CHAPTER 42:
Tribunal
USSF Office of Scientific Integration @OSIGenBoatright
(1/2) How did it happen? I think Frank Borman said it best when asked to speak about the Apollo One fire: ‘failure of imagination.’
No one imagined the combination of circumstances which caused the fire on Apollo One. Likewise, no one imagined the conditions which resulted in the Apollo Thirteen crisis, the loss of Asimov Station, or the possibility that an astronaut would develop appendicitis while orbiting the Moon in a Wyvern craft fifteen years ago.
(2/2) It is pointless to seek to pin the blame on any one person, company, or agency. While none of them were responsible, at the same time, all of them were responsible—even those of you sitting in tribunal, second guessing the people who were actually there.
I ask each of you to think upon this and reflect on what *you* would have, or could have, done differently.
ChirpChat, June 2044
The weeks at Clark were a lot of hard work, but nothing compared to Glenn’s original rehabilitation. For that matter, he’d been through exactly this type of rapid acclimation before. During his tenure as CMO of Moonbase, he’d spent fifteen months at one-sixth gee. Heinlein Station wasn’t complete, neither were the low-gee rings at Clarke. He went directly from Moon gravity to Earth gravity without benefit of transition to intermediate gee forces.
On the other hand, reacclimation in those days meant an intensive six days doing almost nothing but resistance exercises, cycling, and running on a treadmill. Nights were spent sleeping head-in, feet-out, in a five-meter centrifuge that simulated one gee (and a lot of dizziness).
All in all, he’d prefer the step-up approach available at Clarke.
As he progressed to the full-gee experience, he noticed that the fine motor control on his bionic arm started to deteriorate. He commed Ian to discuss the problem.
“It’s just gee-force compensation. Time for a tune-up, Shep. I’ll be up there before you’re due to return to Earth. I just need to adjust the force-feedback loops.”
“You’re going to do it before I go to Aunt Sally’s, right? I can’t be breaking her plates and glasses.”
“No worries. I’ll send some update codes that will help out now, and be up there by the end of the week.
“Thanks, Ian. I appreciate it.”
By the time Glenn finally got down to Earth, most of his injuries had healed, so he had few worries of Aunt Sally scolding him for getting himself hurt. She would still fuss, but that was expected of the woman who had stood in for his mother for so many years.
His eardrum had mostly healed by the time Percheron arrived at Heinlein Station. The docs had pronounced minimal airway scarring from vacuum, and there was no lasting mucous membrane damage. He had chest twinges a few times during extremely intense exercise, but it was minor, and he kept that one to himself.
“Glennie!”
Sally came out of the house when she saw the black USSF vehicle pull into the driveway. She’d barely waited for him to get out of the car before enveloping him in a hug.
“Momma.”
“Welcome home, Glennie. I’m glad you’re okay. I was so worried when I heard you’d gone flying off on your own.”
“Not my own, Momma, I had good people helping me.”
“Come inside. I have fresh baked cookies.”
Aunt Sally made him sit down at the table while she fussed over making a pot of coffee. She and Uncle Hoop would grind fresh beans and make a pot every morning, but that was simply too much for her to drink on her own. Company was always an occasion for coffee in the Pritchard and Shepard households, though, so she was eager to share a pot with Glenn or any visitors who might come calling.
There were, indeed, fresh-baked cookies. Oatmeal raisin, his favorite. Two cookies and a mug of coffee later, Sally gave him a pointed look.
“Jennifer. What’s the story? Have you made up with the dear girl?”
“Yes, Momma. I apologized and she apologized, and we forgave each other. She’ll come this weekend.”
“Good. She came by when you were gone, you know. It was the day before they announced you were out on Percheron dealing with the medical problems, and she came by personally to tell me.”
“She told me. She was worried about you getting word from the media.”
“I had your initial comm message, though. The one you sent when you launched the whatchamacallit—the Bat.”
“I know you did, but Jen told me the general insisted on the personal touch—although, she would have done it anyway.”
“He came by, too. Your general.”
“He did?” Glenn was shocked.
“Of course, it’s not the first time I’d met him. Rick came to see me after your accident. He talked me through your rehabilitation plan. He also came to talk to me and Hoop before the two of us came to see you. We’d crossed paths in the hospital. He’s been looking out for you, you know.”
“So I’ve learned. Huh. That’s a lot more personal than I expected.”
“Rick likes my peanut butter cookies—you know, the ones with the crisscross pattern on top. I made a pot of that Hawaiian coffee you sent me. He’s a very pleasant man.”
“Rick. Wow, you’re on a first-name basis with the general. I never would have imagined it. That’s just not an image I associate with him.”
“He cares about you. You remind him of himself. He told me way back when, that you’d use your abilities to help people. That’s why he supported the bionics and everything. He said that again when you went to Percheron. It’s what he would have done in your place.”
His month’s leave was nearly over. Jen had come from D.C. each weekend, and Nik had come calling as well. They were sitting with the inevitable cups of coffee and plate of cookies in the den watching a video feed from the Hague while Sally puttered about in the kitchen.
The video was coverage of a meeting of the MOSEC—the Mars and Outer System Exploration Consortium, the allied space agencies portion of MarsX. Several of the participating agencies argued that the U.S. and Space Force should bear the brunt of the blame for the “Percheron Incident.”
General Philip Bolger-Cortez, Chief of Space Operations and senior officer of USSF, argued that the construction phase of civilian space operations fell under NASA jurisdiction. Moreover, Percheron had been built by contractors. He further argued that Percheron had been built by MOSEC contractors, to give the multinationals a larger role in the consortium.
Doctor Aaron Haskins, CEO and president of MarsX, cited the safety record of the Mars missions to date. The Percheron Incident had nothing to do with MarsX, Tucson Mission Control, or Mission Medical. Indeed, MarsX personnel could not have foreseen the leak and were therefore not culpable. Furthermore, the valve from water tank to the fungicide reservoir was added as an afterthought based on a NASA design modification.
Next to testify was Eugene Kraft, second in command at NASA. He’d come up through the ranks as a flight director, much like the two men he’d been named for. He denied that the NASA design was at fault. Failure was not an option. Their own history had taught them to check everything.
Glenn, Jen, and Nik watched this prologue to the inquiry and wondered when the representatives would actually ask the people who were there and affected by the copper leak. They didn’t have long to wait, although Dvorak was the only crew member to appear in front of the committee, as the only officer available. When the Ecuadoran delegate complained about that fact, Dvorak pointed out that Katou was sick, and LeBlanc and Scott were dead—would Madam Delegate prefer to call in a psychic to continue the questioning?
She ignored the barb, and tried to lay the blame on LeBlanc. The French delegate jumped up and accused the Ecuadoran of “victim-shaming.” On the contrary, the Ecuadoran delegate argued, if LeBlanc hadn’t wasted most of the contents of IWS Reservoir Four, there would have been more than enough water left, and the crew wouldn’t have had to drink from the contaminated tank.
“That’s not how it works, that’s not how any of it works,” Glenn said.
“I know, Shep.” Jen told him. “I know how the political and media minds work. These folks are there to be seen and heard—to look good for their constituents.”
“Yeah, but they’ve got the logic wrong. The copper caused LeBlanc’s hallucinations. Copper-dependent enzymes turn dopamine into norepinephrine. It works just like methamphetamine overdose. She wouldn’t have blown the hatch if she weren’t already affected. They were already drinking contaminated water when they lost the contents of Tank Four—besides, standard procedure would have been to finish Tank Three first anyway, so all the water in Tank Four still wouldn’t have done any good.”
Much to Glenn’s surprise, Dvorak responded with exactly that point.
“But why don’t you go in the tank and inspect it periodically?” asked the Russian delegate.
“Ladies and gentlemen. We don’t go inside a water tank in free-fall because we’d drown before we got out,” Dvorak told her.
“But you have spacesuits!” protested the Russian delegate.
“Have you ever tried to swim in a spacesuit, ma’am? No? I thought not. I’d be perfectly happy to give you the experience if you’d come down to Houston.”
The gallery broke into laughter, and the chairman gaveled the session to a close for the day.
The next day, even though no possible blame could be placed on the Mars Three/Marsbase One crew, the tribunal called Gavin Taketani. For this testimony, they had to link in O’Neill Station and endure a three-second round-trip communications lag. Taketani was scheduled for another month of high-gee rehabilitation for heart function before the docs would approve his return to Earth. The questioning was actually quite awkward, with long pauses in the testimony. Glenn told the other two that the pauses were not lightspeed delay, but rather Taketani was very carefully trying to decide who had asked which question—the video link only showed official MOSEC delegates. Non-signatories weren’t supposed to ask questions, although that certainly hadn’t stopped the Ecuadoran or Russian so far. They were present because they’d contributed contractors, but were supposed to just be observers, not badgering witnesses.
Taketani described events, procedures, and consequences to the best of his knowledge. Officially, he was a passive onlooker for much of the voyage. Unofficially, he kept to himself, and didn’t pay much attention to MarsX or Percheron personnel once they’d left Mars. He suggested that the board should really talk to his chief medical officer Yvette Barbier. The board agreed, and summoned her, but received a stern warning citing international standards of health information privacy. Barbier was unavailable due to her own ongoing medical care.
“They won’t get her,” Nik said.
“She’s that bad?” Jen asked.
“No, but she’s in therapy and needs to be left alone. The last thing she needs is these clowns making her relive it.”
Glenn grunted agreement.
The hearing broke down into turmoil. No one—not the agencies, the governments, nor the corporations—wanted to accept responsibility.
In the words of America’s second man in space, Gus Grissom—“it just blew.”