Текст книги "Orbit"

Автор книги: John Nance

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Chapter 9

ASA MISSION CONTROL, MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA, MAY 17, 10:05 A.M. PACIFIC

Arleigh Kerr stands at the end of the small table in the conference room of Mission Control, a freshly emptied bottle of water in his hand. His gaze is fixed on his boss as he clears his throat.

“Richard, I’m sorry to tell you, but we have no rescue capability. Ventureis down for a month or more.”

"What?”DiFazio is almost out of his chair, his bushy eyebrows knitting together in a combination of pain and alarm. “A month? When did you find that out?”

Arleigh’s sigh is heartfelt, his eyes on the papers at the edge of the table. There are only the two of them in the room, better for such bad news. He carefully places the empty plastic water bottle next to the papers, as if adjusting a family treasure, his eyes focused on the base of the bottle until he can’t dally any longer.

“I just got the word from our maintenance chief. The right wing spar is cracked in addition to the gear problem. If we try to fly her, we could lose her going up or coming down. Complete wing loss.” His eyes rise to meet DiFazio’s.

“Can’t we rush the repair?”

“You’re the composites expert, Richard. Not me. They’re telling me with cure times, the best they could do is ten days. Something about rebonding that spar.”

“Oh my God! Without Venture,we can’t even… we couldn’teven keep to our schedule if this…”

“I guess the only good news is that we’ve only got the one passenger.”

DiFazio is shaking his head in pain. “So what options, if any, do we have?”

“We can’t mount a rescue mission, we can’t communicate…”

Richard’s voice cuts him short.

“No! Don’t tell me what we can’t do, goddammit! Tell me what we cando.”

Arleigh’s retort is just as quick. “How about pray?”

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t have a lot of options, Richard. Christ, I’m not sure if we have anyoptions. If we had our other spacecraft, yes, we could launch and try a rescue. But we don’t. And you know NASA isn’t going to help. Some other country? The Russians? The Europeans? The Japanese? I don’t know. I haven’t called them. But it would cost more money than our entire capitalization to buy a Soyuzlaunch from the Russians, for instance, even if they could get one together in time.”

Richard is watching him, subdued now, but hair-trigger restrained as Arleigh continues. “And that raises another major, honking question.”

“Which is?”

“Is anyone even alive up there?”

Richard looks staggered. Arleigh concludes he hasn’t considered this. “We… we don’t know?”

“We don’t know anything, except that the ship is still on orbit and appears to be pressurized, according to NASA’s analysis… or was it NORAD’s? But zero communication, zero telemetry, no indication that Intrepidis doing anything more than automatically holding its pitch and roll position, and… and, we’re just guessing.”

Richard is shaking his head, eyes on the floor. He takes a deep breath before looking up. “Sorry, Arleigh. I just wasn’t ready for this, I guess.”

“Hell, neither am I! No one’s ever taken even a major nonfatal hit up there before. Why us? Why now?”

“You know this could kill us. I don’t mean to discount those two lives, but this could put us out of business.”

Arleigh sits heavily, swiveling the chair around to face the glass wall. His words are to the wall.

“Richard, you, of all people, know how risky this so-called business is. The forces involved, the explosive power, the number of life support things that can go wrong. I mean, we’re vastly more reliable than the shuttle could ever be, but… we’ve been hanging it out from the first.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…”

“We’ve all deluded ourselves into thinking we couldn’t actually lose one. We’ve had so many successful launches.”

“But we haven’t lost them yet. At least, we don’t know, right?”

“True, but a word of warning, okay? I mean, I’m only your flight director, but when this blows into the public eye, we’d better not be heard kvetching about the financial losses.”

“Of course not. I’ve got Diana inbound right now. We’ll put together a quick strategy.”

“It’s gonna leak, Richard.”

“I know it.”

“It’s gonna leak, and the media is going to smell blood and be all over it, and I don’t have a clue what to say or do… other than wait and watch and lean on NORAD and NASA for more information. We’re trying the radios constantly, but if we see the capsule turn around in position for retrofire, or if, at the end of the fourth orbit, it actually does retrofire, then we know for certain someone’s alive up there and following the checklists and we’ve got a chance.”

“Has someone called Campbell’s wife?”

“Yeah, I have. It was brutal. She’s tough, but she’s scared to death.”

“And… our passenger?”

“Dawson. Kip Dawson. We’re holding off for another hour or so before we call his wife.”

“For God’s sake, don’t wait too long. Don’t let her hear it from the media.”

“No. No, we won’t.”

“So what areyou waiting for?”

“The end of Orbit Two. I figure… without any rational reason… I figure if Bill’s alive and functional, he’ll want to get the hell out of there as soon as possible, and when he passes through the window for second orbit return, that’s when I’d expect something to happen.”

“How much longer?”

“Twenty-three minutes from now. At least that’s the end of the window. Otherwise, he overshoots California, or worse.”

“But we still have two more orbits before it has to come down, right?”

“They could go longer. We figure they could keep breathing up there for, roughly three days, or a bit less.”

“Before the CO ₂scrubbers saturate?”

Arleigh is nodding. “That’s always the limit.” He gets to his feet, leaving Richard still seated. “I’d better get back in there. I’ve been whipping everybody into a thinking frenzy to see if we’ve missed anything.”

Richard nods, waving him away as he picks up the phone, then replaces it in its cradle, his eyes on the far wall as he thinks through the consequences of dialing the person he was ready to call.

Not yet. Not just yet.

Chapter 10

ABOARD INTREPID, May 17, 10:20 A.M. PACIFIC

It’s time.

Kip powers the laptop to standby mode and reinserts the machine in its holder before gathering the checklists and positioning himself in Bill’s seat. A confusing feeling of excitement comes over him, a small rush before the sprint, he figures, his mind relieved finally to be at the threshold of action.

He runs back through the planned steps and reviews the three coordinates. Intrepidhas to turn around one hundred eighty degrees to fly backward, and the pitch and roll readouts on the attitude indicator must be precisely right before firing the engine. The master keyboard is in front of him and he pulls it closer. With care he punches in the three numbers and triple checks that he’s got them right. His finger hovers shakily over the “execute” button for several seconds as he wonders if there could be anything he’s forgotten, then he forces his finger down, hearing a small click.

The screen changes, registering the fact that the new coordinates have been accepted, and suddenly there’s a small box proclaiming that the automatic realignment maneuver has begun.

Thank God!

He holds his breath, wondering how it is that the small reaction jets on Intrepidcan be firing so gently that he can’t even feel them. It’s almost as if nothing is happening, despite the announcement on the screen.

He looks at the attitude indicator, willing it to move at least in some direction, but it’s static, the display as steady as if the whole spacecraft was sitting on some concrete floor back on the planet.

He takes in the screen, then the keyboard, and punches the execute button a second time, but still no movement. The annunciator screen indicates that everything should be working, the jets firing, and Intrepidshould be turning around tail-first. Right now!

Okay, I forgot something,he decides. Complex procedures can be thwarted by one simple mistake—like getting no toast because you forgot to plug in the toaster.

What did I miss?

He runs back through the checklist, feeling a cold, creeping trickle of panic.

Focus!

One by one he reenters the coordinates, his fingers shaking visibly now as he triggers the execute button.

And once more—despite the signs on the small LED screen that all is well and working as indicated– Intrepidcontinues flying straight ahead and on her back. No pitch. No yaw. No roll.

No change.

Kip checks his watch. Eight minutes remain before the time for retrofire. If the automated system won’t work, all he has left is the manual control, and he alone to manipulate it.

But he’s clicked the manual control button on that joystick before, in training, electing “active mode.” And in that simulator he promptly lost control so badly they had to stop the spinning simulator. All of the instructors and fellow students were holding their sides and laughing when he climbed out, and the follow-up session wasn’t much better.

“Kip, I guess we forgot to tell you,” the instructor had heehawed. “The object was to stopthe spinning, not set a new record for the highest number of revolutions per minute.”

He stares at the joystick, a tortuous, diabolical little tool that in the hands of a qualified astronaut is a singular thing of interfaced beauty, giving the ability to move in all three axes by just turning the wrist and hand.

But to an amateur, an invitation to spinning disaster.

I’m not touching that thing!he thinks, testing the words.

The spacecraft is still not turning. He thinks about entering the numbers a third time, but he’s already done it correctly twice. It’s already acknowledged his entries twice. And yet nothing automatic is happening.

I’m only on Orbit Two. I’ve got time to figure this out. I don’t have to force it right now.

The logic of waiting is impeccable, but it’s no match for his massive urge to get home now!

And without thinking he succumbs, adjusting his hand over the joystick and consciously punching the red button on top that reverts the spacecraft to manual attitude control.

He can hear his breathing rate increase, but nothing much is happening. There is a little drift now to the left, just a few degrees, and maybe a bit of roll, but he’s not sure.

Okay, time to try it.

He knows the controls are sensitive. The watchword will be moving in only one axis at a time, and he reviews the basics without moving his hand.

Push forward to pitch forward, pull to pitch up. Twist left to yaw left, right to yaw right. Nudge the entire stick left to roll left, nudge it right to roll right. Okay, which way first?

The Earth is still passing along above him, and it’s easy to see the horizon, the Earth’s curvature. So maybe he should take care of the main event first and just turn around backward before turning planet-side down.

Yaw right a full one hundred eighty degrees, putting the tail into the line of flight. Then I can fine-tune it to exactly the right numbers.

Slowly, carefully, he begins rotating the stick to the right, a millimeter at a time it seems, his muscles protesting until he suddenly feels and hears the hiss of the reaction jets yawing him in the right direction.

He releases the rotational pressure on the control stick, impressed at how smoothly Intrepidhas begun to rotate to the right around its center of gravity. The rate is steady, and he doesn’t seem to need any of the other two axis controls, at least not yet. He’s turning, through ninety degrees at last, finally completing a full reversal, and he leads his arrival at the right coordinates by twisting the control back to the left until he fires another small burst to stop the turn.

But it’s a bit too much, and the turn now reverses, very slowly at first.

He tries a tiny burst back to the right, but it, too, is overdone. Once more he’s turning right, passing through the one-hundred-eighty-degree point and continuing on around, this time beginning to pitch up, the nose heading toward Earth.

He pushes the stick forward for a small corrective burst and tries to arrest the yaw at the same time, and suddenly he’s turning back left slightly, pitching down away from Earth’s surface, and beginning a left roll, all at the same time. He can feel the sweat beading on his forehead as he tries to steady his hand and oppose the motions one axis at a time, but each burst is too much, and the memory of what happened in the simulator returns like a nightmare, as Intrepidbegins to tumble, slowly at first, then faster, the Earth beginning to gyrate and roll in front of his eyes.

Somehow he manages a glance at his watch. Four minutes left before he has to be rock-steady for retrofire.

MOJAVE INTERNATIONAL AEROSPACE PORT, CALIFORNIA, 10:53 A.M. PACIFIC

The chirp of her car alarm system arming behind her is all but unheard as Diana races through the front door of ASA’s building and accelerates toward Mission Control in search of Richard.

Sleep had been difficult after returning home from her trip to see Kip. Nevertheless she’d had every intention of being on the tarmac as they taxied out and grossly overslept instead.

Her cell phone is ringing and she curses quietly as she yanks it to her face, hearing a familiar name from the small list of aerospace reporters. She comes to a halt in the corridor and pulls the cell phone back for a moment, staring at it as if she’s discovered a pipe bomb in her hand.

So now it begins,she thinks. She had dreamed of being an astronaut and always thought she had ice water in her veins. Now she’s going to be tested.

“This is Diana Ross, ASA’s PR director,” she announces sweetly, as if it was a routine day in the office. Suddenly she’s working hard to dredge up any information from her memory on this particular reporter.

DiFazio has emerged from Mission Control down the corridor and is walking toward her with a grave expression, and she waves him to be quiet. He joins her silently, listening to her end of the conversation as she tries to convince the reporter in the calmest of tones that nothing in ASA’s world is amiss other than a nasty communications glitch.

“Really?” is the skeptical reply from the Beltway. “Then why am I looking at a live picture of your Mission Control and seeing absolutely no data streaming down from the spacecraft on any screen?”

“That’s what a communications glitch sometimes entails. We’re working on it.”

“I have a source who tells me it’s far more serious than that.”

“Really? Could your source call us? We’d sure like to know what he knows, because we’re not aware that the problem is any more serious than any other problem in spaceflight.”

The reporter is sighing, well aware she’s sparring with a pro. “Okay, look. I understand you’re in damage control mode and probably you don’t know yourselves what’s happening, but let me at least get some vitals on who’s up there.”

“I’m just getting to work and I need some coffee,” Diana says. “Give me your number and twenty minutes and I’ll get back to you.” The agreement is reluctant, but she ends the call and looks at Richard, taking in for the first time the depth of worry on his face, the hopelessness in his eyes.

“Richard?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, nodding slowly, his eyes on the floor as he chews his lip.

“Lord, how bad is it?”

“We don’t know anything new yet, but we’re praying that Bill is okay and getting ready to retrofire in a few minutes. We’re coming up on the end of the second orbit.”

“But we can’t talk to him?”

Richard launches into a quick and tense briefing that ends as they reach the entrance to Mission Control. He moves back inside with her in trail and Diana can feel the tension thick as summer humidity in Houston. The risks of making a business out of spaceflight she’s long understood. At least intellectually. She can talk about it for hours, marshaling details and numbers and even orbital mechanics. She knows Intrepidand its grounded sister ship are tiny bubbles barely sustaining human life after being shot to impossible speeds and altitudes and brought back against incredible forces. But they’ve been doing it almost a year now, week after week, without fail. The thought may be silly, but it’s echoing through her head: Since we know how to do this perfectly, it simply can’tend badly.

A sudden burst of activity flutters into view at the flight director’s console and she sees a receiver pulled to Arleigh Kerr’s ear. He speaks quickly and turns toward the rear, spotting Richard and Diana and motioning to the boss with a staccato movement. There is no smile on Kerr’s face, no deliverance in his expression, and Diana follows, feeling ill.

“What, Arleigh?”

He lowers the receiver as he searches for the right phrase.

“ What,Arleigh?” Richard snaps.

“Okay, Richard. NASA is pulling in a live long lens picture, and it shows Intrepidis tumbling.” He sees the question in Diana’s eyes. “Rotating around its center of gravity in all three axes.”

“I understand what tumbling means,” she says.

“Which indicates to you, what?” Richard prompts.

“He may be out of control.”

“Jesus.”

They all know the rest of the equation. A tumbling spacecraft can’t fire its rocket motor and drop out of orbit.

“How long to the retrofire window?”

“One minute. They’re watching.” Arleigh raises the receiver back to his ear and turns away, as if expecting his monitor to burst to life with good data streams from Intrepid. Every technician in the room somehow seems to know what he knows, and there is a collective quiet as the seconds tick away and more and more eyes turn to the flight director. He holds the receiver with one hand and rubs his eyes with the other, willing the nightmare to go away.

Chapter 11

ABOARD INTREPID, MAY 17, 10:56 A.M. PACIFIC

The centrifugal forces have begun to pull Kip in opposite directions, but they aren’t half as bad as the increasing frequency of alternating light and dark pulsing through the main windscreen.

He wills his hand off the joystick and realizes he’s been clutching it with a death grip. He reaches over with his left hand and pries his right fingers open, working them back and forth until they feel almost flexible again. There was something one of the astronauts told him in the simulator a week ago. Something that had to do with control sticks. What the hell was it?

For the first time in minutes the rate of tumbling isn’t increasing, and he realizes that it’s because he isn’t jamming the joystick back and forth in panic. The tumbling is remaining constant, and he’s feeling increasingly dizzy and ill, his upper torso and head being pulled toward the ceiling while below the waist he’s being pulled downward.

Fingertips! That was it. He said that instructors could calm down pilots having trouble with formation flight by teaching them to fly with their fingertips to avoid overcontrol.

Kip moves his hand back toward the joystick, this time placing only the ends of his fingers on the top of it and moving them in concert backward to fire the control jets in just one axis against the tumbling. He hears the jets hiss and feels the reaction, and for the first time the gyrations begin to slow. He does it again, tentatively, letting as much as a minute elapse between each burst, and finally daring to hope he might actually succeed.

He glances at the clock, hoping for a few more minutes before retrofire, but realizes it’s already too late. Firing the rocket now—even if he was in position and ready, which he isn’t—would bring him down somewhere far to the east of Mojave, and maybe way across the continent. No, he decides, he’s stuck for at least another orbit, another ninety minutes.

And with that realization, some of his panic leaks away.

Tentatively, he tries a small burst to the left to stop the right-hand roll, and the frequency of the Earth’s appearance in the side windows begins to slow. But he can’t twist the control and affect the yaw with fingertips, and he tries gripping the joystick with only thumb and forefinger and finds it works. A few short bursts in that direction and the sideways turning slows, too.

One axis at a time he works at it, trying hard to keep the bursts very, very brief, letting minutes elapse between each attempt, and watching the Earth’s movement relative to the spacecraft slow burst by burst, until after many very long minutes he realizes he’s finally in the right attitude, flying right side up, tail first, and steady.

Kip punches at the computer screen to try to reengage the automatic attitude controller, not believing it at first when the small box on the screen suddenly glows green. But the reaction jets are hissing quietly and he feels the craft steady itself, the coordinate readings all within a few degrees of what he’s supposed to have for retrofire.

Damn, I did it!

He’s covered with perspiration, still breathing hard, and his right hand is aching, but he’s in the right position and only that matters. A surge of confidence returns and he smiles the smile of a football player spiking the ball in the end zone.

He checks the time like a veteran. A little more than an hour to the next window, and this time he’ll be ready. He’s alreadyready, though drained and still shaking. He takes the barf bag he’s been issued out of his breast pocket and restows it in the zippered one by his right ankle, proud that he hasn’t needed it.

Once again he finds himself looking at the transmit button connected to his headset, wishing he could tell someone below of his success. He was spinning into oblivion, but he kept his cool, remembered the training, brief as it was, and he did it!

ASA MISSION CONTROL, MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA, 11:01 A.M. PACIFIC

Arleigh suddenly raises the phone handset over his head like a trophy, his voice booming through the control room.

"Yes!"

All eyes not already on him snap to as he shakes his head and exhales before explaining.

“He’s stabilized! The craft is no longer gyrating and is apparently in position for retrofire. He’s missed this window, but he’s under control and alive!”

There are shouts and applause as a wide variety of body English transmits the relief in the room. The monitors and the radios, however, are still vacant of contact and information, and the mood returns to watchful waiting, though with an improvement in hope.

“No cigars yet, people,” Arleigh is saying into his headset. “But Bill’s obviously on duty up there, so let’s prepare for a deorbit in eighty minutes.”

It takes a few minutes for Diana to remind the flight director and the CEO that the story is already leaking and she needs direction. Arleigh reluctantly leaves his console and follows the two of them into the glassed-in conference room.

“This will sound very cold, but it’s my job,” she says. “We have an incredible opportunity here.”

“For what?” Arleigh asks, indignant. “What the hell does that mean?”

Richard has his hand out for silence, his trust of Diana’s judgment all but total.

“What it means, Arleigh… Richard… is that our future as a company depends on how we handle whatever occurs next. Good or bad. If we show strength, authority, perfect honesty, and a vision beyond the moment regardless of the depth of this disaster, we will build an invaluable trust in the public mind. If we show fright, hide any fact however small, sidestep questions, or appear confused…”

“Any appearance of weakness, in other words,” DiFazio adds, nodding slowly, knowing she’s right but disliking the need of it.

“Exactly,” she continues. “Vulnerability breeds lasting distrust and even contempt.”

“I’m not a damned actor, Diana,” Arleigh snaps.

“No, you’re not,” she interjects before he can continue. “You’re a steel-willed professional who knows private spaceflight will remain and succeed and lead. All I’m saying is, be careful to show that true face to whoever’s watching. And they’ll be watching every moment from here on.”

JOHNSON SPACEFLIGHT CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS, 11:20 A.M. PACIFIC/1:20 CDT

“Talk to me.”

In John Kent’s perfect world, there is no need for verbal niceties when there’s an urgent mission to accomplish. “Hello’s” and “How’s the weather’s” are time wasters in a crisis. Nailing the point as he walks through the door of the teleconferencing suite is greeting enough for his old friend and senior manager at Kennedy Space Center, Griggs Hopewell.

“Good to see you, too, John. Okay, let’s get to it. We can make it happen, but we’ll need twenty-six hours a day for four days and a blowtorch to everyone’s behind.”

“ Endeavoris ready, then? Enough to roll out to the pad from vehicle assembly?”

“Not as ready as I’d like, but yes. So who’s going to fly, if this impossible mission comes about?”

“Paradies, White, and Malone. Tell me what you need to pull this off, Griggs.”

“How about authorization for starters. You’re talking tens of millions in prep expense. Shear is dead set against it and we’re essentially in a mutiny here even talking about it on company time.”

“Look, I don’t have a green light yet, but I’ll get it.”

“From Shear? What, are the Houston refinery fumes affecting you? John, I love ya, man, and I owe you for a lot of things, but you don’t run this organization.”

“Neither does he.”

“Jeez, John. We’re talking the administrator. We’re also talking about a guy who has an industrial-strength hatred for DiFazio. John, he wantsDiFazio and anyone dumb enough to fly with him to bite it.”

“All true, but he doesn’t make policy. The White House does.”

“And they’re suddenly going to go across town and politically bitch-slap their boy? I don’t frigging think so.”

“Griggs, ten minutes ago ASA’s craft stabilized and aligned for retrofire. He may get down on his own. This is just a feasibility exercise.”

There is silence from the Cape. “And if he can’t?”

“He just proved someone’s breathing up there and capable of controlling the spacecraft.”

“John, Bill’s a friend of mine, too. I also want him back safe.”

“Not the point. He comes down on his own or we go up to get him. Shear will be shamed into doing it by public pressure if nothing else. But this is just a contingency exercise until we know whether we need to go up.”

“Okay, a word of warning. I know what you’re thinking, and who you’re thinking of calling. But keep in mind that, despite nice handshakes and smiles when you’ve visited, there are people around the President who don’t necessarily like you, John, and they were never Boy Scouts like us. Approach them with reason and logic and compassion and they’ll jam it all back up your tailpipe and leave you seriously retired.”

“Duly noted. Keep your fingers crossed and get a playbook together for me, Griggs. Please.”

“Whoa, did I hear John Kent say please?”

“Kind of.”

“My God, that’s a first. Okay, I’ll slam a plan together, but if Shear gets wind of this, neither of us will be holding NASA IDs past tomorrow morning.”

“Who’s gonna tell him?”

“John, I’ve got a Cape full of irritated, overworked employees with more dedication to spying and informing than Stalin’s KGB.”