Orbital Maneuvers (23 page)

“Yes, I suppose that you’re right.” Paul looked about the room as he considered their situation.  His gaze stopped when he saw Ivan at his console.  “I wonder if the Russians would be able to launch a PROGRESS ship to refuel the station?”

Susan thought about it and shook her head gently, “I am not sure what the state of affairs is in Russia, but I doubt that there are very many people interested in preserving the space station with what is going on down there. It would be nice to boost the station up to where it was totally secure and have it waiting for the next crew—whenever that may be.”

Susan realized that she was being more negative than she ought to be, especially after her talk with Paul.  She thought about it for a few moments and decided that they needed to be realistic about what the future held, but not to dwell on the negatives and not to jump to conclusions. 

“I don’t know, maybe they may be in position to launch a ship,” she said.  “It would not take that long to get it into orbit and dock a few days, and then they could use its engines to boost the station higher.  That’s something that we will need to talk to Mission Control,” Susan bit her tongue for forgetting that Mission Control was no more, neither was a big part of Texas.  “Or, Korolev Control about.  That’s a good idea, Paul.” She was feeling embarrassed again and was relieved when the computer display flashed up an answer to her query, saving her from another awkward moment.

Paul studied the display, but was not quite sure he understood what it was telling him.  He waited for Susan to interpret the information.  “Well,” Susan said after a few moments, “it looks like we have serendipitously fallen into a secure orbit.  It’s about time our luck changes!  Here, Paul.” Susan motioned at the display.  “This shows our projected trajectory and these other lines indicate the nearest objects that may pose a problem.  Most of these are either above, or below us.  Eventually this may become a problem if the station’s orbit decays, but at this higher altitude that won’t be an issue for a long while.  Unless,” Susan hesitated as she considered other reasons for orbital decay.

Paul’s optimism slipped, “Unless what?”

“Oh, I was just thinking that the atmosphere is very dynamic, and if there is a lot of solar activity, you know—solar flares, sunspots, they can cause the atmosphere to expand and then it affects satellites at a higher orbit.  I am not really sure how high that can go.”

“Isn’t that what happened to SKYLAB?” Paul asked, as he tried to remember the reason for its demise.

“Yes, I believe it was partly responsible for the station falling back to Earth.  It had to do with time and money to reboost the station and unfortunately, they ran out of time before they got the money.” Turning back to the display, “So, if we can hit this altitude we should be fine.” Susan looked over to Ivan, “Ivan, I’m sending this info to your station.  Do you see anything that I might have missed?”

“I will take a look at it.” Ivan hit a few buttons on his keyboard, and his display showed the same data that was on Susan’s.  He studied the information and then ran some calculations, concentrating on one object in particular.

Susan, expecting a quick confirmation of her analysis and obviously not getting it, floated over to Ivan’s station to see what he was doing.  Paul tagged along.  “Did I miss something?” Susan asked, while she tried to follow the screens Ivan was switching between.

“No, I think everything is good.  I was just concerned about this satellite and wanted to get more information on it, if it were military or not.  Some of the military satellites tend to shift around, depending on what they are observing.  But at this point and time, I guess that they have no real reason to move.  I am sure that the United States and Russia have more important concerns right now.  Anyway, it is a civilian satellite, so it is not a concern.  That does bring up the point that this orbit is safe as long as all satellites stay in the same orbit.  Things may change if any of them were to move, for whatever reason.” Ivan looked from Paul to Susan, and they both nodded in agreement.

Susan bit her lip, thinking about what could be done to make the orbit more secure.  “I guess that there is nothing we can really do to improve the situation.  Is there?”

Ivan looked at the display and then to Susan, “No, this is as good as it is going to get now, especially with our fuel situation.  We will have to remain vigilant.”

“Okay, then we go for it and worry about wandering satellites in the future.  It should not be our problem.  We should be back on Earth before it becomes an issue.”

Ivan turned back to the console and started to program the engine firing sequence to achieve the desired orbit.  Paul contemplated Ivan’s statement about the military.  He was not so sure that they would be so introverted.  “Don’t you think that this might provide a perfect opportunity for some countries to try to take over other countries that they have designs on?"

“You mean, like, one country wants the water resources another country has, and it is now even more important to have them?  So, what do they have to lose?” Ivan volunteered in between keystrokes.

“Yes, something like that,” Paul responded.

“It may provide an incentive for some countries.  I don’t know if the major countries would resort to that.  I would like to think that they are more civilized and would work together, knowing the consequences if they didn’t,” Susan offered, not really wanting to get into the discussion.  She felt that there were just too many unknowns to try to predict human behavior, and it was fruitless to speculate on this topic.

“Susan, I think you’re more optimistic than I,” Paul stated.  “What do you think, Ivan?”

Ivan stopped his work at the keyboard to answer Paul’s question.  “I think that the way people react is dependant on so many factors, that it is impossible to predict what they will do on the whole.  There are some countries that I think might try to seize this time to advance their geopolitical-religious standing.  They are small, and their conflicts would not have an impact beyond their local region.  But, there are some other countries and factions, which have access to nuclear weapons that can complicate the survival efforts of the rest of the world, should they push their aggressions to the point of using these weapons.  Times of desperation often bring desperate measures.  I hope that I am wrong and being too pessimistic.” Ivan traced the frame of the keypad with his fingers as he waited for Paul’s response.

Paul thought about Ivan’s comment and felt that he had to agree with him.  Paul really wanted to be optimistic about what was to come, but reality and experience forced him to look on the darker side of human nature. 

“Yes, I tend to agree with you, Ivan,” said Paul.  “Maybe we will all be pleasantly surprised with what the future brings.” After a few moments of silence Paul added, in a darker tone, “I guess we will find out soon enough, one way or another.”

Nicholas returned at this moment and informed Susan that Commander Orlov was awake and ready to go.  “Apparently, the evasive maneuver had jostled him enough to wake him up, but he was not really sure what had disturbed his sleep.  I told him that it was Ivan’s split second timing that had provided the smooth ride!”

“And what did he say?” Paul asked, while he watched a grin growing on Ivan’s face.

Nicholas gave Ivan a brisk slap on his back.  “He commented that he was glad to see that Ivan’s piloting skills had not changed since their early days of training!”

Everyone had a good laugh at Ivan’s expense, including Ivan.  For just a few moments they forgot the situation they were in and the challenges ahead.

“We have another burn coming up and after that one we can reconnect the communication systems,” Susan said to Nicholas.  “At that time, we will have our altitude set and if our favorite captain at Korolev Control wants to play games, it won’t matter much.”

More than thirteen hours have passed since the impacts.  Major seismic activity had died down, but there still were many severe aftershocks that persisted after quakes of this magnitude.

By this time, the greatest damage was done.  There were still isolated seismic occurrences when a large chunk of earth fell back to the ground from the initial destruction.  These pieces had neither the velocity nor the energy to do much damage outside of the immediate impact area.  Nevertheless, the fires and damage they produced contributed to the maelstrom of dust that was already in the air.  The density of the debris that rained down over the southern United States had diminished with most of the larger, heavier objects having yielded to the pull of gravity and returned to their home planet.  Some larger pieces received enough energy to be launched into shallow orbits that allowed them to be carried hundreds and in many cases, thousands of miles from the epicenter.  These pieces rained down on cities, towns, forests and fields, as far west as California and beyond, north to Kansas, east to Virginia, and south into Mexico.

The jet stream, disturbed by the impact, was gradually reforming and as it did it pulled hundreds of thousands of tons of dust along with it.  This caused the usually invisible jet stream to stand out from the rest of the atmosphere, as if a child had colored it with his pencil while doing a map of Earth.  The individual impact sights now were indistinguishable from each other.  A roiling cloud of dust and small debris, almost a thousand miles wide, stretched from California to the Atlantic, east of Florida and covered the sights and everything in-between.  This cloud was augmented by the arteries of dust that flowed through the jet stream carrying the dust toward the northeast and onward toward Europe. 

Below the clouds, the fires still burned.  Where there was no fire, the heated earth created thermals that continued to pump the particles of smoke into the atmosphere.  The natural mixing of the atmosphere would eventually distribute the majority of the dust across the northern hemisphere.  Lesser amounts of the particulate would make its way to the southern hemisphere, but enough to contribute to the reduction of the sunlight and a drop in the average temperature of the planet. 

The tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide that were released into the atmosphere by the burning would remain long after the dust settled and would trap the radiated heat of the planet that would normally escape into space.  The ocean impact and tsunami activity disturbed the vast beds of methane hydrate, which lay below the ocean floor.  Eventually the methane would combine with the carbon dioxide to stop the cooling of the planet and would ultimately create a tremendous green house effect.  The temperature of the planet would rise, further complicating the survival efforts of those left alive.

The space station continued on its way to its new orbit without further incident.  Inside the station two were asleep, Jerry and Alexander, who resumed his nap once he was assured that the station was okay.  The rest of those on board worked to make sure everything went as planned.  Paul took advantage of the time to set up an observation station to use on their next pass by the United States with the intention to map the progress of the debris cloud.  They were now moving across the eastern Atlantic Ocean, soon to cross over Europe.  It would be two more orbits before they traversed the mainland of the United States. 

Paul had discovered a small telescope that was already tied into the video-communication system and realized that he could use it to visually observe the dust cloud.  Nicholas stumbled on an ongoing atmospheric science experiment on the station that used a small radar system to image the cloud layers below the station. 

He and Paul managed to redirect the radar beam so it would point toward the west for their next orbit.  This would give them another way to track the cloud and would also give them an indication of how dense it might be. 

Satisfied with his accomplishments, Paul decided to give in to the fatigue that was pestering him and told Susan that he was going to try to get some sleep.  She agreed to wake him in an hour to give him time to doublecheck the equipment he had set up.  Paul left the module in search of someplace quiet and dark to make the most of his hour.

Watching Paul leave the command module, Susan turned to Nicholas.  “Nicholas, if you’re tired, I will take over the radar display, and you can get some sleep.”

“Thank you, Susan, but at this time sleep would be impossible for me.”

Susan glanced over to Ivan, “Ivan—”

“No!” Ivan said.

Susan shrugged her shoulders, “Okay.” Having nothing pressing to do at the moment, she moved over to Paul’s empty station and started searching through the computer for information on the CRV.

Although she and her crew brought the CRV to the station, they were not trained in its operation or use.  Ivan would have had training before he made his trip to the station next year, but he was too busy to work on that while preparing for this shuttle mission. 

Susan knew that the system was fully automated and that it could be flown in a manual mode to some extent.  She was not sure if the autopilot would be able to cope with the obstacles they might have to negotiate to get back to Earth.  Reentry is a very tricky procedure in any craft, but more so in an unfamiliar one. 
It’s ironic
, she thought,
to have a “lifeboat” that could kill you if you don’t know how to use it
. 

The computer brought up several items for her to choose from.  She selected the one that said:
CRV EMERGENCY OPERATIONS
.