8
Mission Day 29
Velocity 110,350 m/s (246,846 mph)
Acceleration 0.981 m/s2 (0.10g)
Arkangel Commander’s Log
7 Feb 1991
Saturn is marvelous even from this great distance, better than the view from the finest telescopes at Pulkovo. Already the ring system is opening itself up in amazing detail. Soon our acceleration and proximity will combine to make the planet grow by the minute in our windows. It is tragic our portholes are so small.
This has made LK-M a popular location. With the lander docked perpendicular to our axis of travel, Saturn is centered in its enormous window. I have been forced to ration access in the interest of maintaining the duty schedule.
It is unfortunate that we will soon have to keep our attention inside the spacecraft. It is vital that our intercept vector remain within tolerance for the slingshot maneuver. We are navigating to a precision as yet unknown, flying our craft between the planet and its rings for maximum energy benefit just as Oberth discovered. The distance between them is tremendous, even more than the distance between Earth and Moon, but such high velocity greatly reduces our margin for error.
Yet I am tempted by Alexi’s suggestion of an impromptu EVA. We have all yearned for a more expansive view as our faces are pressed against the portholes or we reluctantly give up a turn in LK-M. Recognizing that he is scheduled to be off duty prior to our close approach, he has asked to exit the spacecraft for the purpose of recording our passage. He admits it is a great sacrifice but one he is willing to make for the Motherland.
It was difficult not to laugh. I would gladly have him take my position in the control block for such a feat myself!
Alexi has raised a valid consideration, however. While our current mission is of the highest secrecy, we look forward to the day when it is revealed to the world. Even a single photograph of Arkangel against the backdrop of Saturn would define our people for the ages. While I might envy Alexi for such a glorious undertaking, I must also find a way to make this possible. Our constant acceleration requires that he must remain within the airlock while opening the door to take some pictures. It will not be so simple as allowing him to give up part of his sleep cycle for a jaunt outside—he must don his Orlan suit and pre-breathe pure oxygen for several hours. Even a two-hour EVA requires eight hours spent in the confines of a spacesuit. Afterward, he will still have to assume his normal duties in the control block instead of taking a well-deserved rest. Gregoriy and I will need to adjust our duty schedules accordingly, yet I believe it will be worth the trouble.
* * *
Now that was an unexpected turn. They risked a spacewalk at Saturn? The radiation environment wasn’t as dangerous as Jupiter’s, but man . . . would he have done this, given the chance? Jack wondered. His stint on ISS had ended with a ride home on an old Soyuz, and the idea of having the most majestic planet in the solar system confined in those teensy Russian portholes was almost heartbreaking.
Jack fiddled with the dosimeter clipped to the chest pocket of his flight suit. He decided that getting zapped with a few extra rems and the risk of a surprise tumor later in life just might’ve been worth it.
Jealousy tugged at him, wishing that they could be visiting Saturn themselves. Given their direction, even a fusion drive wasn’t of much help if the planet was on the wrong side of the solar system.
Ah well. Maybe the next crew. For this one they’d have to settle for the comparative backwaters of Jupiter, Pluto, and the derelict spacecraft still in orbit out there.
* * *
9 Feb 1991
Saturn now fills both our windows and our imaginations.
The video we beam home cannot convey the majesty of its ring system. Alexi performed a short EVA so that he might capture better photographs. Even though he simply opened the outer hatch to stand upright in the airlock, I am jealous of my crewmate! Perhaps I should have claimed commander’s privilege again.
While we remained inside with our faces pressed against the portholes like impatient children, he floated in the open airlock and experienced what must be the most spectacular sight any human has ever been privileged to behold. Fortunately for us less fortunate beings, his 70mm camera recorded it all. The film canister was moved to a shielded container which now holds an honored place among our return cargo. I am sure the wait to develop these images will be worth it.
He promises me that the photographs down Arkangel’s length against the backdrop of Saturn will be worth the risk, dwarfing anything the Americans brought home from their vaunted Apollo missions.
Of their magnificence I have no doubt, though I was quite relieved to see him return inside. For the inconvenience he has caused us, Alexi has “volunteered” to take over lavatory cleaning duties for the next month. I suspect he considers it a small price to pay. I would.
It is enough of a challenge to describe being in Earth orbit. To describe a world dozens of times as massive, yet made of nothing but whirling clouds held in check by gravity? And the rings . . . words fail me. How they vanished in the planet’s shadow, yet could dominate all in sunlight? Perhaps we need to bring a poet on the next expedition.
I cannot imagine the spectacle Alexi enjoyed during his jaunt outside. He has been as rambunctious as a schoolboy on holiday, unable to sleep yet tireless in his duties at the flight control station. The spark in his eyes is impossible to ignore, and I dearly wish it had been possible to bring a photographer’s darkroom out here with us. Until our return, his priceless film rolls will remain locked away in a radiation-proof container.
* * *
Traci might have been speechless if she hadn’t been so astonished. “One of them got outside for a selfie . . .” she marveled, “at Saturn?”
Jack nodded and passed his translation notes to her: Yep.
“And no one has ever seen the photos?” If they managed to board Arkangel, finding those film canisters would be a priority and getting them safely back to a darkroom on Earth would make the trip home feel more urgent. She stared through the porthole by her shoulder. Compared to where her imagination was taking her right now, infinity felt kind of boring.
“Space is just too big,” Jack said, sensing her inner struggle. “People back home just think of the view, but when I try to tell them it’s mostly just black and empty their eyes glaze over.”
“It feels like we’re at the end of nowhere,” she agreed. “Hurts my head sometimes. That’s why I keep the lights down.”
“Migraines?”
“Sightseeing. Otherwise all the stars are washed out. Just so you know, when we get to Jupiter I’m asking Roy to run the cabin dark. I want to take in the whole thing.”
Jack pressed his face against a porthole. Still weeks away, the giant planet was close enough now to show its disk instead of just being another point of light in the black. Still, the clarity through their onboard telescope was stunning even at this distance. Details in its cloud bands were easily visible, as were its most prominent moons. “Think Roy would let me pop open the airlock to go outside and take some pics, like that Russian?”
She laughed with a very unladylike snort. “Maybe he will if you get under his skin enough. The radiation would cook you like a microwave burrito.” She turned back from the porthole with a sigh. “We’ll be lucky if there’s enough time to even look out the window.”
* * *
12 Feb 1991
Our incredible machine takes us farther and faster than even Tsiolkovsky or Korolev could have imagined, and we have coaxed it on ever faster after our slingshot around Saturn.
We managed to sustain a full 1g burn throughout periapsis, adding Saturn’s considerable potential energy to our expelled mass. We eagerly await the trajectory team’s final confirmation, but it appears we executed the necessary plane change to intercept Pluto and added 26 km/s delta-v at Saturn’s expense.
So on second thought, perhaps not Tsiolkovsky. He would have certainly imagined this. Indeed he would have expected us to do so!
I relinquished my traditional role as mission commander to allow Gregoriy to navigate us through the gap between the rings and the cloud tops below. He is a masterful pilot and has become perhaps the best celestial navigator in the cosmonaut corps, whereas my greater concern was with the overall condition of the ship. While Gregoriy piloted, Alexi and I watched for any signs of resonance vibrations. While it may seem obvious from telemetry, I am pleased to report that Arkangel performed magnificently during this fiery test. It will require more analysis, but we believe that the strong centripetal forces of our maneuver dampened the vibrations we experienced earlier. Engineers will have to decide how Arkangel “felt” but I can describe what it was like for us.
As we approached the planet its cloud tops filled our windows with a milky yellow glow. The lightning-quick wink of a shadow told us we had passed beneath the rings. Gregoriy had us close enough to an optimal path that his pitch adjustments were minor; the only forces we felt were the nuclear fire at our backs and the tide of inertia pulling us outward as we whipped around the planet.
Half of an orbit later, we emerged unscathed on the other side only for Nature to astound us one final time. While we caught our breath and boisterously slapped each other on the back, another shadow crossed our windows. Something massive had just come between us and the Sun. Of course it was the planet we had just left behind, but now from a perspective no one had yet seen: in silhouette, with its rings illuminated on either side like handles on a teacup.
I have never seen men turned so utterly silent by the face of Nature.
* * *
“I suppose a month of scrubbing the space toilets would’ve been a fair trade,” Jack said as he fought with a stuck impeller on one of the water recyclers. “It’s all scut work anyway.”
Traci put down the tablet she’d been reading from to join him. “Someone has a case of the Mondays.”
He backed out from under the housing to turn a sour gaze her way. “You know how much I hate that phrase. It’s like the fourth or fifth time you’ve used it today.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Yeah. It’s Wednesday.” He nodded at his tool kit. “Oil, please.”
She shrugged and handed him a bottle of machine oil. “That bad, huh?”
Jack answered with a frustrated grunt and carefully sprayed beneath the balky part. He didn’t like having unnecessary globs of lubricant floating free in his spacecraft. “We’re not using it enough. Everyone’s afraid to overtax the system but it needs to work. Otherwise seals get dry and moving parts seize up.”
“So flush the toilets more?”
“And quit the bottled water,” he said, noticing the telltale bulge in her hip pocket. “No sense relying on that stuff anyway. It’s going to become a scarce commodity.”
His mind wandered to the image of an unknown cosmonaut scrubbing toilets after what had to have been the most spectacular spacewalk no one had ever heard about. Zero gravity lavs were notoriously complicated, so how’d they get the thing to work under constant acceleration? The inventive reputation of Russian engineers had a lot to do with their relative lack of resources. That they’d managed to build a functioning crapper for both zero and constant g deserved an award.
“I’m not ready to drink recycled pee just yet,” she said. “I need a few more weeks.”
“In a few more weeks Jupiter will be in our rearview mirror. You won’t have a choice.”
She smiled. “Exactly my point.”
He closed up the pump housing and stretched. “I wish they wouldn’t have stocked that stuff in the first place,” he said, pointing at the bottle in her pocket. “All of the things they pick over in the mass budget, why add more of what we already have?”
“Yet you’re about to ask me for a drink anyway.”
“Consider it a design trade. That mass has to go somewhere, it might as well be me.”
“You’re rotten.” Yet she still handed over the bottle.
Jack took a long, grateful gulp and handed it back. “Okay, that was good. But I’m still saving mine for the float after Jupiter.”
Unlike Arkangel, their mission profile would have them stop burning a few weeks after doing a slingshot around Jupiter and coast until it was time to start burning in the opposite direction. Their constant acceleration meant they had to turn the ship and slow down toward their destination for the same amount of time as they’d sped up, despite coasting for six months. Even Jupiter’s massive gravity well wasn’t enough to slow them down for a nice drift into orbit, and Pluto itself was barely two-thirds the size of Earth’s moon. The dwarf planet could do nothing to capture something at their speed short of running straight into it.
The Russians had been faced with the same dilemma but using nuclear bombs for fuel gave them more options. They could fly the outbound leg at one g and suck up a harder braking burn at one of the larger outer planets like Uranus, anything with a gravity well deep enough to do the rest of the work for them. It would’ve shaved weeks from their trip.
The striking clarity of vision that had driven the Arkangel project was almost comical in its classic Soviet brute force approach. Like strapping multiple boosters to the side of a rocket just to get more throw weight: Can’t build a giant engine like the American F1’s? Then just cluster a few dozen smaller ones for the same result. Of course, the added complexity hadn’t worked out too well for them—every known N1 booster had exploded not long after launch. One had been spectacular enough to cause a mass freak-out in Washington’s intel circles, as it had looked for all the world like a nuclear burst.
The spacecraft core had been launched by an Energia booster in the late eighties, officially an antimissile laser platform that never reached orbit. Using a couple of small nuclear bursts to get the pusher plate into orbit wouldn’t have been a stretch; it was the Orion drive’s original operating concept and they’d been crazy enough to try a lot of things when no one was looking.
Arkangel was a model of simplicity compared to the machinations they’d undertaken to orbit all of that mass in secret. The Russians had serious long-duration spaceflight experience, and they’d learned how to keep both machinery and the people inside functioning for months at a time.
How far they could go with it all depended on the drive system. Chemical rockets were out of the question for a number of reasons, not least of which was their disastrous experience with the N1. Nuclear thermal was a decent alternative, but if one was going to start violating treaties then it made sense to go all-in for something spectacular. Something that would forever change the public understanding of spaceflight.
The Russians were known to be ruthlessly pragmatic but they couldn’t argue with the basic philosophy: Go big or go home.