CHAPTER 12
“The Europeans and Americans are responsible for this mess and now they want us to join with them in a foolish attempt to fix the very system that caused the problem to begin with?” Evgeni Golov, the Director of NPO Energomash responded to the speaker who had just delivered the same story, the Russian version, that the NASA Administrator had provided to Gary Childers in Washington just days before.
“You are correct, Evgeni. The American president called President Lazarev just yesterday explaining the plan and inviting us to send a cosmonaut on the journey to the asteroid,” said Makariy Loktev, Chairman of the Planetary Protection Committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences and, more importantly, the man President Lazarev placed in charge of coming up with the Russian plan to deflect the incoming asteroid.
“Why would they believe that they can repair the failed system and that it won’t break again? Given that it will take precious time to send astronauts to the asteroid in the first place, and then additional time to repair or replace the electric thrusters, they surely realize that doesn’t leave much time to actually deflect the asteroid in the first place.” Evgeni Golov was now speaking to the other twelve assembled engineers and scientists in the room, as if their affirmation of his comments would help convince the chairman that he was correct.
“We don’t have much confidence in their proposed solution. It is very risky and we may not know whether or not it works until it is too late to do anything about it. Nonetheless, President Lazarev has decided to accept the American offer. Russia will fully cooperate with the American team,” said Loktev.
“This is madness. To place the lives of millions of people in the hands of those who believe a space propulsion system that emits the equivalent of mouse farts will be able to deflect a two-billion-ton piece of rock is sheer madness.”
“Yes, Evgeni. It is madness. And that’s why we’ve been instructed to put in place Plan B. Should the American effort fail, then we will be ready to launch our own rocket to deflect the asteroid.” Loktev pursed his lips as he spoke.
“And what approach are we going to use? You know better than I that the academy has studied this problem for years and found very few satisfactory approaches to divert something this big. The answer always seems to be the one nobody wants to hear.”
“The nuclear option,” said Loktev, answering Evgeni’s unspoken question.
“Yes, the nuclear option. We need to detonate a hydrogen bomb just in front of the asteroid. Perhaps detonate two, just to make sure we’re successful.” Evgeni spoke in a hushed tone, as though he didn’t really want to have the other attendees of this meeting to hear what he had to say.
“The president has given us the authorization to proceed with the approach you suggest. We’re to begin immediately to modify a Proton rocket to carry one of the military’s 8F675 twenty-megaton warheads and place it on an intercept course with the asteroid.” Loktev spoke of using a nuclear bomb with the offhand authority of someone used to being in the halls of power where such things are casually discussed.
Evgeni, pleased that the chairman agreed with his position, was unprepared for the remark from Loktev that came next.
“This plan is considered to be classified above Top Secret. You will not discuss it with anyone outside of this room and as far as the engineers who will be working on the project know, it is simply another doomsday weapon that we are prototyping at the request of the president. Lord knows we’ve done more than a few of those over the years. We’re holding this in reserve and it will only be launched if it looks like the American plan is going to fail. It will then be our right and obligation to do what is right—and what should have been done in the first place.”
“What about our member of the team going to the asteroid? Will this person be told?”
“No. We cannot risk allowing the plan to be known before we are ready to launch.”