Titan (15 page)

Angel drained his glass again. “That kid of yours fixes a good drink,” he said.

“Yes. He’s a good cook, too.”

White said, “What is he, working his way through college?”

“… Something like that.” She left it there. She doubted that White, who’d spent his adult life in the monkish confines of the space program, would understand much more.

Kevin, from Galveston, was a pleasant, plump boy, twenty-three years old, already a college graduate. Actually he was earning his keep while he paid off his college debt, and pursued his art.

Benacerraf had given him a garage, to use as a studio. Once, Kevin had shown Benacerraf his work. It was sculpture. The main piece was a large block of rendered animal-fat, made into a half-scale self-portrait of Kevin. The statue showed Kevin lowering his shorts and stroking his own genitals. The statue hadn’t been carved; Kevin had gnawed it, crudely, with his teeth. The marks of the teeth were clearly visible, especially where Kevin had used his chipped left incisor. Kevin explained that this was only a sketch; the final version would be made of human fat liposuctioned from his own body. Or maybe his feces.

Benacerraf didn’t go back into the garage after that.

The thing of it was, Kevin didn’t have any other skills. He was a college graduate; his degree had been in recursive and self-referential art, with special studies of the greats of the 1990s: Janine Antoni, Sean Landers, Gregory Green, Charles Long.

Demographic projections for Kevin’s age-group—with modern medical care, preventative programs, reduced-calorie dieting and prosthetics—predicted a full century of active life ahead of him. That, thought Benacerraf, provided time for a lot of shit-gnawing.

At that, gnawing shit was better than creating nothing at all, which was to be the fate, as far as Benacerraf could see, of most of Kevin’s generation, as they lay in their VR-beds and pushed increasingly stale, second-hand information around the net.

Kevin, anyhow, was a satisfactory housekeeper. Benacerraf paid his wages, and tried not to think about his future. She didn’t see what else she could do for him, or the millions like him, unemployed and unemployable…

The seven of them gathered around the table and began to spoon food into their small bowls. Everyone but Marcus White opted to use chopsticks.

Benacerraf, looking around at the ring of relaxed, candlelit faces, felt pleased. There was a warm, friendly, domestic atmosphere here; they were seven humans, rooted to the Earth, enjoying a shared ritual that dated back to the emergence of humanity.

Her purpose, tonight, was to try to build this group into a team, who would have to work together to achieve something no other humans had attempted and, if, impossibly, this proposal came to fruition, some of whom might soon depart the Earth forever.

She still hadn’t decided whether to put her weight behind this dumb-ass Titan proposal. Up to now, it had just been a hobby, something to take her mind off the hierarchy of Flight Readiness Review records from STS-143. The reaction of the group, tonight, could decide that.

They started talking about Titan again.

Nicola Mott said, “Let me go through this again. From the top. You’re seriously suggesting that we send a manned mission. That we travel one way, to colonize Titan.”

“Why not?” Rosenberg said. “Maybe we’re done with dipping our toes in the water and running.”

“Like with Apollo,” Marcus White said heavily.

“Like with Apollo.”

Rosenberg said, “Look, the whole point of this proposal is that we’re going to prove that a colony on Titan would be viable. More than that: it would soon become an actual economic asset to the United States, to Earth. How are we going to do that, if we aren’t prepared to put ourselves on the line, give up a few home comforts?” He sounded irritated, frustrated at his inability to communicate, their inability to
see.
“We go out there to stay for years, build a home, survive until a retrieval capability is put together. We cannibalize the ship that carries us, turn it into surface shelters. We use ISRU, as Siobhan says. We make Titan such an attractive place that resupply and retrieval missions have to follow.”

Marcus White said, “‘We,’ Rosenberg?”

“Yes.” He looked uncomfortable, the candlelight shining from his glasses. “If there’s a ship going to Titan, I want to be on it. I’m best qualified. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

White grinned. “Hell, yes. I’d go myself.”

In the silence that followed, the others stared at him.

“When I walked on that lava plain south of Copernicus, with Tom Lamb, I sure as hell never figured I’d only get the one shot at it. There would have been an extended-Apollo program, with lunar orbital missions, and long-stay shelters hauled up by dual-launched Saturn Vs, and all the rest. And then more: flyby flights to Venus and Mars, the space station, permanent colonies on the Moon, eventually landing flights to Mars itself…

“But the whole damn thing shut down, even before Armstrong stepped out at Tranquillity.” He put down his drink, and the fingers of his big hands knitted together, restless. “I must have talked about my Moon trip a thousand times. Ten thousand. And the one thing I’ve never managed to put over is how it feels
not to be able to get back.
Ever.” He grinned at Benacerraf, embarrassed, uneasy. “They should shoot us poor fucking Moonwalkers in the head. Anyhow, it won’t be me. I realize that. Christ, I’m seventy-four years old, already. I’m a grandpa three times over. But I’ll tell you, I’d just like to see one more guy lift off out of the gravity well and
go
someplace—plant Old Glory on one more moon—before the last of us sad old Apollo geezers dies of old age.”

“And,” Mott pressed, “if we don’t succeed? —if Earth doesn’t jump for the bait? If we set out, and they just let the space facilities rust? What then?”

Marcus White leaned towards Mott over the table. “The question for you is, having heard that—would you go?”

Mott thought for a moment. She opened her mouth.

But, Benacerraf noted, she didn’t immediately say no.

White leaned back. “You know, they used to ask us a question like that, during our interviews for the Astronaut Office.
Marcus, would you submit to a two-year journey to Mars? Suppose I tell you that the chances of surviving the trip are one in two. Do you go?
Absolutely not, said I. Nine in ten, maybe.” He looked at Mott. “I got it right. The point was partly to see how dumb I was, how foolhardy. But also to find out if I had it in me.”

“What?”

“Wanderlust.”

Rosenberg said, “Being an astronaut on this mission won’t be just another job, a line on your résumé. This will be about going somewhere, where nobody else has ever been. Making a difference. What the job used to be about.”

White laughed. “That,” he said, “and glory, and fast cars, and the women.”

“I get it,” Siobhan Libet said. “This isn’t Apollo. It’s a
Mayflower
option.”

“Maybe,” Barbara Fahy murmured. “The
Mayflower
colonists went because they had to. They did it because they couldn’t find a place to fit, at home.”

Marcus White grunted. “There sure as hell has been little enough room on Earth for astronauts, since 1972.”

Rosenberg said, “The costs don’t have to defeat us. We don’t need any massive technical development. We use chemical propulsion, existing technology wherever possible. For instance, the Space Station hab module for the journey shelter.”

Benacerraf nodded confirmation of that. “The thing’s been sitting in a hangar at Boeing, intact, since 1999. It wouldn’t take much modification…”

Rosenberg said, “You’d wrap a cut-down Shuttle orbiter around it. With the hab module in the cargo bay, you’d use the orbiter’s OMS and RCS for course corrections, and the main engines for the interplanetary injections.”

Angel and White exchanged glances.

White said, “A Shuttle orbiter to Saturn? Well, why the hell not? It’s the nearest thing to a spaceship we got.” He turned to Rosenberg, grinning. “You know, I
love
the way you think.”

Angel said, “How are you going to get a Space Station hab module down to the surface of Titan?”

“Easy,” Rosenberg said, chewing. “Titan has a thick atmosphere, and a low gravity You’d
glide
the hab module down, inside your Shuttle orbiter. Which is why you’d take the orbiter. The aerosurfaces would need some modification, but—”

“Holy shit,” Libet said. “You’ve worked this out. You’re serious, aren’t you, kid?”

Angel said, “Okay, so this is just a mind game, right? A bull session. Maybe you’re right, Rosenberg. Maybe you could do that quickly and cheaply. But not if you wanted a man-rated system.”

Siobhan Libet said, “But we aren’t talking about the kind of assured safety we have in the current program. Bill. We know this whole thing would be risky as hell.”

Bill Angel said curtly, “I’m talking about some kind of entry profile that would actually be survivable.”

“It wouldn’t have to be,” Rosenberg said.

Marcus White groaned and helped himself to some more wine. “Oh, shit,” he said. “He has another idea.”

“Send the orbiter down to Titan unmanned,” Rosenberg said. “Then it can land as hard as you like.”

“And what about the crew?” Angel said.

“All you need is a couple of simple man-rated entry capsules,” Rosenberg said. “Remember, we aren’t talking about any kind of ascent-to-orbit capability; it’s a one-way trip.” He grinned. “You still aren’t thinking big enough, Bill.”

“And you,” Angel snapped back, “are talking out of your ass. An entry capsule like that is still a billion-dollar development. We just don’t have that kind of resource.”

Rosenberg looked flustered, and Benacerraf realized that for the first time he didn’t have an answer.

She felt an immense sadness descend on her. Is it possible that this is the hole that destroys the proposal? That, after all, it ends here?

How sad. It was a beautiful dream, while it lasted.

They argued for a while, about requirements and likely costs. It started to get heated, with gestures illustrated by pointed chopsticks. Barbara Fahy held her hands up, palms outward. “Hold it,” she said. “I hate to say it, but I think I have a solution.”

Benacerraf frowned. “Tell me.”

Fahy looked around the table. “We use the most advanced entry capsules we ever built. Apollo Command Modules.”

Marcus White was laughing. “Oh, man. That is outrageous. Just fucking outrageous. It’s beautiful. Man, I love it.”

Fahy said, “All you’d have to do is refurbish the interior, maybe fix up the heatshield, reconfigure for a Titan entry profile.”

Benacerraf said, “Marcus, where’s the old Apollo hardware now?”

White was trying to be serious, but grins kept busting out over his face. “There were three series of Command Modules: boilerplates, Block Is and Block IIs. The Block IIs flew all the manned missions; they contained most of the post-fire modifications. The Block IIs are what you’d want to use.” He closed his eyes. “As I recall, Rockwell built twenty-five Block II CMs in all. Okay. Of those twenty-five ships, eleven flew on the Apollo Moon program. Three more flew manned Skylab missions, and one flew on ASTP Fifteen, right?”

“Where are they?” Benacerraf asked. “Museums? Could we refurbish an Apollo that’s already been flown?”

Angel frowned. “I don’t see how. Those things were pretty much beat up by the time they were recovered. You got the ablation of the heatshield, thermal stresses throughout the structure, salt-water damage from the ocean recovery. The heatshield alone would be a hell of a reconstruction job.”

Benacerraf said, “Marcus, what happened to the ten spares? Do you remember?”

“I sure do,” he said ruefully. “Since they symbolized my career, as it went down the toilet, I followed the fate of those Moon ships with close interest.” He closed his eyes. “They used four for various tests: thermal vacuum and pogo, acoustic, pad checkout. And another three for Skylab tests. They pretty much took those babies apart, for the purposes of the tests.”

“That leaves three,” Angel said evenly.

“Yeah. First you got a Skylab backup. It sat on the pad on top of a Saturn IB as a rescue capability, through the whole Skylab program. And then there were two Moon-trip Apollos, never flown. ‘Requirement deleted.’ Three man-rated spacecraft, never flown, just mothballed.”

Benacerraf felt herself smile. “Maybe we’re about to undelete those requirements.”

There was another moment of silence.

Then they started to talk at once. “Where are those CMs?” “All in storage at JSC, or Downey.” “Three CMs. Two flight birds and one test vehicle, for verifying the redesign and refurbishment.” “The electronics should be easy. Those old clunky guidance computers they had took up so much damned room. All that core rope and shit…”

Benacerraf let it run on.

It’s coming together, she thought. She felt a core of excitement gather in her gut.

Angel, still drinking hard, was doodling spacecraft configurations and shapes on a smoothed-out paper napkin. “Okay,” he said. “If we’re going to do this one-way shot, we ought to get away with a fuel load, in Earth orbit, of one and a half million pounds. And of that, around two hundred thousand pounds would be hauled out to Saturn for braking there.”

“That,” said Benacerraf, “is less than a single Shuttle External Tank.”

“Yeah,” White growled. “But you’re still looking at a couple of dozen Shuttle flights to put it up there.”

Siobhan Libet said, “But you wouldn’t need to use the full Shuttle system. You’re not carrying crew, except on one final flight to orbit.”

Benacerraf prompted, “So what do we do instead?”

“Shuttle-C,” said Libet promptly. “A stripped-down cargo-carrying variant of the Shuttle system. The payload capacity would be raised to a hundred and seventy thousand pounds.”

Mott nodded. “But the Shuttle-C is an expendable variant. Essentially you’d be using up the orbiter fleet.”

“But that doesn’t matter,”
Libet said.

“She’s right,” White said. “Nicola, we’re working to different rules now. The damn things wouldn’t fly again anyhow. It’s a choice of putting them to work one last time, or stick ‘em our in the rain as monuments.”