Parker's Folly (16 page)

Luda's vision became blurred as tears of joy filled her eyes—in zero-gravity tears do not flow down cheeks, they simply well up on the surface of the eyes and must be wiped or batted away by blinking. She went back to the radio console, now half afraid that the silver ship would disappear when she left the window.

“Captain, this is the ISS. Who are you? Where did you come from?” She paused and then added, “Are you from Earth?”

“Why yes, Ma'am. Actually, we're from Texas.”

Captain Sutton had assembled his engineering team, along with Lt. Curtis, in his sea cabin to discuss how to get the stranded cosmonauts off of the International Space Station. It was beginning to look like rescuing the endangered ISS crew was going to be a bit more difficult than just pulling along side and saying “hop on.”

“ISS, this is Captain Sutton on board Parker's Folly. With me I have the ship's First Officer Lt. Gretchen Curtis, head engineer Dr. Rajiv Gupta and engineers Medina and Adams. Dr. Tropsha, have you assembled your colleagues?”

“Yes, Captain Sutton. With me are Colonel Ivan
Kondratov, acting mission commander, and Dr. Yuki Saito. We are wondering how we can transfer to your vessel, do you have an airlock that can dock with the station?”

“I'm afraid not, we have no airlocks that are compatible with the station's docking facilities. We were wondering if you could EVA over to us. We have a large cargo door aft of midships and the cargo hold can be depressurized. In effect it is a big airlock.”

“Captain, this is Ivan Kondratov. Other than myself the people on board are not experienced spacewalkers. Is there some other way to effect the transfer?”

“Perhaps they could all get into the main airlock module? We could disconnect the module and haul it aboard,” suggested Freddy Adams. The Joint Airlock, or Quest Module, gave the station the capability to conduct spacewalks using U.S. spacesuits. It was based on the Space Shuttle airlock and was attached to the station during the 10
th
space shuttle assembly flight.

“The Crew Lock will not hold all three of us in suits at the same time,” replied Ivan. The six meter long Quest Airlock is composed of two connected cylindrical chambers—the larger Equipment Lock and the smaller Crew Lock. It was designed to accommodate two suited spacewalkers at a time. This can be either two American  Extravehicular Mobility Units, two Russian Orlan-M spacesuits, or one of each design.

“What if you didn't wear spacesuits?” asked Jo Jo Medina. “Could the three of you fit then?”

“We could probably squeeze in but that isn't a procedure I would be happy with. If the lock developed a leak while being detached from the station it could depressurize. The only way to be safe would be to wear spacesuits, putting us back to two.”

“I believe that the airlock would not be easy to detach from the station either,” said Dr. Saito, joining the conversation.

“Yuki is right. It would probably take two experienced spacewalkers several hours to detach the airlock,” added the Russian Colonel. “I doubt that the module was ever intended to be removed—it may not be possible to disconnect it safely.”

“Regardless, we don't have the time,” the Captain concluded. “So we are back to needing you folks to EVA over from the station. How long would it take to cycle the airlock twice?”

“Actually,” said Ivan, “I could use the Pirs Docking Module airlock.” Before the Joint Airlock was installed the only way for cosmonauts to exit the station was through the older airlock on the Russian built docking adapter. That airlock was a Russians only entrance, since the US EMU suits were too bulky to fit through its tight opening. Pirs was the same module that the broken Soyuz capsule was docked at.

“Good, it sounds like you can all exit the station simultaneously. We should be able to shoot you a line from the open cargo door that you can use as a guideline.”

“Actually, Captain, there is another problem,” said Ludmilla. “The normal spacewalk protocol requires staying overnight in the Crew Lock, before exiting the ISS. The Americans called it
‘
camping out.
’
”

“Surely you can skip that, Doctor?” said Lt. Curtis.

“No, you don't understand. It is because of the difference in air pressure and nitrogen absorbed by the body's tissues. The space station is kept at 1 bar, sea-level pressure, using a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, much like conditions on Earth. Pressure in a spacesuit is only around 0.3 bar, about 4 psi. Making the change
from cabin to spacesuit too quickly can cause decompression sickness—the bends.”

“Just like SCUBA divers surfacing without properly decompressing,” said the Lieutenant. “Yes, I understand now. Spacewalkers spent the night slowly lowering the air pressure to safely purge their bodies of nitrogen.”

“That is correct, Lieutenant. We lower air pressure in stages while breathing pure oxygen. I'm afraid that going outside without taking precautions could debilitate one or more of us.”

“Pardon me, Doctor, this is Rajiv Gupta. I seem to remember that the Joint Airlock was not added to the station until construction was well underway. How were spacewalks done before the Quest module was attached?”

“We used to use the Russian airlock,” Ivan answered. “The Americans could only go outside when a Space Shuttle was docked.”

“That is correct,” Ludmilla added. “Ivan, there was an older protocol that was used before the big airlock was added. Yes, it is here in my tablet.” All space station crew members carried around tablet computers with access to the station’s wifi network.

“Yes, here it says: Station astronauts are to begin the pre-breathe protocol by exercising vigorously on the space station's cycle ergometer for a total of 10 minutes while breathing pure oxygen via an oxygen mask. After 50 total minutes of breathing pure oxygen, including the 10 minutes initially spent exercising, the pressure in the station's airlock will be lowered to 10.2 pounds per square inch. During airlock depressurization, the spacewalkers will breathe pure oxygen for an additional 30 minutes. At the end of those 30 minutes, with the airlock now at 10.2 psi, the spacewalkers will put on their space suits. Once their spacesuits are on, the spacewalkers will breathe pure oxygen inside the suits for an additional 60 minutes before making final preparations to leave the station and begin their spacewalk. This protocol provides a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes of pre-breathe time, including the 10 minutes of vigorous exercise at the beginning of the procedure.”

“I don't think we have 2 hours and 20 minutes, Doctor,” said the Captain. “Can we cut that down to under an hour?”

“Yes, I think so. Any purging helps reduce the risk of decompression sickness. Less acute cases of decompression sickness often do not present symptoms for hours after exposure. Between the exercise and breathing pure oxygen we should be OK, if the transfer does not take to long.”

“If it takes too long, getting the bends will be the least of our worries, Ludmilla,” Yuki added.

“Very good, Captain,” said Ivan. “I can use the Pirs lock while Ludmilla and Yuki use the Crew Lock. Yuki, you are not familiar with the Russian spacesuits?”

“No, Ivan. I trained on the American suits at NASA. I would feel more comfortable in an EMU.”

“Very well. Ludmilla can help you suit up. Captain, we need to begin our prep if we are to exit the airlocks within an hour.”

“Yes of course Colonel,” affirmed the Captain. “We need to start depressurizing the cargo hold and suiting up ourselves. We will continue to monitor this frequency if you need us, otherwise signal when you are ready to transfer. Parker's Folly out.”

* * * * *

“OK people, do we have what we need to do this?” the Captain asked the crew members in the sea cabin once the radio link had been muted.

“Freddy and I will go back to the cargo hold and ensure it is ready,” said Dr. Gupta. “Then we will start the decompression. I would like to recover as much of the air as possible.”

“You're not worried we're running low on air, are you?”

“No, Captain, I would like to preserve as much of our supply as we can simply because the supply is finite.”

“Fine Doctor, you and Freddy get to it. Mr. Medina, please monitor the ship's systems from the bridge. We need to ensure our air doesn't leak from the internal locks going to the cargo hold while it is under vacuum.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” With that the engineers left the cabin for their assigned destinations. The Captain then turned to his First Officer.

“Who do you suggest we have help with the transfer, Lieutenant?”

“I think the Chief and Mr. Vincent,” came her unhesitating reply. “The Chief is as agile as a monkey even in a suit, and Billy Ray proved both level headed and adept during the firefight in the hold earlier.”

“OK, the four of us then.”

“Sir? Permission to speak freely?”

“Of course, Lieutenant. What's on your mind?”

“A spacewalk in itself carries some risk. This one could also lead to possible exposure to harmful levels of radiation if the solar storm gets here before we are done. The cargo hold door will be open and the shields will have to be down to transfer the station crew.”

“And your point is?”

“Captain, I don't think it wise for both of us to be in the cargo hold during the rescue.”

“Are you suggesting that the three of you should proceed without me?”

“No offense Sir. But you are the Captain, you are essential to our mission. I'm asking you to let your crew do their jobs while you stay in command of the vessel.”

After thinking about Lt. Curtis' statement for a few moments, Jack realized that she was right. When he had been a captain in the Navy he would never have led a rescue mission or ship to ship transfer himself. The shootout in the cargo hold was another matter—then the safety of the ship had been at stake. “Yes, you're right Gretchen. You will lead the team in the cargo hold and I will stay on the bridge. But I do expect to squeeze in a spacewalk of my own sometime during the mission.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said the relieved First Officer. As she left the cabin she looked back and said, smiling, “I'm sure you'll get your turn to play spaceman before the voyage is over.”

The atmosphere in the cargo hold had been reduced to near vacuum by the time the party led by Lt. Curtis had suited up. They entered the hold through the mid-deck airlock, which was large enough to hold a half dozen people at once, even in spacesuits.

Unlike the spacesuits worn by American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts, the Folly's crew wore suits that fit skintight on the body. The only space for air was within the clear bubble-like helmets, and that air was kept at 14.7 psi. Not only were the crew able to enter and exit the vacuum of space without decompressing, their suits were much more flexible than the bulky apparatus worn by the space station refugees.

On the backs of their suits were small, hard-shelled packs containing oxygen, re-breathing equipment and power supplies for radios, lights, heating and cooling. If they were venturing outside of the ship, they would have donned coveralls for further protection from radiation and physical damage. As it was, Billy Ray could not help noticing that the Lieutenant's skintight suit was doing interesting things for her figure. Pushing such thoughts aside, he asked the Lieutenant, “should we ask them to cut gravity to the cargo hold, Ma'am?”

“Yes, good thinking Mr Vincent. Bridge, this is Lt. Curtis. We are preparing to enter the cargo hold and request you cut the deck gravity in that area.”

“Roger that, Lieutenant. Gravity in the cargo hold is now off.”

“Thank you, we will let you know when we are in position at the starboard side cargo door.” With that, she opened the outer airlock door and led the rescue party into the weightless, airless environment of the ship's hold.

* * * * *

Arriving at the rear of the hold, Gretchen, Billy Ray and the Chief connected themselves to the ship by attaching safety lines to cleats in the deck. “Bridge, cargo hold. I am ready to open the cargo door. Interrogative the status of the space station crew?”

“Roger on opening the cargo door. The ISS crew say they are ready to open their airlocks any time we are ready.” Staying inside
the station's airlocks until the last minute added some small extra shielding from the rising radiation levels outside.

“Roger, opening the door now.” The cargo hatch, large enough to drive a truck through, slid open in eerie silence. The starboard side of the ship was facing the Sun and was brightly lit except where shadows cast by the station, only 50 meters away, played across its hull. The hold itself was well illuminated by overhead light fixtures—the space station personnel would hopefully see a large, brightly lit, rectangular opening in the side of the ship.

“Cargo hold, bridge. The ISS crew is emerging now.”

“Yes, we can see them. Col. Kondratov is out of the Pirs airlock and is working his way toward the main Crew Airlock. Now it looks like someone is coming out of the main airlock. It must be Dr. Saito, the suit is different from the one Kondratov is wearing.”

As they watched, a third figure emerged from the complicated collection of cylinders, girders, solar panels and attached modules that comprised the International Space Station. The figures, and the station itself, stood in stark relief against the black of space. Lt. Curtis waved at the three figures clinging to the exterior of the space station, much like survivors clinging to a wrecked ship at sea. One of the Russians waved back.

“Mr. Vincent. Send them the line.”

Billy Ray stepped to the edge of the open door and shouldered something that looked like a crossbow with a spool of thin rope attached to its front. That was exactly what it was, a crossbow rigged for fishing with the fishing line replaced by more visible cord. He pulled the trigger, sending a blunt, stubby bolt toward the ISS.

The drama played out in silence, as line uncoiled from the spool, trailing after the fleeting bolt. “I sure hope that thing doesn't run out'a pep before it reaches the station,” said Billy Ray, giving voice to what all three rescuers were thinking.