Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (66 page)

“Tracy
Matson, USA Today. I understand that unlike NASA astronauts, your space suits
are not custom made for you. Dr. Frederick, you’re wearing a man’s suit because
of your height? Is that correct? How does it fit?”

Gabe
grinned and nodded. “Yes. It’s, um, second hand, you might say. It fits pretty
well. If I were a 38D, it might be a problem. But I’m not, which is a blessing
or a curse… depending on your point of view.”

The crowd
of reporters and photographers – and Jeff – laughed.

“Roger
Garrett, Houston Chronicle. With your launch in two weeks how does the
remainder of your mission stand? Are you comfortable with your progress? Is
everything where it should be?”

Jeff
nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Abby, you want to give them a status report?”

“Sure.
Pathfinder
,
our initial lander and navigational beacon, has now been on Mars for almost a
year and half. It doesn’t have a lot to do right now but so far so good. The
first cargo drop, from
Columbus
, is on the ground and about half of it
has been moved to the site of our base in the Margaritifer Basin. There were a
couple of minor glitches in that drop, but nothing worth writing home about.
We’ll collect the rest once we get there. Um,
Balboa
and
Magellan
,
our resupply and second cargo ships are on the way.
Magellan
will arrive
about six weeks before we do and, hopefully, put its cargo down near our site.
Balboa
will arrive in orbit just four days before we get there, and we’ll immediately
dock with it and transfer everything necessary for our trip home… when the time
comes. Also, the two Mars Ascent Vehicles, MAVs, NASA’s part of the mission,
were launched from the Cape last month and will be arriving about the same time
as
Balboa
. So we’re quite pleased, everything is on track.”

“Miguel
Espinosa, Washington Post. This is an extraordinarily ambitious plan. Is there
anything that worries you? I mean, any systems or evolutions that you have
particular concerns about?”

“Oh boy.”
Jeff shook his head. “I dunno.” He glanced at the others. “Um, the thought of
seven months in space is a bit troubling. That’s a long time in zero gravity.
Otherwise, no. Obviously there’s always the possibility of some catastrophic
event or failure but, barring that, our systems are all tried and true and
flight-tested. I can’t think of anything that is of particular concern. Sue?”

Susan
shook her head. “No, I agree with Jeff. Seven months in space is a long time.
We’ll have to work extra hard to stay in shape, but we’ve planned for that. And
then we’ll have seventeen months on Mars to recover. I’m comfortable with all
our systems. We’ll be fine.”

“Barbara
Watney, Orlando Sentinel. What has been NASA’s response to your launch? How are
people here at Kennedy treating you?”

“They’re
treating us very well,” said Jeff. “As you know, this is the first manned
launch in the U.S. since the retirement of the shuttle five years ago. Even
though this isn’t a NASA mission, I think everyone here is pretty happy about
getting back in the business of manned space flight, at least for the time
being. From Mercury through the shuttle, KSC was the world’s capitol of manned
space flight for fifty years. For the past five years I think folks here have
felt a bit dejected, and rightfully so. We’re glad to give them something to
do.”

“Mike
Williams, CNN. I understand that you have had some discussions with NASA and
JPL about teaming up with ISS mission control at Johnson and/or JPL’s Mars
Exploration Program. Do you have any plans to utilize their services? Or will
you be using your own facility in Newport for the entire mission?”

Jeff glanced
at Gabe. “You want to answer that?”

“Okay.
We’ll be using our own MCC. Yes, we’ve had a few conversations about it, all
initiated by NASA and JPL, I might add. Um, the ISS Flight Control Room already
has a job, and it keeps them pretty busy. Besides, unlike the ISS, we won’t
require seven by twenty-four support, and there’s not much they could do for us
anyway. JPL, on the other hand, is a center for unmanned space exploration.
That said, the sample return portion of our mission is funded by NASA, and as
such we will be talking regularly with JPL, as they have more experience with
Martian geology than anybody else. But that will be purely on an ad hoc basis
and in an advisory capacity only. Also keep in mind that this is a private
mission; any public facilities that we utilize – be it here at Kennedy, or at
Johnson, or JPL – we have to pay for. Our own MCC is already paid for and
operational, so we’ll be using it.”

“Denise
Grant, MSNBC. With so much of the material you will need to survive on Mars and
return home still on its way, do you have any concerns about launching, not
knowing whether or not everything will make it? What will you do if something
fails to arrive or crash lands?”

“No, we
don’t have any particular concerns,” said Abby. “Between NASA, JPL and
ourselves, we’ve gotten pretty good at sending stuff to Mars and setting it
down on the surface. Sure, things can still go wrong, but we have a pretty high
level of confidence, otherwise we wouldn’t be going. This is not a suicide
mission; we have every intention of coming back.

“What
would we do if something doesn’t make it? Well, depends on what that might be.
The answer to that question has a lot of permutations. Some possibilities are,
um, our launch in two weeks consists of two launches. First will be the J-241
that’s sitting on 39B. It’ll launch a day before we do, and carries our EDS. If
something goes wrong with that launch, obviously we’ll just scrub our launch.
If something goes wrong with the orbital docking or the EDS engine fails to light,
or something like that, we’ll simply deorbit and come home.

“If, uh,
oh let’s see, say
Balboa
, our resupply ship, which also carries our Mars
lander, doesn’t make it, obviously we won’t land. We’ll simply conduct what’s
called a powered swing-by, and turn right around and head home. That would be
about a yearlong transit – in addition to the seven months it will take us to
get there – but we do have sufficient supplies on board to make it. That is a
contingency we’ve looked at and planned for. The same can be said if by some
bizarre stroke of fate neither of the MAVs make it. And finally, if something
were to go wrong with
Magellan
– doesn’t make it or everything lands
hundreds of kilometers from our target site – well, we’ll go into orbit and
assess the situation and, at that time, make a determination as to whether
we’ll land or resupply and return home. I’m sorry, that’s a long answer to a
short question, but we do have a number of contingency plans available, and
we’re comfortable with our options.”

Jeff held
up his hand. “Okay, one more question, then we need to go get out of these
suits.”

“Rob
McMillan, NBC. Will you be staying here at Kennedy until the launch? And will
you be available for additional questions before the launch?”

Jeff
shook his head. “No, we’re flying back to Newport this evening, we’ve got a lot
of last minute things to do there. We’ll be back here on the 20
^th
,
two days before launch. And, yes, we’ll be holding a final press conference
here that afternoon. I think it’s at four or four-thirty, something like that.
Okay, thank you all very much.”

Sunday, March 20,
2016 (T minus 45 hours)

“Big
runway,” said Gabe, peering out the Citation’s window as they touched down on
Cape Canaveral’s Skid Strip.

Jeff
nodded. “Yeah, sure is.”

Chrissie
taxied to the parking tarmac at the northwest end of the strip and shutdown
near a waiting NASA shuttle van and fuel truck.

Jeff
glanced nervously at Gabe, Abby and Susan. “Well, I guess we’re here.
I’ll
get the door.”

Chrissie met him at the cockpit,
looking rather dour.

“Nice landing.”

“Thanks.”

“Why the long face?”

“Why do you think?”

He opened the door. “Oh, cheer up,
this is what we’ve been working toward for four years.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Molly Carlisle, a member of the
Closeout Crew from the United Space Alliance, or USA, Kennedy contingent, was
waiting outside. “Hi, Captain, nice to see you again.”

“Nice to see you too, Molly,” said
Jeff.

“We’re all ready for you.”

“Thanks. Can you give us a couple
minutes? We need to say some goodbyes.”

She smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sure.
I’ll be at the van.”

“Okay.” He turned to his crew.
“Alright, everybody out.”

On the tarmac, Jeff, Gabe, Abby and
Sue lined up facing Chrissie and Heidi.

Jeff shook his head and sighed. “I
don’t know what to say.” He hugged them both. “God, I’m gonna miss you guys.”

Chrissie started crying. “I’m gonna
miss you too. Please be careful, and come back.”

“We will.” He wiped her eyes. “Come
on now, think of all the fun you two will have while we’re gone.” He smiled
softly. “Two and a half years with the whole house to yourselves. Nothing but
one wild party after another.”

Heidi sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“Yeah, right.”

“Ah, come on. Every man at Michoud
and in the MCC – um, well, except maybe one – has been drooling over black
leather for two years now.”

She giggled. “Who’s the one I
missed?”

Jeff laughed. “Bob Vandergriff, the
one that’s been making eyes at Chrissie.”

Chrissie gave a painful laugh. “Oh,
god. We just went out to dinner once.”

“Well, that’s a start.” He glanced
back and forth into their eyes. “It’ll be a long two and a half years. Don’t be
hermits.”

They nodded.

Abby, Gabe and Susan hugged them
each in turn.

“I wish we could stay here and see
you off,” said Chrissie.

Jeff nodded. “Yeah, I wish you
could too. But you guys have things to do. Besides, this is a no parking zone.”

Chrissie tried to laugh, but
couldn’t. She broke into tears again and clung to Jeff. “Oh god, I’m so
afraid.”

He held her close and kissed her
forehead. “It’s okay, we’ll be fine. I’ll bring you a T-shirt… if I can find a
store that’s open.”

She laughed and sobbed at the same
time.

They all huddled together, arms wrapped around one
another’s shoulders, everyone sobbing except Jeff, and he certainly felt like
it. “Okay, it’s time. What say we get this done?”

They all nodded.

“You two have a safe flight back.
We’ll talk to you tomorrow… and we’ll see you in 31 months.”

Chrissie trembled as she hugged
Jeff one last time. “Godspeed.”

“
Je t’aime
.
And you take care, both of you.” He turned to Gabe, Abby and Susan. “Okay,
gang, let’s go.” At the van door, Jeff turned and waved to Chrissie and Heidi,
then climbed in. “Alright, Molly, we’re ready… I guess.”

#

Fifteen minutes later the van
pulled to a stop in front of the O&C building at Kennedy. “Molly, what’s
the plan?” said Jeff as they walked up the steps to the front door.

“About the same as the rehearsal.
We’ll get you settled into your rooms, then there’s a meeting with the Test
Director at 1:00 to go over a few procedural changes in the launch that resulted
from issues in the rehearsal. As I understand it, they’re pretty minor, but you
need to be aware of them.”

“Okay.”

“Then there’s a press conference at
4:30. Our PAO has told the media that it’ll be fairly short, maybe fifteen or
twenty minutes.”

Jeff nodded. “That’s good.”

“You guys don’t really have a whole lot to do at
this point, but there’s no need to wear you out answering a bunch of fool
questions.” Molly grinned.

“I’m for
that,” said Abby.

“Then we
have an afternoon barbeque planned at the Beach House. Just a small gathering,
I think you’ll know everyone. We’d normally do that for astronauts and their
families, but you didn’t bring any family with you.”

Jeff
smiled. “We’ve said our goodbyes. At this point the four of us pretty much
are
the family.”

In the
elevator Molly continued. “Tomorrow, we’d like you to just take it easy. Rest
and relax, and turn in early, as you’ll be up early Tuesday.”

Jeff
chuckled. “Rest and relax? With our booster launch first thing in the morning?”

“Yes but
there’s nothing you need do about that.”

“No, but
if anything goes seriously wrong with it, we’re probably done. We’re right up
against the edge of the launch window for this opposition, and waiting another
26 months isn’t really an option, since most of our stuff on Mars will have
reached it’s shelf-life expiration date by then.”

Molly
nodded. “Yes, I understand, but it’s out of your hands now.”

“Yeah, I
suppose.”

“Can we
watch tomorrow’s launch?” said Gabe. “This will be our third launch from
Kennedy and we have yet to actually see one in person.”

“Of
course. I think we can find you a good seat.”

#

Jeff, Gabe, Abby and Susan looked over the shelves of
astronaut memorabilia in the Beach House living room.

Abby
shook her head. “Wow, not much left.”

“No,”
said Jeff. “A lot of shuttle and ISS stuff, but not much from the good old
days. Too bad.”