Rocket! An Ell Donsaii story #4) (12 page)

“Good, let’s test the attitude thrusters.” These simply consisted of ports behind nozzles arranged radially at the front and back of the rocket body. The ports were connected to a pipe coming out of the top of the big liquid oxygen tank out back behind the research facility. Energizing the port behind a nozzle blasted the high-pressure oxygen from the tank out through the nozzle, providing thrust to push the nose or stern around depending on which nozzles were energized. Paired counter jets controlled axial rotation.

Ell could see puffs of mist where the cold oxygen jetted out of the rocket here and there. A moment later Allan said, “All attitude thrusters are generating nominal thrust.”

“Allan, are we still in a reasonable launch window to the station?”

“Yes.”

“No aircraft overhead?”

“Yes.”

“OK, folks,” Ell called out to the group, “Here we go!” more quietly to her AI she said, “Proceed with... Wait!” She turned to the group, “We need a countdown! Who wants to do the honors?”

Ben Stavos shouted, “All together now! Ten, nine, eight…” everyone joined in by the time he got to the last six numbers, “three, two, one, blastoff!”

The launch was anticlimactic. Everyone was used to billowing smoke and slow liftoffs from years of watching launches televised from Canaveral. Even those who should have known better were surprised by the pop of ignition and screech as the rocket shot out of sight into the sky. Some of those watching feared it had simply exploded after the “pop” and disappearing act they had witnessed.

Seeing her team looking worried Ell said, “No worries team, launch was successful! You can see a faint steam trail going up if you look hard. Let’s go back inside where we can watch the take from the cameras on the rocket.”

An exited babble greeted this announcement and everyone shuffled back inside. Allan put the feeds from the cameras onto several of the big screens scattered around the main research room. There were cameras on four sides of the rocket and one in the nose transmitting back to D5R over a PGR chip. The camera in the front showed a red glow. As they watched, the upper right part of the screen turned bright red, the image distorted and shifted, then with a snap all of the images disappeared. A moan came from many throats at once. Ben could be heard cursing in the back of the room.

Ell’s heart sank. After a moment to work the frog out of her throat she said, “Allan, what happened?”

“The PGR chip became un-entangled and telemetry was lost.”

Ell relayed this to the room, “What do you guys think went wrong?”

Braun said, “It looked like the optics of the forward camera melted in the heat of atmospheric passage. What do you have protecting them?

“Of course!” Roger said, “The PGR chip and communication board is right behind the front camera. If we had a melt through there, it would have burned through the electronics right away.”

Brian said, “The camera’s behind high temp glass, but the seal around that glass might not be able to take the heat.”

Ell closed her eyes, it sounded right to her. “OK, that sounds like the most likely source of failure to me. Anyone have a good solution?”

“We could travel up through the atmosphere more slowly?”

“That might work but would take a very long burn on the rocket nozzle. Even though it wouldn’t even be at 80% the nozzles might not take it.”

Fred said, “Cover the entire nose with high temp glass?”

Brian shook his head, “We don’t have equipment to shape that kind of glass. We’d have to get it from an outside supplier and that’d be too slow for the Station.”

“Can’t we cover the nose with a tungsten alloy cap until the rocket gets up through the atmosphere?” Roger asked.

Fred said, “But wouldn’t we lose orientation?”

Viv said, “We’re already using GPS to determine location. We can use GPS for orientation too, at least until we’re out of the atmosphere.”

Ell frowned, “OK, we’ll have to put a forward facing thruster that we can use to blow the cap off the end of the rocket once we’re up there. Anyone see a problem with that plan?”

“What if the heat makes the cap stick so it won’t blow off?”

“I think the heat will make it expand so it will be looser but we’d better keep making plenty of rockets. OK team! Let’s get on with finishing rocket number two with a cap and a forward thruster. Anyone not busy on number two, keep working on numbers three and four. Number three we could send up slow and see if the nozzle will last through a slow launch and the camera tolerate the lower velocity. Set number four up for a ‘cap’ in case that looks like it would work but we need to do something different.”

Two hours later some of the group gathered outside to launch the second rocket. Unfortunately, once the rocket started its test Allan said, “The thrust vector is not coaxial to the rocket.”

Ell asked hopefully, “Is the vector misalignment small enough to compensate with the nose thrusters?”

“No.”

“Damn! Shut it down. The rocket nozzle’s misaligned or something folks. Let’s trouble shoot it.” Inside Ell felt a little frantic at the thought that they seemed to be flailing around when the lives of the people on the Space Station could depend on their ability to launch a functional rocket. Nonetheless, she did her best to project calm assurance to her team, as if the minutes weren’t ticking away.

When they got the rocket back inside it turned out that the nozzle was aligned with the body of the rocket. However, it was slightly off center inside the “water shroud.” The steam blasting out of the water shroud as the water absorbed the heat of the rocket nozzle was asymmetric enough to produce the misaligned vector.

“OK, let’s get the rocket engine from number 5 and mount it on number 2.”

The switch only took thirty minutes and they mounted the rocket on the rail again. This time Allan reported thrusts were nominal and aligned. “Are we in a satisfactory launch window to the station?”

“Yes, but it is closing.”

Ell closed her eyes, “Is the airspace above us free of craft?”

“No.”

Ell sighed and her shoulders drooped.

Braun said, “Wait, ask if we can still launch safely. Remember that you told your AI that you wanted the airspace ‘completely clear’ but it may be that the aircraft is actually pretty far out of our path.”

Ell checked and Allan confirmed that the aircraft in question was actually near the periphery of their immediate airspace and should be safe.

Ell had Allan launch without a countdown this time. They turned to go back inside.

When they got back inside the views from the camera were already black! Depressed, Ell said, “Allan, play back the minute up to failure please.”

A video image popped up showing the familiar red glow. In fact it looked exactly like the first failure!? “Allan, is this feed from the first or second launch?”

“First launch.”

“Show the failure from the second launch please.”

“The second launch has not failed.”

Ell’s eyes widened and then she slapped her forehead.
Of course! The cameras are black because they’re covered by the cap!
“Are we high enough to remove the cap yet or is there still significant atmosphere?”

“The rocket is at 125 kilometers and thus above significant atmospheric drag.”

“OK, pause thrust.”

“Thrust paused.”

“Fire forward thruster to remove the cap.”

“Forward thruster firing.”

They all eagerly watched the screens but they remained black.

In an agonized tone Ell said, “Is the forward thruster on full?”

“Yes.”

She scrunched her eyes shut… “Fire the forward attitude thrusters in an alternating pattern, 1,3,2,4, each one for 50 microseconds and repeat the cycle times 3 keeping the forward thruster on full.”

Behind her Ell heard Fred say, “What the hell will that do?”

Roger answered, “She’s shaking the nose of the rocket around, like a dog trying to shake off its collar.”

Nothing happened.

Ell closed her eyes in despair. “OK, let’s try rocket number four that has a front thruster. We need to loosen the fit of the cap first though.”

Fred said, “Wait! Try the rotational thrusters, maybe you can twist the cap off?”

Ell nodded but said, “Brian, can you work on the cap for number four?” As Brian nodded and left she gave the directions for rotational thrusting to Allan. Long moments passed with no change. She sighed, “OK, plan C folks…” She paused as light blossomed across the screens and the front screen showed the cap tumbling away. “YES!!!”

Excited shouts filled the room. Stars whirled across the cameras with the Earth appearing randomly on different screens. The rocket was tumbling wildly.

Ell said, “Can you stabilize the rocket Allan?”

“Working” First the spinning stopped, then the tumbling came under control. Finally, three of the side cameras showed the black of space with steadily glowing stars. One showed the Earth below. Only blackness was visible in the nose camera at this point.

“Allan,” Ell asked, “How are we tracking on our planned trajectory?”

“By GPS the rocket is on track. We need an additional burn to reach the station without an extended chase.”

“OK resume burns to reach the station in the shortest possible time but stay below 70% thrust if possible?”

“Calculating… The rocket can join the station in orbit in 50 minutes with constant burn under 70%.”

“OK, up the thrust to 85%,” she said with a grimace, worrying that the motor would burn out. “Proceed with that flight plan and put me in contact with Ed Candela at NASA.”

Their earlier search for a NASA contact had come up with Candela. He was supposed to be a “can do” kind of guy. Ell hadn’t wanted to talk to NASA until she was reasonably sure they had something to offer. She hoped they weren’t too late.

Ell turned to the group, “Is number four ready to go?”

“Almost, Brian’s milling the cap out a thousandth to make it easier to blow off. Do you want to launch it as soon as it’s ready?”

“No. If something goes wrong with this flight we’ll want to implement fixes before we launch. But let’s put it on the launching frame and do our test burns. Same with number three for a slow launch.”

Ell wandered over to stare out the window at their “launch pad” across the parking lot.

In her ear she heard, “Hello, this is Mr. Candela’s assistant.”

“Hi, this is Ell Donsaii. We believe we have a means to resupply the Space Station. May I describe our plans to Mr. Candela?”

“You and every one else I’m afraid. We must have a million callers, each with their own sure fire solution. Mr. Candela is in a NASA brainstorming session to attempt to put together a rescue at the present. I’m sorry to say that I cannot interrupt him.”

Oh crap!
Ell thought,
this is going to be
just
as hard as I had feared.
On the other hand it seemed unlikely that she would have gained any traction with people like Candela before she even knew that they
could
launch to orbit. “Is there anyone else I could talk to about our plans?”

“Sure, you can tell me.”

Double crap!
It seemed unlikely in the extreme that Candela’s assistant intended to do anything but “listen politely.” However, Ell said, “OK. We’ve launched a rocket to orbit that is presently closing on the Station. We would like to be able to communicate with the people on the Station so that we can tell them of its impending arrival. They will especially need guidance from us on how to make use of it.”

There was a long pause, “Umm, sure. Where did you launch this ‘rocket’ from?” From some of the irregular pauses in her response, Ell thought that the woman was struggling not to laugh out loud.

“North Carolina.”

Another pause, “And what’s it carrying?”

“Devices called ‘transfer ports.’”

“And they would help the astronauts how?”

“They’ll be able to deliver oxygen as well as water for the oxygen generators.”

Ell could practically hear the woman’s eyes rolling in her head as she said, “Sure, sure, I’ll let Mr. Candela know as soon as I see him.”

After she was disconnected Ell mused a moment then said, “Allan, see if you can connect me with the President Teller’s Science Adviser Chip Horton.” Then she walked back over to the group watching the screens. There wasn’t much to see from the rocket’s cameras so Allan had displayed a graphic of the rocket’s trajectory and position relative to the Station. “Hey group, I’m running into trouble finding anyone at NASA that’ll talk to me. Candela’s aide shot me down. Do any of you know someone that might know someone else who
could
get us connected over there? We’re looking for second and third order connections now. I know we went over this before but we need
more
ideas. Braun, how about you? We need to be able to talk to the astronauts so we can tell them that the rocket is coming and how to use it.”

Many of the group got a far away look as they considered their contacts. Braun said, “I don’t know anyone that would be able to put us in contact, but my friend Ed Janssen works in Candela’s division. I’ll touch base with him and see what he says.”

Allan spoke in Ell’s ear, “Mr. Horton is in meetings at the White House regarding the Space Station and his AI refuses a connection. He has instructed his AI not to allow ‘
any
interruptions.’”

“Leave a message with Horton’s AI that I have a solution for the Space Station problem and see if you can find an underling who’ll talk to me.” To the group watching the monitors she said, “OK, the rest of you who don’t know any
person
that might help us speak to the astronauts, come brain storm with me over here.”

She walked over to one of the big stainless tables that was mostly empty and turned to the members of her team who gathered with her. “Let’s brainstorm how we can communicate with the Station even if they don’t have radio access. The first thing I’ve thought of is that we should have written a message on the outside of the rocket that they could read through the Station windows. It shouldn’t be hard to have the rocket knock on the window, we just need to pulse the attitude thrusters with it next to the window. But how do we convince them to open the airlock and let it in? We didn’t even put a radio on it! As soon as we break up we should start working on launching another rocket, this time with a radio on board.”