economic growth from the Crash of 1929 to Sputnik was traceable to new technology; and that the return on investment on NASA was, by 1980, around forty-three per cent.

  Agronski, as Michaels expected, also attacked the new program as bad science. Michaels responded by saying that NASA was planning to deliver several astronaut-months on Mars, for a fraction of the cost of Apollo, which had delivered just a few man-weeks on the Moon …

  Meanwhile, on another front, Michaels started negotiations with the Secretary of Defense, who suspected – rightly – that Michaels was trying to siphon off some of the billions Reagan had promised on military spending. So Michaels had to get the endorsement of the DoD for this new civilian space effort.

  But it wasn’t immediately obvious why such support should be forthcoming. Having seen the Soviets send up a whole series of low-orbit military Salyut flights, the DoD, and the USAF in particular, were fighting hard for a new program based on a restriction to low Earth orbit, for reconnaissance and other purposes, and maybe some accelerated experimentation with space-based weapons systems – such as anti-ICBM particle and projectile guns – that would fit in with Reagan’s broader strategic thinking.

  Michaels offered consolations to the military people. He showed how the Mars mission’s technology – orbital refuelling techniques, for instance – could be adapted to military uses. And military personnel and experiments could fly on the Mars program test flights.

  And there were larger considerations, to do with the health of the aerospace industry, which Michaels was able to point to. A new, big aerospace initiative would give the economy a massive – if inflationary – boost. And, for the benefit of the politicians, he played on a suspicion dating back to the 1950s that of all the services, the USAF was the most out of political control when it came to space. The service had campaigned from the beginning to be given its own space program, independently of whatever NASA got up to; and in recent years, it was felt, USAF insistence had damagingly distorted the goals of the Skylab project. Besides, a manned Mars mission coupled with the new military work could be attractive in PR terms: the US is not afraid to defend itself, but it is still rich and strong enough to dream of other worlds …

  So a new, focused civilian space program – rich in new technology, but lying outside the reach of the DoD, in particular the USAF – could be presented as politically attractive.

  And so the arguments went on, orchestrated by Michaels and Josephson, who gathered the forces of national policy around themselves to shape the program the way they wanted it; until, at last, it all spiraled into realms of economic theory and political infighting that left Joe Muldoon, a mere moon walker, stranded on the ground.

  Late in the process, Michaels and his staff, including Muldoon, were summoned to a meeting at the White House with DoD and Bureau of Budget delegations to discuss NASA’s proposals. And then Reagan himself called a meeting of Cabinet members, and NASA, BoB, DoD and MIT officials.

  Michaels was obviously exhausted, but Muldoon could see he did his best to bring his remaining energies to bear on the Cabinet Room meeting. He knew he had almost won the argument, but this final hurdle still had to be crossed.

  Reagan asked surprisingly sharp questions on wider aspects of the proposal. It seemed to Muldoon that he was seeking to pick out some element of it which he could deploy to his own advantage – just as had Kennedy two decades earlier. And Michaels was trying to work to Reagan’s expectations; he implied that, just as with Kennedy, Reagan would find a big space initiative helpful with congressional power brokers, and he could use it to build up support for other plans …

  But Reagan balked anew at the cost, and he and his staff began to scour through the program, picking away elements of it.

  Muldoon was forced to watch, helpless, as in the rooms of the White House his careful test and development program was cut to the bone, all talk of Venus-orbit missions and Mars bases was dropped, and the three Mars flights were reduced – incredibly – to just a single shot.

  And as the meeting developed, Muldoon became aware of another undercurrent. NASA had screwed up royally over the Apollo-N thing; well, here was Reagan offering to endorse a new, huge program. But there was going to be a price to pay. And the head of Bert Seger, and some internal reorganization at NASA, wasn’t going to be enough.

  Muldoon came to see, quite clearly, the act of repentance that would be expected, if NASA was to be cleansed.

  Michaels compiled a final report for Reagan, setting the agenda for the new mission and laying out a program to obtain House and Senate approval.

  When it was done, he refused to leave the document with aides. Instead, he walked the document himself into the Oval Office, and, shaking with fatigue, handed it to Reagan in person.

  There was a note of resignation stapled to the cover.

  Thursday, April 16, 1981 White House, Washington, DC

  … Our great goal is to build on America’s pioneer spirit, and to develop new frontiers. A sparkling economy spurs initiatives, sunrise industries, and makes older ones more competitive.

  Nowhere is this more important than our next frontier, space. Nowhere do we so effectively demonstrate our technological leadership and ability to make life better on Earth. The Space Age is barely a quarter of a century old. But we’ve already pushed civilization forward with our advances in science and technology. Opportunities and jobs will multiply as we cross new thresholds of knowledge and reach deeper into the unknown.

  Our progress in space – taking giant steps for all mankind – is a tribute to American teamwork and excellence. Our finest minds in government, indus
try and academia have all pulled together. And we can be proud to say: we are first, we are the best, and we are so because we’re free.

  America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain.

  My advisers are developing an overall National Space Policy which I will outline in full later in the year. This policy will establish basic goals for the US space program, which will include: to strengthen the security of the United States, maintain United States space leadership, expand United States private sector investment and involvement in civil space and space-related activities, and to promote international cooperative activities in the national interest. As we look to the future, we must begin to secure leadership in space through the end of the century and beyond. The way to do that is to set a fruitful new direction for the space program, one which will make the best use of our present capabilities, in chemical rocket technology and our ability to live and work for long periods in space. And the time to do it is now.

  Tonight, against the background of the forthcoming Space Policy, I am directing NASA to proceed with the preparation of a manned mission to Mars, and to do it within five years. Such a mission will permit quantum leaps in our research in science and communications, and our understanding of the nature of our universe.

  Just as the oceans opened up a new world for clipper ships and Yankee traders, space holds enormous potential for commerce today …

  Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981), p. 362.