A Mars Odyssey Read online

  Lithgow briefly looked to his right at the other important guests who had come to Vandenberg to watch this critical space launch. Maria Cardona, the NASA Administrator, was here of course, along with Doctor Misha Borisovich, the head of Roskosmos, the Russian Space Agency, Wang Lao Xi, the head of the Chinese Space Agency, Michel Dupré, the head administrator of the European Space Agency, and Shinzo Kurozawa, the head of the Japanese Space Agency. Normally, the head of the Indian Space Agency, which had participated in the development and design of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, would have been present as well. Sadly, Doctor Chandra Sahriman was now dead, along with his whole technical team and more than half of India’s population. Faced with an impending Pakistani land invasion of its parts of Kashmir and of the Punjab, the Indian government had issue an ultimatum to Pakistan to cease and desist, to which General Khan had replied by launching a ‘preemptive’ nuclear strike on India, concentrated against the main cities and military bases east and south of the Punjab. With over 140 Pakistani nuclear-tipped missiles in the air and with dozens of Pakistani combat aircraft loaded with tactical nuclear bombs flying into Indian airspace, the Indian government had no other option but to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike of its own on Pakistan. The subsequent explosion of over 290 nuclear warheads around the Indian Sub-Continent had killed instantly tens of millions of Indian and Pakistani citizens, with hundreds of millions more dying from radiation exposure in the weeks to follow. The radioactive fallouts, apart from irremediably contaminating most of the arable lands in both countries and ensuring mass famines in the near future, had also played havoc with a number of neighboring countries, contaminating vital agricultural lands, forests and rivers and forcing the mass evacuation of millions of Iranian, Afghan and Burmese citizens. Ismail Khan, the man who had started it all, had then compounded his stupidity with cowardice, fleeing by plane to China and abandoning his people to its grim fate. However, instead of being given refuge by the Chinese, who had been up to now his allies, Khan had been summarily executed on arrival by the furious Chinese, who were also suffering indirectly from the nuclear war that had happened on their doorstep. Sadly, that lone act of justice could not erase the fact that over a billion people had died in the last month, while tens of millions more would die from either famine or radiation poisoning during the next few months. Robert Lithgow momentarily felt a flash of anger as he remembered some of the cruel, racist comments he had heard on some of the most extreme right wing American radio stations, in which a few radio talk show hosts and their listeners had exchanged gleeful comments about the nuclear destruction of India and Pakistan, calling the deaths of over a billion people ‘an overdue culling of excess population’. However, the storm of public outrage that had followed had shut up those racists and even forced the closure of two of the most extreme right wing radio stations.

  Chasing away with difficulty those awful souvenirs, Lithgow concentrated his attention back on the giant disk resting vertically on its edge, supported by six big integrated rocket-ramjet engine pods attached at the vertical to its underside and topside. The disk section itself, which had a diameter of 190 meters and a thickness of 36 meters, was capped with an aerodynamic cover along its top edge. That cover would prevent damage from air pressure and friction heat as the assembly would rise and take up speed within the atmosphere. It would also help make its flight more economical in fuel by virtue of its shape, which would make the disk section form an airfoil with appreciable aerodynamic lift coefficient and would cut drag as well. The cover would then be jettisoned before the disk section attained Low Earth Orbit, or LEO. As for the rocket-ramjet engine pods, they were essentially similar to the engine pods used by the new fleet of heavy cargo shuttles now in NASA service. Once their work of orbiting the disk section would be completed, the six integrated engine pods were going to detach themselves from the disk section and then individually reenter the atmosphere, to return and land in Vandenberg, which was now the prime space launching base in the United States. Cape Canaveral and its huge space complex had unfortunately been lost six years ago, along with most of the state of Florida, when it had been submerged by the rising sea.

  ‘’ONE MINUTE TO LAUNCH!... THIRTY SECONDS TO LAUNCH!... TEN SECONDS TO LAUNCH!... FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE! IGNITION!’’

  Lithgow felt Maria Cardona’s hand search for his right hand and then press it nervously as the final seconds of the countdown were called. In response, the systems engineer and astrophysicist gave her a reassuring smile.

  ‘’Everything will be fine, Maria.’’

  He didn’t have time to say more before the overhead speakers of the launch control room suddenly blared with the powerful rumble of six engine pods coming to life simultaneously, while huge flames came out of their exhaust nozzles, to be deflected sideways by specially built concrete-lined trenches. With a total initial thrust of 52,000 metric tons from the chemical rocket engines of the six pods, which burned liquid oxygen and RP-11, the huge 42,000 metric ton assembly, 16,000 tons of which was the disk section, started rising vertically at once from its launch pad. With nearly everyone in the launch control room excitedly shouting encouragements, the disk and its six engine pods quickly acquired speed, accelerating continuously as the volume of air entering the pods via their forward intake nozzles increased with speed, boosting further the mighty thrust of the engines via what was called ‘ram air effect’ and also making the engines more fuel efficient.

  ‘’GO, FRIENDSHIP, GO!’’ shouted Maria Cardona as the main section of her future spaceship reached the speed of sound while still climbing and accelerating. Once at a speed of Mach 2.1, the six integrated engine pods switched to nearly pure ramjet mode, injecting liquid hydrogen inside the ramjet tubes surrounding the chemical rocket engines, while the rocket engines throttled down to idle. The hydrogen, vaporized by the air heated via compression after entering the intake nozzles, helped greatly lower the temperature of that ingested air, thus improving the efficiency of the ramjet part of the engine pod. It was then mixed with the oxygen in the atmospheric air and ignited, creating huge thrust while operating at a fuel efficiency rate, or specific impulse in aerospace parlance, much greater than that of any pure chemical rocket engine. The ramjet engines went on until the big structure reached a speed of Mach 5.5 and an altitude close to 30,000 meters, where the air started becoming too rarefied to let the ramjet function. Then, the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen chemical rocket engines of the pods ignited, taking over at an altitude where they could perform much more efficiently than at sea level. That ultimate thrust phase finished pushing the main disk section into its initial low Earth orbit, where the six integrated engine pods detached themselves under remote control and started flying back to Earth, where they would be inspected, refurbished and reused for other launches. The aerodynamic nose cover also detached itself a few seconds before that moment, but went down only to burn on reentry, as planned.

  More wild cheers greeted the reaching of low initial orbit by the main section of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, prompting Lithgow and Cardona to exchange happy handshakes and hugs with their foreign colleagues. Misha Borisovich in particular proved quite effusive, in line with his reputation for joviality and cheerfulness. He nearly crushed Maria Cardona in his arms when he cheerfully hugged her while celebrating the success of the launch.

  ‘’We did it, Maria! We did it!’’

  ‘’I know, Misha, but could you press a bit less strongly?’’

  ‘’Oh, sorry!’’ said the Russian astrophysicist, who was built like a bear. ‘’Still, to launch in orbit such a huge mass, and this without a single hitch. It must be a record.’’

  ‘’It is a record, Misha, and one that we can be extremely proud of. However, there is still a lot more to be done before we can send the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP towards Mars and even more to be done before we end up with a self-sustaining colony on Mars. Hopefully, we will be able to achieve all that before Humanity destroys itself through sheer stupidity and lack
of vision.’’

  ‘’Or is able to reverse this damn global warming and make the sea lower to its previous levels.’’ added Michel Dupré, of the European Space Agency, or ESA. Robert Lithgow nodded his head at that but inserted a comment of his own.

  ‘’That would definitely be nice to see, but even then I hope that our political leaders will understand that this project must be brought to its ultimate end state: a viable, self-sustaining colony on Mars. This global warming crisis was brought on by us, through our own lack of common sense. There is no way to know what other stupidity we will do in the future that could kill for good Earth’s ecosystems. We need to invest into space colonization, no ifs or buts!’’

  ‘’I fully agree with you, my friend.’’ said softly Misha Borisovich. ‘’Right now, we still don’t know the true extend of the damage done worldwide by that stupid Indo-Pakistani Nuclear War. As things grow worse, with seas rising and temperatures increasing, more such follies could easily happen.’’

  The group slowly nodded their heads at those words before Robert Lithgow clapped his hands together and smiled to the others.

  ‘’Well, enough about the doomsday talk! How about if we go celebrate this success in style? I know a very good restaurant near the base where we could have supper together. I’m paying!’’

  ‘’Well, in that case, what are we waiting for?’’ exclaimed Borisovich, making the others laugh.

  02:46 (Greenwich Meridian Time)

  Monday, May 20, 2041

  NASA light space shuttle AURORA

  On approach to the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP’s main section

  Low Earth orbit

  ‘’Shuttle AURORA on final approach to docking station Alpha of main FRIENDSHIP’s section. Fifty meters and closing!’’

  Denise Wattling, who was piloting the light shuttle, waited until her craft was within twenty meters before speaking again to the Vandenberg controller via radio.

  ‘’Going down the glide path nicely, autopilot and automated approach system fully synchronized. Approach speed: 0.4 meters per second… Five meters to docking port… Docking clamps engaging!’’

  Denise then pressed a couple of buttons in sequence, tightening the docking clamps to render the docking collar airtight, then filling the nose airlock with warm, breathable air. She nodded her head inside her spacesuit’s helmet when an indicator light turned green.

  ‘’Nose airlock pressurized! We are now going to go inside FRIENDSHIP.’’

  ‘’Understood, AURORA! Proceed at your own pace.’’ replied the NASA controller. Denise then looked at her team leader, Mark Dempsey, sitting in the copilot’s seat.

  ‘’We can go inside the ship, Mark.’’

  ‘’Good! There is quite a lot to do for us in there.’’

  Dempsey released the safety harness of his seat, then got up and put one boot down on the deck plate between the two forward seats of the light shuttle. As was now standard in all spacesuits, be they produced in the United States, Russia, China or Europe, the soles of his boots had a number of small permanent magnets incorporated into them. That allowed astronauts to cling to a spacecraft or ship’s decks, which were lined with very thin steel sheets. While that cost a bit in terms of mass, the fact that one could move and walk nearly normally even in zero gravity conditions made working and living in space so much easier. Even the soles of the astronauts’ inner slippers incorporated small magnets, for the same reason. Being cautious not to walk at a too brisk pace and thus risk breaking completely contact between the deck and his boots, the activation team’s leader walked down the wide central aisle of the light shuttle, passing by the seven members of his team who were sitting in their padded, crashworthy seats.

  ‘’Come on, guys and girls: time to get to work!’’

  Imitated by Denise Wattling, who put her shuttle into dormant mode first, the members of the activation team got out of their seats and followed Dempsey down to the lower deck, where the airlock chamber of the nose docking ring was situated. Double-checking first that the airlock was properly pressurized, Dempsey then opened its wide, aluminum alloy door and entered the airlock. He let two members of his team join him, nearly filling the airlock, then gave a couple of orders.

  ‘’Seal your suits! Omar, close and secure the airlock’s door.’’

  In theory, and with all instruments indicators telling him that the airlock on FRIENDSHIP’s side was pressurized, he could have simply left both doors of the shuttle’s airlock opened, thus accelerating greatly the rate at which his team members would enter the huge main section of the spaceship. However, instruments could go wrong for all kinds of reasons, while a bitterly learned lesson about space work was that about anything could happen at any time with little or no warning. He thus was resolved to play it safe all the way on this mission and not risk unnecessarily the lives of his team members. Once Omar Kawaji had closed back the shuttle’s inner airlock door, Mark opened the outer airlock door and glided inside the transfer chamber of the docking station’s airlock, followed by Roberto Calderon and Viktor Ponichnikov. He waited until Viktor had secured the shuttle’s airlock’ outer door before unlocking and opening the outer door of the spaceship’s airlock, revealing a wide chamber big enough for ten astronauts in spacesuits to stand in. All three astronauts then glided inside the spaceship’s airlock chamber and planted their boots on the steel-lined deck, with Viktor closing and securing the outer door before Mark spoke in his helmet’s microphone.

  ‘’The spaceship’s airlock is confirmed as pressurized. The rest of the team can now come in.’’

  ‘’Understood!’’ replied Denise Wattling, who was the second-in-command of the team, on top of being the pilot of their shuttle. Less than four minutes later, all nine members of the team were together in the spaceship’s airlock, with the outer doors of both the ship’s airlock and of the shuttle closed. Mark paused for a second before opening the inner door of the airlock: they were about to enter the largest space structure ever put in orbit. He then corrected himself: that space structure was still incomplete, with many more sections to be added to it before it became a fully flyable spaceship.

  The activation team members were happy when they were able to finally open the visors of their spacesuits’ helmets once inside the large reception area of the docking station: No matter how well designed a spacesuit was, there was always a claustrophobic element to them. At this time, however, the reception area, like the rest of the ship, was only dimly lit by secondary lights powered by the solar panels that had deployed out of the main disk section once it had attained its parking orbit. They would have to activate first the main and secondary nuclear reactors of the spaceship before the main disk section could be fully powered up. Mark Dempsey thus looked at Viktor Ponichnikov, the nuclear engineer loaned to this mission by Roskosmos, the Russian space agency.

  ‘’Viktor, you take Max with you and go activate the two nuclear reactors of the spaceship. I will go with Denise to the central command section to activate the other ship systems from there, while Jiang Min will lead the rest into the carrousels to remove the braking clamps, so that we could initiate their rotation. Let’s go!’’

  The team then started walking down the seventy meter-long padded tube that linked Docking Station Alpha to the central axis section that contained both the central command section and the nuclear reactors’ compartments. Twenty meters down the tube, five of the team members, led by Jiang Min, split from the rest of the group and entered a side airlock that led to the contra-rotating carrousels of the ship. The two huge carrousels, which actually worked like rings running on circular racetracks rather than carrousels with moving spokes, were each contained in adjacent but separate, airtight sections, so that any accidental decompression would not endanger both carrousels. Jiang Min, a member of the Chinese Space Agency, knew pretty much everything about those carrousels, as his own father had designed what was possibly one of the most critical components of the H.S.S. FRIE
NDSHIP. One reason for the failure of the previous Mars One Mission had been the poor health on arrival on Mars of the astronauts, partly due to the long time spent traveling in zero gravity conditions. Thus, incorporating some sort of a rotating carrousel section into the next generation of spaceships, so that some artificial gravity could be created via centrifugal effect, had been one of the prime lessons from that tragic failure. The genius of Min’s father, Jiang Chao, had been to do away with the space-consuming moving spokes that came with classic carrousels. Struck by the sight of open cars going up and down a roller-coaster track at an amusement park, Chao had adapted the roller-coaster concept to a spaceship design, with a system of two airtight rectangular-section rings turning smoothly in opposite directions inside circular tunnels, using magnetic cushions similar to those of high-speed maglev trains. This eliminated the need for heavy and complicated rotating spokes and their supports, with their problematic central axis seals around their base rings. It also insured a complete separation, pressure-wise, of the two carrousels, or ‘running rings’, as Chao preferred to call them. The compactness of the design had also permitted design engineers to surround them with various auxiliary systems and hydrogen fuel tanks, which gave the carrousels precious and effective anti-radiation protection against space radiations, including deadly energetic cosmic rays. Finally, it greatly simplified internal circulation aboard the spaceship, with crewmembers not having to go down a long, rotating communication spoke and then go up another one just to go from one carrousel to another. Instead, crewmembers could do like Jiang Min was now doing, stepping inside a transfer compartment and then going four meters down a tube with a metallic ladder. He and his four companions ended in a three meter-wide by four meter-long compartment featuring two airtight doors, one at each end but on opposite corners. A few small armored windows gave the astronauts a view into the two dormant carrousels, both immobile and obscure save for the sparse light from secondary lamps.