CHAPTER 14
“With the Dreamscape out of action, how are we going to get into space to rendezvous with the ship that’ll take us to Sutter’s Mill?” Melanie Ledford asked. She, Paul Gesling and the rest of the crew were dressed in clean room clothing, the so-called “bunny suits” that covered them from head to toe just like a child’s bunny costume at Halloween minus the ears and fluffy tail. Paul couldn’t see Melanie’s mouth, but he could see the paper facemask vibrate as she spoke.
They’d just finished their final walk through of the habitat they’d be calling home on their journey to the asteroid before it was to be broken down and shipped to the launch site for integration into the rocket that would take it to space. The bunny suits were standard issue for everyone working on sensitive space hardware—worn to minimize contamination from “dirty humans” prior to being launched. They were standing in the clean room looking at the outside of the habitat while similarly clad engineers were completing their final technical inspections.
“We’re working on that. We can get you a ride from the Russians or one of the other commercial space companies, if they have a vehicle that will be ready in time. Alternatively, the Chinese government has offered a ride in one of their Long March rockets. We’ll go in whatever vehicle is available and that our leadership signs up to,” Paula Downey responded. As NASA’s chief engineer for the project, she was well versed on the technical as well as management and political issues associated with the asteroid diversion mission as well.
“And I wouldn’t count Mr. Childers out just yet. He is moving heaven and Earth to get the ship rebuilt as fast as possible. But there isn’t much time, I agree,” Paul added.
“What is our launch window?” Mikhail asked.
“Well, it isn’t set in stone yet.” Paula frowned as she responded. “We have a window of about ninety minutes each day for a week. After that, we need to rerun the Earth departure trajectories to find another one that will close and allow you to reach Sutter’s Mill in time. Unfortunately, the planets and this damnable asteroid aren’t sitting still as we try to put this ship together. Though, the nuclear engines will make the job a lot easier on us.”
“How so?” Reudiger Hahn asked with a tone in his voice that sounded offensive. The tone was accentuated by the arching his back, making himself appear taller and more like an alpha male trying to gain control of the tribe that was his fellow astronauts.
Gesling recalled that Reudiger was an outspoken critic of using anything nuclear-powered in space, whether it be fission-powered rocket engines like the ones that were about to take all of them on an intercept trajectory with the Sutter’s Mill or the plutonium power packs that were routinely used on deep space robotic probes. His reaction to the word, “nuclear” was clearly personal and a conviction that was not to be swayed by any real data.
“First of all, they provide a slightly higher thrust than a chemical rocket engine. This allows us to trade payload mass for trip time. With less mass to push, the higher thrust engines will accelerate the ship to a higher speed. They’re also much more efficient, meaning that we will only have to carry about half the propellant weight we’d require if this were a chemical rocket mission.”
“But at what cost? Look at Fukushima and Chernobyl. The ecological destruction from nuclear power is great. We could accomplish this mission with only chemical propulsion and be much better off because of it.”
Reudiger was ready for a verbal brawl and Gesling wasn’t one to take the bait. Paul was decidedly in favor of nuclear propulsion for deep space travel when it made sense, and he believed it made a lot of sense for this mission and certainly for one to Mars. He was hoping no one else would respond so they could get on with their briefing. There wasn’t much time and this debate wouldn’t settle anything related to their mission. But it looked like his desire was not going to come true. The Russian seemed as eager for a fight as the German. He, too, arched his back and then pulled his face mask off to the side so his face could be clearly seen.
“Reudiger, pardon my Russian bluntness, but you are full of shit and simply wrong. Physics of spaceflight is the driving factor, not silly European green nonsense based on emotional and political arguments and zero factual science. The only way we can get the trip times and payload mass we need to send people to Mars is by using nuclear propulsion. We’ve done the studies for decades and while chemical propulsion is certainly viable, it is a dead end with regard to human exploration of deep space. We need nuclear rockets to take us to Mars and there is no other option if we choose to go further. You should know that as well as I do.” Mikhail grinned as he taunted the more reserved Reudiger.
“Gentlemen. We must put a stop to this debate. The available hardware and the schedule are what drove us to making nuclear propulsion the baseline for the intercept mission. If NASA weren’t building the Mars mission hardware right now, which is nuclear, then we wouldn’t even have a shot at reaching Sutter’s Mill in time to fix the propulsion system and avert a global tragedy.” Paula stood as she spoke, placing herself between Mikhail and Reudiger, and looked back and forth between them expectantly. “This debate just isn’t helpful and we have millions of lives hanging in the balance.”
Neither of the men responded. Both looked like schoolyard bullies about to kick the crap out of each other behind the gym.
“Now that that is shelved, let me continue. You’ll be launched into space by someone’s rocket, perhaps by two rockets, depending upon what is available. Once in Earth orbit, you’ll rendezvous with the Deep Space Habitat and the nuclear thermal propulsion stage that will take you to Sutter’s Mill. Once the Earth departure burn begins, you’ll have approximately three months of flight time before you reach Sutter’s Mill. Once there, you’ll spacewalk to the asteroid’s surface and repair or replace the electric thrusters that malfunctioned. We’ve allowed up to a week for the repair mission with up to two three-hour EVAs each day. Once the repair is complete, you’ll remain near the asteroid to make sure the repaired hardware is working properly before you restart the engines and return home. If all goes well, you’ll get home about a week before the asteroid flies by Earth.”
“That’s not much time for the electric thrusters on the rock to change its course,” Paul said, trying to keep the conversation technical and away from the almost-fistfight over using nuclear power in space. To help with the topic change, he began walking toward the exit from the cleanroom. The others followed.
“The astrodynamicists tell me that that will be enough time to nudge it so that it will be a clean miss and pass somewhere between the Earth and the Moon. I’m sure they will share their analysis with you or anyone else. They want to make sure they’re right just as much as we do,” said Paula.
“And a week between our arrival home and the flyby isn’t exactly what I’d call a comfortable safety margin,” said Gesling.
“I agree. But the motion of the planets, and in this case the asteroid, is what it is and we can only nudge it a little bit.” Paula waved her hands as she spoke, pretending that her right fist was Sutter’s Mill being deflected away from Earth, her left hand.
“I understand, but it sucks nonetheless.”
“I agree.” Paula nodded in affirmation, smiled and then said, “From what I know about each of you, you’re accustomed to being in high pressure, no scheduled margin for events and making the best of them. That’s why you are here.”
The group of astronauts looked at each other as they exited the clean room and began taking off their protective gear. Some of them grinned as their egos enjoyed the stroking. Others felt placated and only gave a nod or a shoulder shrug as their egos were less vulnerable.
“We’ll keep this rock from hitting the Earth,” Melanie said.
“Do we really have a choice?” The Russian added.
“The only other choice has abysmal consequences,” Gesling noted. The others all nodded in agreement.
* * *
The team had dinner at a local steakhouse, followed by ample drinking at a nearby bar. One thing hadn’t changed in the selection of astronauts since the Mercury 7 crew—they knew how to work hard and how to party hard. The nuclear debate between Mikhail and Reudiger began again after the second post-dinner drink and continued unabated until Hui Tian had to excuse herself.
“Comrades,” she said and nodded directly at Mikhail as she began, “I must be off. As much as I enjoy the company, and the drinks, I’m still a bit jet-lagged and I really must turn in.”
“Good night, Hui. It’s great working with you again,” Paul said.
“Good night, Paul,” she said as she put on her jacket and left the bar.
Hui didn’t drive, so she asked the cashier at the bar to summon a taxi to take her to her hotel. She was a bit tipsy and didn’t pay much attention to the ride from the bar to her hotel, only taking in the sights of suburban Houston when she forced herself to focus, usually at a stoplight.
Tian traveled light, and was able to get ready for bed quickly. Her room lights were out and she was asleep within twenty minutes of the taxi letting her out at the front of the hotel. She was exhausted and deep sleep was what she desired.
After what seemed like only a few moments of sleep, Hui awakened with a start. She turned her head to look at the ubiquitous clock radio on the hotel’s night stand and saw that it said 3:44 a.m. The room was otherwise dark and she was trying to figure out what awakened her when she suddenly realized she was not alone. She wasn’t sure how she knew that someone else was in the room, but she was certain that there was someone else nearby.
She frantically ran through her options. She could pretend to be still asleep and hope they left. She quickly discarded this option because why would anyone break into a room to just sit and stare at a sleeping person? She was of course afraid of rape, and that thought alone got her adrenaline flowing and her heart rate accelerated. She thought about quickly leaping out of the bed and running for the door, but discarded that idea also. There was no way she could get out from under the covers and to the door before the person, whoever it was, could stop her. She could scream, but she knew that no one would hear her. Hotel rooms were too well soundproofed. Calling 911 was also not an option because it would take too much time. Instead, she took a chance.
“Who is there?” Hui asked into the darkness.
No response.
“I know someone is there. What do you want?”
“I came to warn you,” the male voice said in Chinese from just to her left, near the room’s balcony.
“Who are you? Warn me about what?” Hui asked. The voice was familiar to her and since he was speaking in Chinese, she had to assume she knew the person. After all, what’s the chance of a random Chinese burglar in Houston breaking into a Chinese person’s hotel room?
“I came to warn you to not be part of the mission if it involves Space Excursions, Paul Gesling, Bill Stetson, or Gary Childers.”
She did know the voice. She had trained with him for months and even been on the Moon with him. She decided to not let on that she knew who it was, at least for the moment.
“Why are you warning me of this? And why are you in my room, in the middle of the night?”
“You know why. And I am sure you now know who I am. Hui Tian, if you don’t remove yourself from the mission, I cannot guarantee your safety.”
“Zhi Feng. Why would you want the mission to not succeed? If we fail, millions of people will die.”
“They can find another way to divert the asteroid. But I won’t let them get any more credit for anything. The glory should have been ours, but they stole it. They humiliated us and I will now humiliate them.”
Hui rose up in the bed and slowly began to slide the covers off her body to allow more rapid movement, should she need to move fast in the next few minutes. She was still worried about her safety, but not so worried that she wasn’t going to try and get out, if the opportunity arose.
“Them? You mean Stetson and Gesling?”
“And Childers. I’ve missed them twice and I won’t miss them again. I just don’t want you to be injured when it happens.”
“You know this is wrong. They saved us on the Moon. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now—we’d be dead.”
“Better dead in glory than alive in shame,” Feng said with an intensity that caused Hui to believe her former colleague had lost his sanity.
“You must stop this madness. Our mission will save the lives of millions, perhaps the lives of millions of Chinese. If you do something that causes us to fail, the shame of murdering millions will be much greater shame than you perceive from what happened on the Moon.”
“Perceive? Perceive? Is that what you call it? I call it international humiliation of the backward Chinese, once again being rescued by Yankee innovation. No, I will put a stop to this and I will try to protect you from harm, but it cannot be guaranteed.”
Hui heard Feng moving, and it sounded like he was moving toward the balcony door, which she now concluded was ajar. She noticed a slight breeze coming from the direction of the door and now knew how he’d managed to get into her room.
“Good bye, Hui Tian. You were my commanding officer and I have the highest respect for you, except for your treasonous actions on the Moon with Bill Stetson. But that respect won’t stop me from reclaiming the honor that is rightfully ours. You have been warned.”
Hui heard his footsteps rapidly approach the balcony’s open door and the soft metal-on-metal sound of the sliding door closing as he left the room. She bolted from the bed and locked the door behind him, quickly drawing the curtains across the entire wall. She turned on the lights and sat on her bedside, shaking. It took only a few moments for the tears to flow as she realized how close she had just come to death, or worse.
After only a few seconds to regain her composure, she went to the hotel phone on the bedside table and called the front desk, seeking their help in summoning the police.