Back to the Moon-ARC (15 page)

Not wanting to be distracted from his preflight checklist any longer, Gesling turned back to the forward view screen and instrument panel. With the press of a virtual button on the touch screen, he turned off his audio but left the video feed on. Gary Childers insisted that the paying customers have a chance to see what the hired help was up to in all stages of the mission.

The
Dreamscape
was certainly living up to its name. Perched on the Nevada desert runway like a large and beautiful bird, it was about to take flight. The engines were running, producing the telltale heat exhaust, causing the air behind the vehicle to distort light in unusual ways, making objects appear to ripple in the heat of the mid-day sun. Crisscrossing orange and red plasma streams poured into a billowing exhaust cloud of puffy white steam. Emblazoned on the front of the spaceship was its name, the corporate emblem of Space Excursions, and a big American flag. Gary Childers was in business to make money, but he was also a proud American.

Within the vehicle, hundreds of sensors were measuring electrical current in numerous subsystems, fluid temperatures, and the mechanical status of anything and everything that had to move or rotate in order for
Dreamscape
to make its upcoming voyage.

As the passengers waited anxiously in their seats, the shrill whine of the jet engines increased in volume as one of the last preflight tests was run to completion.

Gesling was pleased. So far, all systems were operating as they should, and the launch countdown was proceeding on schedule. In just another few minutes, he would ease off the brakes, throttle up, and begin the journey down the runway.
Piece of cake,
he thought to himself.

Now it was time for Gesling to examine the crew in the last of his preflight checklists. This checklist was not one that the FAA required; rather, it was one Gary Childers mandated. First, he was to look over the vital signs of each passenger, as relayed to the display to his left inside the cockpit. From here he could monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and virtually every other organ in their bodies. Each had been benchmarked against their physiological profiles during training, and the current results were meticulously compared with their earlier results by the onboard computer. If any were out of the anticipated bounds for this, the real thing, then Gesling was authorized to have them removed from the vehicle. The Moon was nearly a quarter million miles away from the nearest hospital, and under no circumstances could the health of any passenger jeopardize the mission (or its profitability and good press coverage).

The second part of the Childers Checklist was highly subjective. Paul was to look over the faces of each passenger and determine if any looked like they were about to panic or faint. Again, this could be cause for removal—but Paul knew that if he exercised this option and the passenger turned out to be okay, his future piloting opportunities with Space Excursions would be limited indeed.

The
Dreamscape
was designed with seats much like those of a commercial jet. There was one pilot seat up front in the middle of the cockpit. Behind the pilot seat was the “aisle,” and on either side was one seat. Each passenger therefore had an aisle and a window. The seats were numbered in rows and lettered for the side of the aisle they were on. Seats 1A and 2A were on the left side of the aisle. Seats 1B, 2B, and 3B were on the right. Where seat 3A would have been was where the docking/boarding hatch was located. And behind seat 3B was the bathroom and storage-container wall. Each of the seats was designed for full reclining to allow for sleeping on the long lunar flights. But at present all the seats were upright and filled with occupants.

Paul looked at Matt Thibodeau in seat 1A. The arrogant SOB looked calm enough. He was in his seat, glancing around the cabin, out the window, and then down at the status screen on the back of the chair in front of his seat. If it weren’t for the pressure suit, he would look like any other bored businessman taking an airplane flight to some other city for a business meeting. Gesling didn’t much like Thibodeau, but there was no obvious reason to remove him.

Next, he glanced at Maquita Singer, the millionaire owner of South Africa’s Singer Luxury Hotels, who sat in seat 1B. She was definitely nervous, her eyes darting around the cabin, not remaining on any one spot for more than a few seconds. Paul examined her vital signs again and saw that they were elevated but absolutely normal for someone about to accelerate from a dead stop to over twenty-four thousand miles per hour, leave the bounds of Earth’s gravity for the first time in their life, travel nearly a quarter million miles through deadly vacuum to orbit the Moon, and then travel back to land here in the desert. No, this wasn’t to be a normal day in the boardroom of a luxury-hotel chain.

Paul rolled his eyes when he looked at Sharik Mbanta in seat 2A. Mbanta was staring to his left, across the aisle, directly at Singer. The man who tried to bed every woman on the training staff apparently wasn’t thinking about going to the Moon. To Paul, he looked like he was thinking about how he could join the “More Than A Mile High” Club with Ms. Singer. Aloud, Gesling muttered, “I can’t believe this guy.” But his vital signs were also normal, and Paul really had no firm basis for ejecting him from the flight—other than extreme dislike.

Bridget Wells in seat 2B looked as cool as she had in all phases of the training that led up to this moment. She was blond with only a little gray, in her mid-fifties, and in excellent physical condition. A mother of two from Marshalltown, Iowa, she looked like just about every other soccer mom one might expect to run into at the supermarket. By looking at her, one would think there was no way she could come up with the money to pay for a trip to the Moon, but Paul did know and understand why she had so eagerly paid millions to have a seat on
Dreamscape
. She was a believer.
 

During training, Bridget had told Gesling her story. She was born a couple of years before Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon and had no memory of watching it happen—she was too young. When Bridget was about twelve, she discovered science fiction and became hooked. She read all the classic science fiction writers, including Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov. She didn’t have a math aptitude, so she didn’t go down an engineering path for a career in the space business. But she never lost her interest. She had written more than eight screenplays for science fiction movies that had turned out to be blockbusters. It was from these movies that she had earned her millionaire status. Early in her training she told Paul of watching the NASA TV channel for hours at a time, wishing that she were the one in space.
Dreamscape
gave her the chance to live her dream and aboard her she sat, grinning like a kid in a candy store, ready to go to the Moon. All her vital signs were normal, and Paul was hoping that she, more than all the others, would have the trip of a lifetime.

Finally, there was Dr. John Graves. Graves, too, was in his mid-fifties, but he was not nearly as trim and fit as Bridget, nor, for that matter, as any other passenger. In fact, he almost didn’t get to fly due to his weight. If he hadn’t lost the required forty pounds, someone else would be sitting here rather than him. Even so, no one would say he looked “fit and trim.” Graves was an engineer and vice president at a major computer company, and, like Bridget Wells, he was a believer. The big difference between him and Ms. Wells, other than his sex and overall physical condition, was his attitude. Graves treated the flight as something he deserved. Though he was never quite rude, Gesling knew that in Graves’s eyes he was merely the bus driver. Graves sat stiffly in his chair, his body rigid and his head unmoving as if afraid the
Dreamscape
would suddenly take off with acceleration sufficient to rip it off his shoulders. His vital signs were elevated, but still within the bounds of what the flight computer considered normal for a passenger at this point of the trip.

Gesling made note that the passenger assessments were complete and focused back on the prelaunch checklist and the status screens. He told his flight controller that
Dreamscape
was ready for takeoff.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration had long-since cleared the sky for miles around the Nevada Spaceport. Otherwise, there would have been the inevitable stray airplane or errant news reporter wanting to cover the
Dreamscape
’s flight from too close to the launch site.

Thousands of spectators were present, filling the highways around the spaceport. Reminiscent of the earliest of the rocket flights of the 1960s, the mood among those gathered to watch the launch was akin to that of groupies at a rock concert or hard-core partiers. And party they did. This was a big day for anyone who ever thought they might want to go into space.
Dreamscape
was about to take five everyday people (aside from the fact that they were rich enough to pay for the flight) to the Moon. For many, this was the unfulfilled promise of Apollo and NASA, and it was about to happen for real.

“Okay, we’re going around the horn,” Paul announced over the intercom. “I want a thumbs-up, a smile, and your name and status just like we’ve trained.” Paul toggled the screen to show five sections. Each split-screen section had a corresponding seat number and occupant name above it.

“Seat 1A, status?”

“Matt Thibodeau is A-OK!”
 

“Seat 1B, status?”

“Maquita Singer is A-OK!”

“Seat 2A, status?”

“Sharik Mbanta is A-OK!”

“Seat 2B, status?”

“Bridget Wells is A-OK!”

“Seat 3B, status?”

“John Graves is A-OK!”

“Roger that.
Dreamscape
crew is good to go.” Paul gave them all the green light and returned the thumbs-up and smile. “Control, our checklist is clear, and we are all systems go.”

“Roger that,
Dreamscape
. All systems are go for launch.”

In addition to the space enthusiasts, the Honda minivan was back, antenna deployed, positioned to monitor the
Dreamscape
launch from its chosen observation post fifteen miles away—the occupants doing their jobs for their country. That didn’t stop them from also reveling in the moment, for they, too, harbored an interest in going to space. Watching
Dreamscape
start to roll down the runway was just as exciting for them as it was for all those at or near the spaceport. They just wanted to make sure that there was enough data captured for their countrymen to someday duplicate the feat.

The acceleration pushed Paul back into the webbing that secured him to his seat. He could feel the skin on his cheekbones being pulled back toward his ears. He could hear his heartbeat and feel the kick to his abdomen as the
Dreamscape
’s scramjet engaged at a little over twenty thousand feet. The whine of the engines was only momentarily loud before the cabin’s active soundproofing kicked in and diminished it to something just short of a deafening dull roar.

Just a few feet away from Gesling and the five passengers,
Dreamscape
’s engines began running in ramjet mode, with the airflow into the engine traveling at something less than the speed of sound. As velocity increased, so did the speed of the air coming into the engines.

All systems were working as they should, and Paul saw no warning lights. He watched the
Dreamscape
’s velocity steadily increase from Mach 1 to Mach 2, and, in just a few short seconds, to Mach 3, then 4. At Mach 8 the engine switched from ramjet to scramjet mode as the air flowing into the engine’s inlet became self-sustaining at hypersonic velocities. Now the vehicle was truly hauling ass and accelerating toward its top airspeed of Mach 12.

While Gesling was focused on the vehicle, the passengers were taking note that the Earth now appeared to be rather small, with noticeable curvature. The “ah ha!” moment came first to Maquita Singer, and she couldn’t help but voice her observation, “It’s a planet after all. Where are the borders? It’s just one planet. This is truly amazing!” Her comment elicited a grunt from Thibodeau and a nod from Dr. Graves.
 

“It’s called the overview effect,” Bridget Wells commented knowingly. “Since the sixties, many astronauts independently made the same observation once they got up here. There’ve been books written about it—I read them all doing research for the last television series I was writing for.”

Another grunt came from Thibodeau.

Gesling and all the passengers felt the hard slap of the first stage separating. The scramjet first stage had done its job and propelled the
Dreamscape
to twelve times the speed of sound. It was now time for it to fly back to the landing site for refurbishment and repair.
 

A fraction of a second later, the upper-stage rocket motor ignited, once again pushing everyone back sharply into their seats. The rocket continued accelerating the
Dreamscape
as it left the last remnants of Earth’s atmosphere and entered interplanetary space.
 

The passengers, now astronauts, stared out their windows at the spherical blue Earth beneath them. The thin haze that was the atmosphere enveloped the globe, and sunlight glinted off the now-useless wings on the right side of
Dreamscape
. Above them was pure darkness until their eyes grew accustomed to it and they were then able to see the stars.

Gesling saw all this, and more. But he didn’t have time to appreciate the beauty and grandeur. He had a job to do. So far there were no warning lights, and all systems appeared to be working as designed. A few minutes into the checklist, the onboard Global Positioning System locked on to four satellites, the inertial-navigation unit spun up, and the exterior star trackers started mapping their orientation. The amalgam of the three systems input data into the ship’s computer, which in turn calculated
Dreamscape
’s exact orbital position and orientation with respect to the Earth and space.