Rescue Mode - eARC (3 page)

16:05 Universal Time

Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama

“. . . and that’s the NTR, behind the shadow shield,” Benson was saying.

He and Treadway were in a huge, hangarlike building where the full-scale mockup of the
Arrow
spacecraft was spread across the concrete floor: a big rocket nozzle at one end, bulbous tankage, square panels the size of baseball diamonds, all connected to a long, metallic ladderlike central boom.

Four different TV miniaturized cameras were floating across the floor beneath toy-sized ballons of helium, automatically following their progress along the length of the mockup, with a fifth camera unit hanging up near an overhead truss that ran the length of the cavernous building.

Around the world, viewers who had the new three-dimensional home theaters didn’t merely watch a screen, they could step into the scene along with Treadway and Benson, walk along the length of the spaceship beside them.

“NTR?” Treadway asked. He knew the initials stood for nuclear thermal engine, but the VR Net audience wasn’t familiar with NASA’s bewildering jungle of acronyms.

“Nuclear thermal rocket,” said Benson, his voice flat, no trace of annoyance in it. “The nuclear reactor heats hydrogen gas to three thousand degrees Fahrenheit and the hot gas is fired through the rocket nozzles. That’s what gives us the thrust we need for TMI.”

“Trans-Mars Injection,” Treadway translated the NASA acronym.

Looking halfway between embarrassed and irritated, Benson explained, “Right. That’s when we break Earth orbit and head for Mars.”

Making a slightly worried frown, Treadway said, “A nuclear rocket? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Benson shook his head. “The Russians have flown dozens of nuclear power systems over the years. With the NTR we only have to carry half the propellant that we’d need with chemical rockets. It’s got twice the specific impulse of the best hydrogen-oxygen rockets. It’s actually a lot safer with the nuke, saves us months of travel time.”

Suppressing a wince at the word “nuke,” Treadway forced a smile as Benson pointed out the ship’s propellant tanks, the payload section that held the smaller vehicle that would actually land on Mars, the square flat panels of the radiators that got rid of the ship’s excess heat and the bigger, darker oblongs of the solar panels that would generate electrical power for the spacecraft.

“Why the solar panels?” Treadway asked. “Doesn’t the nuclear reactor generate electrical power?

With a shake of his head, Benson replied, “The reactor is for propulsion only. It’s not bimodal. The engineers decided it would be too expensive and complicated to make it do both.”

They slowly walked along the length of the spacecraft, the floating cameras following them, while Benson explained each segment of the ship.

“How long is this bird, anyway?” Treadway asked.

“Two hundred meters, from the end of the main thruster nozzle to the tip of her nose,” said Benson.

“Two hundred meters . . .”

Benson’s lips twitched in what might have been a smile. “That’s right, you Americans aren’t accustomed to the metric system.” He frowned in silence for a moment, then said, “It’s roughly six hundred and fifty-six feet.”

“About an eighth of a mile.” Treadway grinned, a trifle smugly. I can do arithmetic in my head, too, he told Benson silently.

Smiling back at him, Benson said, “Yes. Almost two and a half football fields.”

As they neared the spacecraft’s front end, Benson pointed to the metal gridwork boom that held the various attached components.

“The truss is the ship’s spine,” he explained. “It’s got to be strong, yet light.”

Playing the straight man, Treadway asked, “What’s it made of?”

“MWNT,” answered Benson. Before Treadway could respond, he explained, “Multi-walled carbon nano tubes. Four times stronger than the best metal alloys, yet lighter than any of them.”

“Nano tubes?”

“Like Buckeyball fibers.”

“Oh.”

At last they reached the habitation module, a smallish cylinder near the front end of the spacecraft.

“Eight men and women are going to live in that little bubble for nearly two years?” Treadway prompted.

“It’s not that little,” said Benson. “There’s a privacy cubicle for each member of the crew, plus a wardroom, control center, workshop and labs, and an observation blister.”

“Can we go into the habitation module?”

On that cue, Benson replied, “Not the one in the mockup, up there. But we have another mockup of the module by itself, over there.” He pointed across the floor. “We can go inside that one.”

“Cut!” cried the director, from behind the monitor set up in the corner of the hangar. “Take ten and re-spot the cameras. We’ll pick it up inside the module.”

Treadway gave Benson a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “You’re doing fine. Great.”

Benson grimaced. “I’d rather have a root canal.”

The director pressed his hand against the communications bud in his ear, then said to Treadway, “New York’s happy. They think we’ll getthe biggest chunk of VR Netviewers when this airs tonight.”

Treadway broke into a genuinely pleased grin.

It was a tight squeeze inside the habitation module, with three of the cameras bobbing along with them. The director had squeezed into the module, too, telling them he wouldn’t miss this opportunity—at least not for anything less than an Emmy award.

The module was compact, but efficiently laid out. Benson showed them the control center, with its consoles and display screens, the workshop and minuscule laboratory for the two geologists and their one biologist. Then they went a few more steps back, to the wardroom.

Treadway looked at the circular table and eight chairs.

“Chairs? They don’t have chairs in the International Space Station. And the tables are chest height.”

Benson explained, “That’s because the ISS is in microgravity. Zero-gee, just about. You don’t need chairs. You just stand at the table and hook your feet into the floor loops to keep from floating away.”

“Won’t the
Arrow
be in zero-gee?”

“Only while we’re in Earth orbit. Once we start the TMI burn—” Before Treadway could interrupt, Benson explained, “Once we break orbit and start for Mars, the ship will rotate end-over-end to give us a feeling of one-third gee during the trip.”

“One-third gee?”

Nodding, Benson said, “That’s the level of gravity on the surface of Mars. Rotating at one-third gee all the way out means that the crew won’t suffer from muscle atrophy and calcium loss in their bones the way we would if we were in zero-gee all that time.”

“And when you land on Mars you’ll be accustomed to the gravity level there.?

Benson smiled slightly, like a teacher rewarding a student for a correct answer. “That’s entirely right. You’ve got it.”

Treadway beamed happily.

The individual privacy cubicles were about the size of telephone booths, big enough for an air-filled mattress fastened to one wall, a display screen on the wall opposite, and a modest closet on the third wall.

“There’s a laundry further down the passageway, right beside the lavatory,” said Benson.

Staring at the inflated mattress, Treadway asked, “You’ll sleep standing up?”

Benson broke into an amused chuckle. “When we’re in orbit and effectively weightless, the orientation of the bed doesn’t matter.”

“But when you’re rotating to give you one-third gravity . . . ?”

Pointing, Benson said, “That ‘wall’ will become the ‘floor.’”

“Oh,” said Treadway.

Raising one long arm, Benson pressed his fingers against the springy surface of the habitat’s curved ceiling.

“This module is made of fabric, coated with metal on the outer skin. It’s double-walled, and filled with water for protection against radiation.”

“Water?”

“Water can absorb radiation coming in from space. Even if the sun puts out a coronal mass ejection while we’re in transit—”

“You mean a solar flare?”

Slightly annoyed, Benson replied, “That’s the layman’s term for it. A coronal mass ejection belts out a cloud of very high-energy subatomic particles. Plus gamma rays and x-rays. Very dangerous.”

Poking at the slightly flexible wall, Treadway asked dubiously, “And this layer of water will protect you from that?”

With the ghost of a smile, Benson answered, “So the scientists tell us.”

October 31, 2032

Earth Departure Minus Five Months

12:00 Universal Time

Johnson Space Center

The tension was palpable. Sixteen men and women sitting at their consoles, screens flickering, not a word spoken. In the visitors’ gallery, above and behind them, sat four dozen NASA administrators, White House executives, senators and congresspersons, and a quartet of news media types.

On the ceiling-high wall screens an animated CGI image showed the
Fermi
habitation module descending toward the red Martian desert, tail first, its rocket thrusters firing fitfully.

Even José Aragon, NASA’s official “voice of
Fermi
,” was silent, nervously fingering his generous black moustache as the descent continued. A camera from the module showed the rock-strewn rust-red sand getting closer, closer.

Then the automated descent monitor intoned, “Five thousand meters. Trajectory nominal.”

One of the mission controllers glanced up from her console for a brief peek at the wall screens. Before the chief of the monitoring crew could move or even speak, she focused on her console again.

“Four thousand meters. Trajectory nominal.”

Bart Saxby, NASA’s chief administrator and a former astronaut, wiped perspiration from his upper lip.

It all depends on this, he told himself. If
Fermi
doesn’t land safely, the whole mission is ruined. The crew’s going to live in that hab module for six months, once they reach Mars. No hab module, no humans on Mars.

“Two thousand meters. Final trajectory correction burn.”

The view of the Martian surface from the ship-mounted camera blurred momentarily as the thrusters fired.

Saxby wished he were there, aboard the
Fermi
, personally guiding her down to the ground himself instead of the autopilot.
Look at all those damned stones
, he said to himself.
It’s like a rock garden down there.

He thought about Neil Armstrong piloting the
Eagle
to the first manned landing on the Moon. The bird was descending into a rockpile, so Armstrong took over manual control, jinked the lander over a few dozen feet, and put her down safe and sound.

Everybody knows Armstrong’s first words from the surface of the Moon: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The
Eagle
has landed.”

But Saxby knew Houston’s reply. “We copy you down,
Eagle
. You got a bunch of guys turning blue down here.”

“One thousand meters . . . five hundred meters . . .”

The frozen sands of Mars were rushing up now. Saxby clenched his fists so hard his fingernails cut into his palms painfully.

“Touchdown,” said the loudspeakers.

The whoop of relieved happiness was more heartfelt than any football crowd’s.

The animation screen showed the
Fermi
module standing on the Martian surface, three stout landing legs supporting it. The camera on the module’s outer skin showed plenty of rocks, but none of them big enough to upset the lander.

Everybody was jumping and shouting. Down on the floor of the control center the chief of the monitoring team was handing out cigars, even to the women. Saxby sat silently, unmoving in the midst of the uproar, his eyes misting, rubbing away the lump that he felt in his chest.

Fermi
’s made it, he thought gratefully. Now we can send the human team and find where those microbes are hiding.

8 November 2034

Earth Departure Minus Five Months

20:00 Universal Time

The White House

President Harper never liked wearing a tuxedo; he felt much happier in a sweatshirt and dungarees. But Washington’s inexorable social protocol demanded formal dinner wear so often that he had long ago surrendered to the inevitability of wearing “the uniform.”

This evening he was to preside over a cocktail party in the White House’s Blue Room in honor of the Russian ambassador’s sixtieth birthday. The party’s real purpose was to show the news media and the world that Russia and the United States were closer than they had been in decades. And the keystone to this newfound amity was the Mars project.

While there had been powerful opposition in Congress to revitalizing America’s space program, even the narrowest minded politicians couldn’t ignore that the Chinese rover had found powerful evidence that the chemicals of life existed on Mars. Washington politics simply wouldn’t allow this historic discovery to belong only to China. Harper had put every ounce of the White House’s prestige and power into the mission to Mars. The votes in Congress had been close, but one of the telling factors in favor of Mars was the obvious benefits of partnership with Russia—instead of distrust and tensions.

The Cold War had been over for fifty years and if it took organic chemicals on Mars and the possibility of the discovery of life beyond Earth being credited to China to bring the two world powers closer together, then so be it, thought the president.

Of course, Harper had offered a pro-forma invitation to the Chinese government to join the U.S. and its partners in the manned Mars mission. Beijing had refused, pointing out that China had its own plans for exploring Mars.

At the moment, Harper was sitting upstairs in the sumptuous Yellow Oval Room, a slim-stemmed martini glass in one hand. Sitting on the delicately ornate Louis XIV chair opposite him was Valeri Zworykin, head of Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency.

“I’m glad you had the chance to come early,” said Harper, absently tugging at his tight collar with one finger.

“It was good of you to invite me,” Zworykin replied diplomatically, in a deep bass voice.

No one else was in the room; this was a strictly private meeting. Zworykin was built like a scarecrow: tall but very thin, all long legs and skinny arms. Harper was more like a hedgehog, short, thick, stubby limbs. Zworykin’s hair was dark and long, tickling his collar; flecks of gray peppered it. Harper was silver-gray, his hair luxuriantly thick and carefully brushed back off his high forehead.