7
Mission Day 21
Velocity 73,935 m/s (165,388 mph)
Acceleration 0.981 m/s2 (0.10g)
Jack snapped the cover down over a fresh air filter and logged the event in his tablet, dutifully reporting the event to Houston. Already, the daily routine promised to become achingly dull. Wake up, eat, check in with Houston. Take care of whatever shipboard housecleaning or mechanical hiccups appeared overnight, then settle in at the control deck to spend the next twelve hours watching the spacecraft fly itself.
One thing he was thankful for was that limits on both mass and human workload dictated that the sort of middle-school public relations experiments that had taken up too much of their time on the ISS were almost nonexistent here. The real science would happen after they seeded Jupiter and its moons with autonomous probes. Then would come Pluto, where until recently they thought their time would be dominated by surveying the planet and its moons from Magellan. If they found solid terrain that wasn’t just frozen nitrogen, there would be a landing attempt with Puffy which they’d drilled in the sims. It had been billed as a “contingency” mission, which now seemed like much more of a priority. Maybe the prospect of a real surface expedition with her husband to the farthest known planet would excite Noelle enough to forget about how little time they’d have at Jupiter.
Jack had been one of the few to have welcomed the psychiatrists they’d brought in to sort potential crewmembers for compatibility, even though it had chapped Grady Morrell’s ass. Especially if it had burned Grady’s ass. If it were indeed possible to predict and measure personal chemistry, the agency had moved Heaven and Earth to find out. The more stubborn old hands remained unconvinced, but he thought it beat the traditional method of individual experience sprinkled with a heaping dose of internal politics and personal prejudices. It had gotten to the point where phony enthusiasm and forced camaraderie had become normal behavior and one could only maintain that facade for so long before the cracks emerged. It too often manifested itself in astronauts who either couldn’t function on long duration flights or worked themselves to exhaustion.
And that had been on the space station, where home lay just beyond the windows, where the wait for a ride down was measured in hours if necessary. Out here there was no sense dwelling on it. They’d long passed the point where they could scramble into their docked crew capsule and execute an emergency burn back to Earth. In a few more months they’d pass PNR—Point of No Return—where it would be impossible to make a rapid return to Earth without exhausting their fuel.
That didn’t imply it was impossible to get the vehicles back, of course. A good mission planner could work out a low energy transfer orbit, as even the weakest gravity could be used to guide a craft around the solar system. The problem was time—even though the Dragon spacecraft’s extended life support and stores could last weeks, a low energy orbit home would take years. The mathematician in him loved the elegance of orbital mechanics, the great celestial pinball game of moving about the solar system. That it wasn’t his primary discipline perhaps made him all the more enthusiastic, like a hobby he was able to indulge at work. Sometimes the people who approached complex problems as a pastime found more enjoyment in it than the ones who did it for a living.
Cryptography, for instance. Jack had spent his early adulthood in drone control vans, teasing out subtle linguistic cues from surveillance intercepts. When he wasn’t doing that, he was unwinding complex encryption algorithms. It had been satisfying work, even if it had involved an awful lot of drudgery before arriving at the “eureka” moments. Sometimes they never came.
* * *
Arkangel Commander’s Log
23 Jan 1991
Alexi has completed inspections of magazines 1 and 2 and all propellant slugs are within tolerance.
It has become necessary for me to assume many of Alexi’s duties in order for him to inspect the remaining magazines. Therefore, at this point I must insist on exercising commander’s privilege over the daily activity plans. We have received and understood today’s transmission, but will not be able to accomplish the tasks as scheduled.
If our high-speed run after Saturn is to be successful, it is imperative that we eliminate the threat of resonance vibrations. The dreaded “pogo” effect could come more suddenly than any of us might be able to detect. With half-hour signal delays, it would only be apparent in the control center after it was too late. By the time a resonance event appeared in the telemetry, we would be a cloud of debris adding its mass to the asteroid belt. I have not been communicating beyond our hourly check-in with Mission Control for this reason.
It is for similar reasons that I have insisted Alexi take a day off from his efforts. In addition to working himself to the point of exhaustion, I have become concerned that he may be hiding his personal dosimeter. He has a strong sense of duty, though too often at the risk of his personal safety.
* * *
It all sounded too familiar. Hadn’t they learned anything from Chernobyl?
He’d seen it enough on the ISS: dedicated professionals who’d worked and trained together for years on the ground became different people after a few weeks in orbit. The job attracted classic overachievers who over time tended toward one of two polar opposite reactions: They either became moody and withdrawn or were overbearing control freaks. And the more things didn’t go their way, the worse they became. Throw in a misbehaving spacecraft and things could get interesting.
* * *
26 Jan 1991
After a valiant effort, Alexi has surveyed the contents of each propellant magazine and found no anomalies. As to the source of the vibrations, at this point we must resume normal operations and continue to troubleshoot.
We are tired but determined to proceed with the next phase of our mission. Our most recent star sightings and gimbal angles should have arrived in the data packet preceding this transmission. We are prepared to increase acceleration once the flight dynamics group confirms our sight reductions and alignment figures.
My concerns for Alexi’s safety were well-founded as he has exceeded his maximum daily dosage twice now. He won’t be sprouting tumors any time soon, but he also understands that he is now at a much higher cancer risk later in life. Of this, he does not seem concerned. It is as if we are discussing the probability of a severe weather event or the outcome of a hockey match in twenty years’ time.
* * *
30 Jan 1991
Despite confirming the integrity of our propellant slugs, we continue to be beaten almost senseless by the incessant hammering of the pulse drive. It is time to confess that this takes a heavy toll on our sleep cycles. This degrades our alertness and is leading to unnecessary tensions.
I have therefore shut down the drive to conduct a visual inspection of our shock accumulators. Perhaps fatigue is affecting my own judgment, but that is a matter for others to determine when we return. We must isolate this problem now if there is to be any hope of mission success.
* * *
“Beaten almost senseless?” It must have been a real teeth-rattler for Vlad to slip that line into the official logs, much less shutting down the drive. Mission control must have had fits.
Surprising? Maybe not. They were simply human and a long way from home. Wouldn’t be the first time a cheesed-off cosmonaut told Star City what he really thought.
* * *
2 Feb 1991
Gregoriy and Alexi’s external inspection revealed premature signs of wear around the second-stage accumulator’s vacuum seals, however the rest of the drive section appears to remain in tolerance. This would not only account for the severe resonance vibrations, it should also explain the previous gross navigational errors we discovered.
You will have no doubt noticed from our telemetry that we did not engage the pulse drive immediately after their EVA. In this matter I must once again exercise commander’s privilege. Whether due from legitimate professional differences or simple accumulated fatigue, Gregoriy and Alexi had a spirited disagreement over the precise nature of the problem and what actions to take. Either the vacuum seals are threatening to fail, or they are misaligned and therefore not performing optimally. This is not something I would ordinarily report, but time is precious and we need to complete preparations for their next EVA. They spent six hours inspecting the thrust structure; now we must plan for which actions to take. Gregoriy is the more experienced cosmonaut, but I tend to put more trust in our flight engineer in this case. What comparable experience is there for a ship such as this?
Since Alexi will be conducting the actual repairs, I believe it is right to defer to his judgment. I was prepared to do this myself so as to not put him at risk of more radiation exposure, but both men’s dosimeters showed them to be well within the daily limits. This is no doubt due to the problem being isolated to the second-stage piston assembly. If they’d had to spend more time around the first-stage assembly next to the accelerator plate, radiation exposure would have been more concerning. Lucky for Gregoriy I suppose, though it would have been nice to stick my head outside of the spacecraft.
We will continue to coast for at least the next duty cycle as I want everyone rested and clear-headed tomorrow.
* * *
A “spirited disagreement?” Now that was some good old Russian understatement. Was it the first sign of a crack in their veneer, or was it the normal course of human relations?
Jack realized that’s what was bugging him: They seemed perfectly normal, not a crew prone to mutiny or whatever Moscow had termed “madness.” Amazing as their journey was, there was nothing that far out of the ordinary in here. If anything, this was a testament to a dedicated, even-tempered crew.
* * *
4 Feb 1991
Success! The source of our problem was found to be misaligned seals in the second-stage piston assembly. Quick work for a wrench ape like Alexi!
With the updated position data we were able to confirm our initial state vectors with confidence and resume operations per the agreed schedule, which is no doubt apparent from telemetry by now.
After experimenting with a range of detonation timing, we are able to maintain a steady 0.7 g cruise. This seems to be a level the ship is “comfortable” with. It is my intent to remain at this acceleration factor until we fully understand the resonance effect and its impact on the inertial guidance system.
Our spacecraft no longer flies like a freight train. If anything, it is like riding in a fine railcar on the Trans-Siberian. If I seem giddy it is because this will be our first full-sleep period in almost a month, and I find it difficult to remain awake.
We are tired but determined and eager to proceed with the next phase of our mission. It is perhaps fortunate that we were forced to coast through our transit of the asteroid belt, as the micrometeorite impacts have been much more numerous than anticipated.
* * *
Good to know, Jack thought, since we’ll be following in your footsteps soon.
Dozens of probes had traversed the asteroid belt with minimal course corrections: It wasn’t exactly Han Solo evading a flight of TIE fighters amidst clouds of floating granite—which he had to admit would be pretty awesome. But the largest of those probes had been about the size of a school bus, and while blisteringly fast for the time, had still remained in coast mode after leaving Earth.
Besides saving propellant and also not overtaking the resupply ship now a few weeks ahead of them, the belt was one reason they’d soon stop thrusting to coast the rest of the way to Jupiter. It was also why much of their mass budget had been used to rock-proof Magellan to the point where they could fly it through a hailstorm at full throttle and come out the other side none the worse.
So it turns out that navigating a spacecraft the size of a submarine at relativistic speeds through the same region wasn’t quite as simple...perhaps the belt wasn’t as sparsely populated as the eggheads thought.
Daisy’s chime alerted them to an incoming transmission. Traci’s eyes brightened at the sound: mail from home! Jack squelched her excitement by pointing out the time; it was just the daily news feed, which always started with the NASA Public Affairs happy talk:
* * *
This is Magellan Control, mission day twenty-one.
In less than one month, the deep-space vehicle Magellan and her crew have traveled farther and faster than any known humans before. Still accelerating at one-tenth gravity, their present speed is in excess of one hundred thousand miles per hour. Now covering almost two and half million miles each day, they have passed the orbit of Mars and are now traversing the asteroid belt while speeding toward their encounter with Jupiter.
* * *
“Did you catch that little qualifying phrase PAO slipped in there?” Traci asked over her breakfast. She pushed her tablet across the table. “We’re now ‘faster than any known humans.’ They’re setting people up for the big reveal.”
“You mean that we’re not the first.” Jack put down his tray and took her tablet, regarding it with suspicion. “You’re seriously reading those Public Affairs releases? Did you already run out of actual books?”
“I like to keep up with the news,” she protested. “I like knowing what they’re telling the folks back home.”
Jack theatrically cleared his throat. “Yesterday, flight engineer Jack Templeton repaired another balky CO2 scrubber while mission pilot Traci Keene spent her entire shift binge-watching her favorite TV shows while the spacecraft flew itself,” he recited in his best leaden anchorman monotone. “You’re right. That’d be pretty boring.”
“It was two episodes, and I was speed watching!” she said, and pouted. “Sometimes this boat runs a little too well.”
“And now you’ve just jinxed us,” he said, wagging his finger at her. “We won’t have new spare parts for another year. We need this thing to run like a Swiss watch until then or I’m going to get very cranky.”
“You’re cranky now. Personally, I don’t think you have enough to do.”
“You may be right,” he admitted. “I’m seeing way fewer glitches pop up on the daily squawk list than I’m used to.”
“What’s ‘usual’ out here?” she asked. “You can’t compare this to Station, or even DSV. That thing was built out of spare ISS components.”
She had a point. The first DSV, uninspired government-speak for “Deep Space Vehicle,” had been a cumbersome stack of ISS leftovers: One of the few completed Orion spacecraft was docked to a couple of unused logistics modules and mated to a Centaur kick stage. They’d sent it out to a couple of near-Earth asteroids after a flyby of Venus to pick up speed along the way.
Magellan, on the other hand, had been purpose-built almost from scratch. That fresh money had been allocated for it should’ve alerted them to the fact that there might be an ulterior motive behind its construction, but the dwindling astronaut corps had welcomed the new ship without question.
“New technology,” Jack said, drumming his fingers on the polymer tabletop. “It always makes me nervous. We don’t know what we don’t know . . . you know?”
Traci smirked at the pun. “You’ve kept that one pretty close. I’m surprised.”
“Didn’t want to jinx us,” he said. “If I voice my deepest fears then they’re almost certain to come true.”
“That is such a load of crap. You’re quite possibly the least superstitious guy I know.”
“Not superstition,” he argued. “Not even delusion. It’s probability.”
“That because you speak something, it somehow comes into being? You know my family went to a church like that.”
“That’s a whole different kind of superstition,” he said, watching for her reaction. “I believe we voice those things that worry us once we’ve mentally gathered enough evidence to be convinced it’s something worth worrying about,” he explained. “We say the crap’s about to hit the fan when it’s plainly obvious there’s an incoming turd.”
“So we haven’t realized it’s happening until it’s unavoidable?”
“Precisely.” Jack gestured at a monitor on the opposite bulkhead, where their ship was a glowing triangle moving along a bright green arc. Surrounding it were circles with arrows of different lengths projecting outward: Each marked a known asteroid and its vector relative to theirs. “We know with certainty where each one of those things are, and flight dynamics spent months fine-tuning our trajectory through the Belt. Our nav radar is lighting up everything within a thousand-kilometer bubble and the pressure hull is wrapped in enough micrometeor shielding to stop a fifty-caliber round. Do you think I’m the least bit worried about us getting holed by a stray rock?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“Not to mention we have the two best pilots in the solar system keeping tabs on it around the clock,” he said, making her blush. “I’m not worried in the least. But get me to thinking about the environment or water reclamation system and I’ll be up all night.”
“What does all this have to do with jinxes and probability? You’re awfully superstitious for an engineer,” she teased.
“It’s not superstition,” he said, more put out than he ought to be. “And that’s my whole point—most people don’t voice their fears until it’s staring them in the face. That’s when they create self-fulfilling prophecies.”
“So I should just share every worry I have with you ahead of time? Because that kind of sounds like fun.”