Prelude (Ch 0)
What the hell am I doing here? It’s been over a year of near complete solitude. Why the hell did I volunteer to do this? Cripes, what will I tell people when I come back a failure?
This and a million other questions were going through my mind as I searched for my targets. Power was a scarce commodity, and I could only search for a few minutes every hour, before stopping to let the batteries recharge.
The year was 2020, and here I was, millions of miles from home. A pioneer. To paraphrase Charlie Brown, I would go home either the hero or the goat. Or maybe the destroyer of millions of lives. Who knows? All this solitude lends itself to deep introspection and second guessing. Has this all been folly? If so, how expensive the gamble? Billions of dollars? My life? The lives of many?
Time for another scan. Hopefully, I’ll find something appropriate this time.
Conception (Ch 1)
“You’re fucking crazy!” (This wouldn’t be the last time I’d be face this particular accusation)
“Maybe so, but you know it’s possible!”
“Possible has many levels and shades of grey – as a pie in the sky, of course it’s possible. As a practical reality, though…”
“Screw practical realities – you know damned good & well that there’s absolutely no reason why we couldn’t pull this off!”
“Aside from the cost! Do you realize how much this will cost? Maybe tens of billions. With a “B,” billions!”
“That just requires a good business plan – we can work that later. Maybe we can incorporate & sell shares?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“OK, Peter, I’ll talk to you in a week.”
So, this is how it started, back in 2006 - An argument between me and a good friend. We were both engineers, he had recently received his MBA, and I had an idea to start our own business. The idea was certainly risky. People had toyed with the idea before – one company had even been sued by the federal trade commission for bilking investors back in the early 00’s. There were many science fiction books that talked about it, but of course, no one ever went into details. I had come up with the details. I thought they would work. If we could pull this off, we would be rich. Damned rich. Bill Gates rich. Maybe richer. If not, well… You’d be seeing made for TV movies about “Burke’s Folly.”
A week later, Peter called me back. “It looks to me, like we could make a huge profit, but the technical, schedule, and cost risks are enormous.”
“Well, what’s the value of one of these things?”
“Well, one with a descent size and metals mix, maybe a trillion dollars”
“Holy shit! A trillion dollars?”
“Well, there’s some problems…”
“Such as?”
“Well, there’s a lot of unknowns, but there appear to be three types – the first is an icy mix, and that would be of no use. The second type is a rocky mix, and again, that’s of no use to us. The third type, and this is the kind we’d want, is a metals mix. Of these, there are several different mixes available, and only a few of those are really profitable.”
“I heard what you just said… You said ‘we’ – you’re buying into this crazy idea!”
“Maybe – I’m not all the way there, yet… The last hurdle is a doozy.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“Well, if we could manage to pull this off with the right mix, we’d depress the world’s metals markets… We can’t really measure the effect of that on the total price of the thing, so that’s a variable. Even worse than that, I ‘d imagine we’d be making some enemies in those markets.”
“Well, I think those are manageable risks – especially if we get those major players to ‘buy in’ to our little enterprise… That way, they’ve got nothing to lose and everything to win. So, what do you see as the technical challenges?”
“Well, getting there will be a problem – a robot mission has a lot of risk.”
“Screw robots – we’ll send a person!”
“Who the heck would do that?”
“I will – I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is – besides, I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see if the time comes,” Peter laughed. He didn’t realize I was so serious – to make a gazillion dollars while fulfilling a life-long dream… There’s no way I’d pass up that opportunity.
“Besides,” Peter continued, “who knows anything about the environment?”
“I do. Don’t forget, I’ve worked in this business for over ten years. I’ve got first-hand experience as well as contacts.”
“OK, well, then, the cost is going to be incredible. Modern vehicles are expensive as hell.”
“Yeah, I’ve thought about that. The damned things will be about two-hundred fifty million a shot at today’s rates… And that’s for the biggest. I have an idea, though, that I think will get us around the worst part of that. The up-front costs will be pretty steep – I’m figuring we can get some discounts with volume – maybe one-hundred eighty million a piece. Total up-front costs will probably be on the order of five or ten billion…”
“Dang, that’s pretty steep. How will we finance it?”
“I figure we put together a business plan & get a loan for a couple mil. We use that to flesh out the major details - build a strong case and figure out what we really need. Then we go pound sand & talk to the big 3 or 4 defense contractors – see if we can get them to buy in. I know Northrop was willing to buy in to Resource 21 a few years ago – contingent on getting a certain amount of work. I imagine that if we pitch a strong enough case, we can get several to do the same. Same for the various metals giants – US Steel, Alcoa, and whomever else we figure might like a piece of the action. I’m guessing that we’ll want to raise about twenty billion dollars to get this thing going.”
“Whew! That’s a shit-load of dollars. Do you think we can pull that off?”
“That’s what I see as the biggest risk – I think we’ll have to do this in smaller steps. If we can get seed money and promises, contingent on smaller risk reduction steps and studies that show the potential… We can probably pull it off. My second worry is the schedule. Most of these types will want a big piece of control, and maybe too much risk aversion. We want to pull this off in our own lifetimes, ya know.”
“OK, I think you’ve piqued my interest enough to go forward this first step. Let’s see what we can do…”
Priming the Pump (Ch 2)
Well, a week of scanning has gone by. Still nothing. The original surveys hinted at several good-sized targets in the area, but still nothing. Another software patch for the radar should be coming through the wideband comm link soon. Then, I’ll spend another hour ensuring the patch worked. Still beats the hell out of Microsoft, though. I’ve been performing a combination of passive and active optical scans on the approach to the area, but now there will be nothing more until we find a target. The active scanner uses too much energy – almost as much as the radar. The laser is a gigawatt class, and depletes the batteries nearly as quickly as the radar.
Scientists back home love us, though. We’re getting imagery and data the likes of which has never been seen before. Even if the mission is an otherwise failure, the data we’ve been sending back will be studied for years to come – it’s not often that the scientific community gets such a fire hose of data.
* * *
It went amazingly well at first. So well, it should have been an omen, of sorts – it seems that karma always has a way of making things balance out. We created our business plan, which was in stages. The first stage was to get a couple of million dollars to set up the business. This wasn’t so bad, as we had enough equity in our homes to cover the loans, housing prices being what they were at the time. Fortunately, our wives saw the looks in our eyes. They knew e intended to go into this all or nothing, and that it would be a rocky road from the start. Our wives didn’t like it much, though.
The business plan sold to the bank was this: We would start the business, rent space, hire engineers & some marketers to get the project going. We would make payments on the loan until we found some large corporate interests that were willing to take a stake in the effort. We would then pay back the loan. We got good rates on the promise to try to pay off in 5 years, with a balloon option to go to 15 years if we could not.
It was amazing how quickly those five million dollars were spent. The building rent was a half-million a year, and salaries were a great sucking sound on our reserves. Peter and I paid ourselves just enough to get by. Our marketers were quickly on the job, and initial trade studies seemed to indicate that my idea was on the right track. I actually managed to hire a couple of old co-workers from my previous defense-contractor employer – all of them knew the inherent problems with this environment, and were interested in trying for a piece of this pie. We were all believers, and this helped us get over some humps. The original founders were in for a total of not less than ten percent of all profits, and so they worked on the cheap.
By the end of the first year, we had some memorandums of understanding in place with Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ATK, and even NASA. Would you believe that NASA was the hardest to work with? These companies had agreed to fund us through our preliminary designs and concepts of operations for two percent of the pie. Each. Provided they also got a piece of the work. Except for NASA, of course – we agreed to help them out and pay a large sum of money for a loan of their equipment when the time came – one-hundred and fifty million dollars is what the final negotiations came to.
Our original loans were paid off, and real engineering began. Initial designs were worked out, and we managed to get buy-in to go to critical design from all the companies. The press was all over this, so we managed to hold an IPO for thirty-eight percent of our company. Shares sold for as much as Google – even more. We raked in so much cash that we were able to make reasonable negotiations with our large benefactors for only one percent each. To quote Eddie Murphy, “What a bargain!”
It was tempting just to sell the whole mess – we were rolling in the dough. We were die-hards, though. We believed! We wanted to see this thing through to the end, regardless of success or failure.
Of course, while the initial designs were being formulated, deep-sky surveys were being performed, checked, and cross-checked. The primary plan was, of course, to try to capture a fly-by, but we weren’t sure that would be less trouble than catching a “stationary” object. This was new territory, and the mass of these things was tremendous.
Taking Shape (Ch 3)
The new software patch went off without a hitch. Communications are slow – generally, mission control creates an mp3 file & uploads it in the background while things are slow, which has been most of the last year and a half. I do the same and return them – this is how we communicate. At first we could do real-time communications, but now we are light minutes apart – there is absolutely no way to carry on a normal conversation.
I have what was a fairly
fast computer at the time.
So, the patch has been in-place for a couple of days, now. Turns out the software had an incorrect range gate. The system would not listen for a return ping for a long enough time. Essentially, we want to hear the noise of space, and hear a return ping that’s just above that noise. In the normal airborne world, we don’t listen for nearly that long. For a target of the size I’ve been seeking, we’re willing to listen for almost thirty milliseconds. Unfortunately, we’ve still not received any returns. I have an idea, and am putting together a data packet with my thoughts and some raw data for review back on Earth.
* * *
Design issues were many, but we had some ingenious plans. NASA was planning to decommission the shuttle about the time we wanted to fly our missions, so our agreement was to rent a shuttle outright, refurbished and ready to fly for a final mission. In addition to the princely sum of one-hundred-million dollars, and free piggy-back rides on whatever other boosters we would use.
New structures were designed and built to be able to reattach the booster motors in space, and the shuttle bay was modified to hold extra propellant tanks for maneuvering and short-duration burns. The nose was modified to contain a copy of an F-22 radar, purchased under license from Northrop Grumman. This thing was a power-hog, but required no mechanical assemblies to steer the beams. This was important, as the inertia of slewing the antenna could cause course changes in the weightless environment of deep space.
Northrop also supplied a triple-mode imaging system to be installed in the top of the orbiter’s cabin. This system had a one-meter primary aperture, and could passive color and panchromatic (black and white) imagery. It also had a hyperspectral imager similar to that of the Warfighter system they built in 2000. With this system, I would be able to image a target and run its spectral properties through a computer to find elements of interest.
The system also contained a gigawatt-class laser. This laser sent out short pulses of several different “colors” of interest. I use the word “color” loosely, as most of the wavelengths are beyond what the human eye can see. When in active mode, the system used nearly as much energy as the radar, but would excite the trace-elements of interest. There was also a 3-D imaging mode that would allow me to map the surface of a target.
Special attention was required to design a large solar array to support power generation at distance from the Sun. It turns out that there is not enough solar energy beyond Mars’ orbit to support much operational power consumption without using huge arrays. Even with the huge arrays being designed for the mission, I would only be able to perform a scan about once every hour. In the meantime, batteries would have to be charged to support high power usage for short-durations.
More collapsible solar arrays were being designed for deployment once the final target was reached, as well as high-power forge and cutting equipment, parachutes, special az/el/yaw motors, and other equipment that would be required.
Our plans also called for reuse of the shuttle external fuel tanks and some of the then-new carbon nanotube tapes. We would build a train, of sorts, from a couple of external fuel tanks. I would use the excess Oxygen and Hydrogen throughout the mission for various purposes – including breathable air and power generation.
ATK was hard at work designing modified shuttle solid-rocket boosters (SRBs), and a large structure that would hold them all together – as well as special mounting fixtures, push-heads, and so on.
It was at this point that karma decided we’d been having it too good. The deep-sky survey showed that there were no fly-by’s that would occur within a reasonable time/distance window for the mission. I would have to fly out beyond mars. A year or two, each way – but maybe our plan would speed that up some. The deep-sky surveys did show a region of the belt that seemed promising, though. Several objects that appeared to be of the approximate size we were seeking, in a fairly tight cluster, maybe only one-hundred thousand or so miles apart.
Dreams Become Reality (Ch 4)
I got a new software patch about three days ago. It turns out that my hunch was correct - the software was still looking inside of a “Doppler notch.” The patch removed that notch.
Most airborne radars look for frequency shifts due to Doppler effects. Essentially if something is coming towards you, it will “blue shift’ to a higher frequency – if it moving away, it will “red shift” to a lower frequency. The frequency shift is related to relative velocity – if something is moving fast, the frequency shifts a lot. In most airborne radars, this frequency shift is used to mitigate clutter – anything that has a Doppler shift similar to the speed of the aircraft must be the ground. Anything that shows up much faster than a couple of Mach is ignored as nonsense.
Problem is, I’m cruising a long at super-orbital speeds – about mach 15. The software is a pared-down version of the military software (why would I need dog fighting modes?), and these features were not removed to accommodate our operations.
Simple oversights, but like I said – it would seem that karma still needed some balancing for the good start.
* * *
All the design had been completed, and the major investors were all in for the mission. They agreed that the mission looked good, and began funding for the final phase. They were each in for about ten percent, now. If all went well, their shareholders would b pretty darned happy in a few years.
It took three years to get everything together. The space shuttle was originally sold as being less than one-hundred million dollars a shot, but it was never launched with enough regularity to achieve those costs. The same became true of the Boeing/Lockheed EELV. We were launching rockets with enough regularity to attain those costs to orbit. We were also getting royalties from many small satellite builders for piggy-back rides into low earth orbit (LEO).
This was the first time that pieces of the shuttle SRB’s had been launched into orbit. With custom shrouds, we were able to put two into orbit at a time. Many of the segments had special fixtures that would allow them to be assembled in space – just by bumping them together. In all, there was the equivalent of twenty SRB’s floating around in a high-LEO orbit of about four-hundred kilometers.
The last two shuttle flights ferried the SRB’s together, and a crew of our engineers rode those flights to assemble the pieces. They had a blast, as this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that also included spacewalks. As part of those launches, the shuttles carried their external fuel tanks longer than normal, and had them tied to the structures.
We had chosen the shuttle so that we would not have to design a whole different vehicle. It seemed like a great idea to reuse NASA’s throw-aways. We save an inordinate amount of cash by using the shuttle.
When all was ready, I piloted the final shuttle launch. Now the bird belonged to me, and I had spent
two years training for the launch. NASA
would let us use the standard
The time was now – T minus one minute. Time went by like a blur – most of the shuttle’s manual systems had long ago been replaced by automatic computers. I was able to run the whole thing by myself, now. In an emergency, I would be screwed – hopefully one of my favorite songs, “Major Tom,” by David Bowie would not become an ironic epitaph.
T minus 6.6 seconds, main engine ignition. The noise was amazing. I was sitting on a Hiroshima-sized bomb, and it was doing a controlled detonation under my ass! I had never felt such an adrenalin rush in my whole life. The cabin was shaking violently.
T minus 3 seconds, the main engines throttled up. The noise level cranked up another notch. The vibrations were worse than an old Harley Davidson…
3.. 2.. 1..
T minus 0 seconds, and the SRB ignition sequence began. If I thought it was loud before, I was obviously mistaken. My adrenalin jumped up another notch, and the docking clamps released. To paraphrase Larry Niven (Footfall), God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.
I was beginning to feel about three G’s push in the back. My lifelong dream was coming true, and I didn’t even need to sell my soul to achieve it – just a wild-assed idea, and a lot of tenacity, and I was on my way. And with a bunch of other people paying for it, no less. The thrill I was feeling is indescribable.
T plus 20 seconds, the shuttle went into a roll. Or so they say. I’ve seen it live in many launches, but I sure didn’t feel it here. I was too busy enjoying being pressed into my seat.
T plus 2 minutes, altitude of about forty-six kilometers (half way to space), and about two-hundred kilometers down range – I hear “Thump! Thump!” I thought something bad had happened as the world suddenly got much quieter - then I heard the controllers, “we have a clean SRB separation. Main engine verniers look good!” That explained that, I guess I wasn’t going to die right this instant.
T plus 7.7 minutes, it got quieter again, as the main engines throttled back. Continuous 3 G’s of acceleration.
T plus 8.5 minutes, MECO (Main engine cut-off) at 110 kilometers - my world goes completely silent as the main engines shut down. I’m cruising at nearly Mach 23 - normally, the external fuel tank would jettison at this point, but the program has been changed to leave it attached for now.
T plus 10 minutes – the maneuvering engines come on and finish the insertion into orbit. At T plus 45 minutes, I was in low LEO, and was beginning the slow ascent to meet up with the rest of my equipment in its parking orbit.
Seems like something most people don’t know – the shuttle cannot go much higher than about four-hundred fifty kilometers. It just does not have the energy to get there with a full payload. For the same reason, it cannot go into a polar orbit, either. That’s just as well, because it would generally be dangerous for humans to go much higher for any amount of time.
There’s still some atmosphere out side – mostly atomic oxygen. It has a tendency to really corrode things. In fact, it’s thick enough that it causes the International Space Station to lose 30 meters of altitude every day. I never really thought about that before now… It makes me glad that I won’t be in this orbit for very long – I’d hate to fall out of the sky, now.
Last Minute Packing (Ch 5)
Well, how ‘bout that? I’ve found all three objects, now – and it’s only taken three weeks. It’s amazing how these last three weeks have seemed like even more of an eternity that the previous year and a half.
I’ve fired maneuvering thrusters & slowed down to a crawl when compared with the three objects. Initial spectrographs show one of them to be a proto-comet. I don’t think we want anything to do with that one, but it does have some potential. There’s not much money to be made from water, but it is a valuable necessity in orbit, or at the moon base that’s in planning. With my solar cells, I could start breaking it down into rocket fuel on the way back. Maybe some core samples would show precious metals. Depending on how things go, I might stop back by that one to collect some water for the trip home. Extra energy never hurt anybody.
The second object’s spectrograph seemed to indicate that it had some of the stuff I’m looking for, but it also appears to not be solid, so much as a conglomeration of smaller pieces. I could bring pieces back for scientific study, but it just wouldn’t pay the bills.
I’m currently approaching the third object – its spectrograph showed it as being rich in some of the stuff we’re looking for, but I need to get closer to find out whether or not it’s an acceptable object. I should be close enough to do some good imaging in just a few more hours.
* * *
After the thrill of the launch, I was met by intense boredom. I was like a kid at Christmas, knowing I would meet up with my equipment, but having to wait for it to happen. It took a week to meet up with my own orbital junkyard. As the automated flight controls brought me closer, I tested out the radar and imaging systems. The radar worked as it should, and I was able to detect the equipment when it came just above the horizon. The spectroscopy equipment worked too. I was close enough for the camera system to record high resolution photos to be beamed to the ground.
The plans had changed some from the early idea of a “space train.” While that was still a perfectly valid idea, the materials were not yet commercially available in the quantities we needed. Instead, I could see a lightweight, yet rigid framework that held two external tanks in the center, and a “bowtie” constellation of ten SRBs surrounding the tanks. Toward the front were the remaining fifty motors, each one-fifth the size of a full SRB.
The docking sequence continued, and the ground chatter began to pick up. The ground controllers were using high-powered radar to track my approach to the boost structure.
“You’re within ten kilometers, closure rate approximately 1 kilometer per minute - firing forward maneuvering thrusters… now!”
I could hear the thrusters – an initial knocking sound, followed by a dull “whoosh.” This went on for a short time, with the ground controllers ready to switch out the automatic docking computers if necessary.
“Range is nine kilometers and closing - closure rate of four meters per second.”
It would now take about a half an hour to reach the boost structure – time to go through final checklists, and get suited up. The spacesuits are a bulky behemoth, and a pain to get in. Usually for shuttle missions there are multiple crew members to help someone get into one of these things. Using the newer, more “lightweight” suit, I am able to get dressed by myself, using some installed fixtures designed to help me out.
Technology has progressed, and the sheer thickness and bulk of the suits have gone down some, but there must still be a pretty hefty thermal control system inside to keep the user from simultaneously cooking and freezing to death. The sun-side of the suit can be over four-hundred degrees, and the dark side can be near absolute zero – that’s a hefty temperature swing to manage.
“Range four-hundred meters – maneuvering engines firing… now!”
Again, “bang! Whoosh!” This goes on for another couple of seconds until the ship is moving at what seems to be a snails pace. By the time the thrusters are done firing, the shuttle is floating along-side the boost structure.
“Prepare for external tank jettison”
“with a dull thud, the tank separates from the shuttle. This time it’s different, though. Usually, the tank and the structures are jettisoned This is the one and only time that the jettison sequence was designed to keep the mating structures attached – I’d be using them in a few minutes.
“Docking sequence initiated - all systems green.”
“Shuttle, this is ground control – we can no longer discern you from the boost structure – here you go!”
“Thanks
I can see the boost structure through the top window. “Pop!” The thrusters fire briefly, and the shuttle begins to roll over. About a minute later, I hear another “pop,” and the roll maneuver stops. Another “pop,” and the shuttle is “falling” towards the boost structure. I can see the external tank floating above me.
The structure has spring-loaded buffer plates with a special catch. The shuttle makes contact, and I can hear a “clang” coming through the structure. As the shuttle ran into the buffer plates, they moved out of the way, the springs slowing the collision to something manageable. As they continued to move, attached levers caused the mating clamps to swivel around and grab the attachment points for the external tank.
I start the sequence to open the shuttle bay doors. With a high-pitched “whirr,” they open up. The sunlight is dazzling! I drop the gold face-shield on my helmet, and get to work. I run the robot arm out to grab the external tank, and bring it down to close proximity – our little constellation is getting bigger.
It’s time for my space walk – I step into the airlock, and close the door behind me. As the air is pumped out of the lock and into the orbiter, my suit begins to expand from a wrinkled mess, and begins to look more like a balloon. When the light turns green, I open the outer door and step out, my magnetic boots holding me down. When I re-enter, I want to do it in the shuttle, not by myself.
It takes some time, but I managed to maneuver the tank around to the front of the boost structure. There attachment points up there for the tank. I tie a lanyard to my extra-vehicular activity (EVA) unit, and then climb in. The lanyard will keep me from getting too far away, and the EVA unit lets me fly around the shuttle.
I fly off to the front, and push the tank in to a similar docking system as to what is now holding the shuttle. I then fly in close, and connect some hoses up to the tank – this will allow the little remaining hydrogen and oxygen to be pumped back into the other tanks. When this is done, I’ll eject the tank and it will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, making a very pretty display for anyone close enough to see.
While the pumping is being done, I fly up under the shuttle and attach another set of hoses. This set mates between the captured external tanks, and connects them to the shuttle – this left-over fuel will be my reserves – both for oxygen, and power generation.
Everything is complete – I fly back up to the front of the cluster and eject the external tank. It begins to tumble away, due to the asymmetric release. I float around and watch it for a while, but I’ve been out on this spacewalk for several hours, now, and I need to go to the bathroom.
Once back in the cabin, I call ground control. “
“Roger that shuttle, countdown will commence in about nine hours. Go get some sleep.”
“Roger that
I’ve been wound like a seven day watch for the last few weeks – so excited I could barely sleep. With the initial work finished, the fatigue is catching up to me - Time to go rack out.
On the Road (Ch 6)
They always say that the third time’s a charm. Looks like they were right, this thing looks to be what I want. The spectrograph is showing high levels of iridium, magnesium, tungsten, some gold, and a heap of other precious metals. The asteroid is probably fifteen-hundred meters across, and somewhat potato-shaped. It fits our purposes perfectly.
Once I empty out the shuttle bay of the three-axis maneuvering thrusters, I can go back to the proto-comet and fill up with water before bringing the boost structure over this way.
Using the shuttle’s maneuvering thrusters, I pull up to within a kilometer of the beast. A high resolution imaging scan shows that the whole thing is pretty smooth, so there should be no problem attaching to it. Another scan, this time with the radar, shows the Doppler shifts across the whole surface – I’ve depleted my batteries a bit this time around, but now I’ll let the computers work on finding the centers of rotation, the centers of gravity, and the appropriate mounting points for the three-axis thrusters.
In the meantime, I use the shuttle’s robot arm to remove two of the thrusters from the shuttle bay. They turn on automatically as soon as they come out of their stowage containers. I can communicate with them via a radio-frequency (RF) communications data link. Their telemetry is all green – as soon as the computer is finished, I can link in the mission parameters and timing sequence and set them off on automatic.
* * *
Well, I’ve slept better. No amount of training can prepare you for having to sleep in microgravity. At least I’m not getting motion sickness, too. It will soon be time to start the next countdown. This one might be the hairier ride thus far. I’ll start getting into my spacesuit as soon as I’m done with my daily “constitutionals.”
“Shuttle, this is
“
Our mission planners have been modeling the appropriate flight path to get me to my rendezvous for a couple of years, now. This isn’t something they’re particularly used to seeing, though – they called me crazy, too. When NASA launches probes and other “far out” vehicles, they don’t have much for engines. They bounce all over the place, playing a game of being captured by another planet’s gravity well to “slingshot” off to another point and gain momentum – basically, they steel a tiny bit of that planet’s orbital momentum to pick up speed.
“Shuttle, ignition sequence to begin in T minus 60 seconds”
“Roger that,
I’ve taken a different tack. I have engines, big ones. I have a lot of them. However, I can’t steer very well. So, there is a window of time for the main motors to fire – this time coincides with the Earth’s orbital momentum (which amounts to a “crabbing” velocity vector) tied in with the place I want to go, and how fast the engines will push me. Really, it’s not super complicated – a little three-dimensional trigonometry and some calculus. Yeah, it sounds harder than it really is. In a nutshell, I would do a large corkscrew away from the Earth – and exit towards my final destination. I would still have to do a loop around Mars, but I was cutting my time of flight down from five years one-way, to about one and a half.
“T minus 30 second, shuttle, all systems show green – firing maneuvering thrusters for final exit orbit.”
“Roger that,
I pretty much have to have big engines, and not just because I don’t feel like going on a ten year mission to the asteroid belt. It’s also because I want to survive the Van Allen Belts. Our high school physics and chemistry teachers told us the truth, just not the whole truth.
“Shuttle, ignition sequence to begin in T minus 15 seconds – all systems nominal”
“Roger that,
Our Sun is an ongoing fusion reaction of two hydrogens becoming helium, right? Well, the reality is that you get energy from taking a hydrogen and a helium and making a lithium, and so on up the periodic table. Until iron – iron is the break-even point. Anything heavier than iron takes more energy to make than is released by the reaction – but it still gets made, anyway.
“Shuttle, ignition sequence to begin in T minus 10 seconds”
“Roger that,
The Sun is a boiling soup of all these elements – so hot, that the electrons are stripped right off the atoms. These things make up the “Solar Wind.” In and of itself, the solar wind isn’t such a big deal – yes, there’s a lot of helium nuclei (alpha radiation), electrons (beta radiation), and heavy ions (like gold with most of the electrons missing, for instance) zipping around – not to mention gamma rays, x-rays, and other sorts of nasty radiation. Some of the particles can penetrate the skin & cause DNA damage, upping the probability of cancer. The Earth’s atmosphere protects us from this nastyness by absorbing these particles and giving off infrared energy called “skyglow,” that is as bright as a full moon.
Fortunately, my shuttle’s skin is thick enough to stop a lot of that stuff and the deadlier stuff is pretty thin, so not a big deal. The real problem is the Earth’s magnetic field. It creates a “magnetic bottle” (sounds like “Star Trek,” doesn’t it?) that traps a lot of the ions, alphas, and betas. These things are all charged particles that will react with a magnetic field. They begin zipping around the Earth, and the magnetic fields just collect more and more of the stuff. This is the stuff that causes an aurora when circumstances are right. This is what the Van Allen Radiation Belts are made of. I need to get through them fast or maybe die.
“Shuttle, ignition sequence to begin in T minus 5 seconds”
If I thought I was wound up before, I was mistaken. I was getting ready to be the first interplanetary astronaut. My pucker string was pulled so tight, that nothing would remove me from my seat.
“T minus 5… 4… 3…”
I closed my eyes and said a little prayer. Something along the lines of “please let me see my family again, in person.”
“2… 1… We have SRB ignition”
The shuttle is only designed to handle a three-G push - on the take-off from Earth, that three G’s came on somewhat gradually, at least compared to this. Four of the SRB’s fired simultaneously, pushing the boost structure and my attached shuttle away from the earth like… Well, a rocket. I was pressed into the seat for the next 2 minutes until SRB burnout occurred. With a couple of small “thumps,” the four spent SRB’s ejected from the structure, and the world suddenly got quiet again.
A rear-facing camera was showing on the video monitor – the Earth was getting noticeably smaller. The Earth’s orbital speed is about thirty kilometers per second. My orbital velocity was about seven and a half kilometers per second. This boost gave me the last bit of acceleration I needed to break out of Earth’s gravity well – about an extra two and a half kilometers per second. I was now doing interplanetary travel at around forty kilometers per second. Even at these speeds, the Hohman transfer orbit (which uses the least amount of energy to make the travel) would take me more than a year to reach the asteroid belt. I would save my remaining engines for steering burns and braking.
Balancing Karma (Ch 7)
The simulations are complete they didn’t take long, but I run them each three times to make sure I get the same answer multiple times. You can never tell when all this consumer equipment might take another radiation hit and give a funny result. I got the same answer three times in a row, though, so no worries there. The simulation gives an impact point for the three-axis thrusters – the point is chosen for maximum effect with least likelihood of damaging the thruster.
The simulation estimates the mass of the asteroid, its rotational speeds, and general shape to decide where to place the thruster. The computer then looks at the relative location of the thruster, and figures out the timing sequence to allow proper attachment. If the asteroid was tumbling too quickly, we’d have to try something different, but this one is in a slow tumble.
The simulation computer controls the thruster to control attachment, then releases control to the thruster. For this particular case, I am attaching two thrusters – this will speed up the deceleration process. The computer sends the timing sequence to the thruster via comm. Link, and then initiates a microsecond-accurate countdown with the thruster. Once the countdown reaches zero, the thruster will go autonomous, and I will sit back and watch the results.
The countdown reaches zero. There is a small flash, and a puff of smoke that blows out of the back of the thruster. A small penetrator missile takes off toward the asteroid. The penetrator is effectively a harpoon that will stick into the rock. The tow line that it is trailing is too small to be seen from this distance. A few seconds later, the same thing happens with the second thruster.
I watch in rapt fascination as the penetrator strikes the asteroid. It appears to work, and the thruster’s timing sequencer starts up an electric winch that quickly hauls it down to the asteroid surface. A set of spring-loaded feet and a series of docking clamps hold the thruster fast to the surface. A short time later, the second thruster reels itself down to the asteroid surface. The thruster has attached itself to the point furthest from the center of the asteroid. The second thruster has attached itself to a similar point, on the other side.
The thrusters are fairly simple devices. They have five controllable rocket motors one pair faces forward and back, one pair faces left and right, and the last one points up. When on automatic, the thruster senses the rotation of the object it is attached to, and fires the motors in the direction opposite spin. This has the effect of slowing the spin. Once the spin has stopped, the thrusters will shut down and go into “listen” mode, where they will wait for commands from the shuttle.
* * *
Apparently my luck has been holding too well. The gods of karma say my luck must balance out, now. Generally speaking, I would say we have spent so much pain in our up-front designs that karma should owe us – except I wouldn’t want to piss off the karma gods. The one worry for a weak spot has struck.
All but the most energetic of alpha and beta particles are stopped by the skin of the shuttle. Gamma- and X-rays are a type of ionizing radiation about which we can do nothing – but they are not so dense as to be a big worry. Heavy ions, though, now there’s a different story. We design our equipment to tolerant of these things, but the shuttle hardware was never designed to hit the levels we were getting in the Van Allen Belts. The worst of the belts was between LEO and nineteen thousand kilometers, although they continued on beyond that. I would be getting through this area in less than thirty minutes – enough time to for me to absorb nearly a whole year’s worth of radiation were I still on the ground. My chances of developing cancer would be at least a half of a percent greater, now.
But that wasn’t the bad karma, I was prepared to accept that risk – shoot, I was already 53 and I had smoked as a young adult. The bad karma came as a result of a single event upset (SEU). The computer equipment was the problem. A gold nucleus moving at relativistic speeds came crashing into one of my control computers. This heavy gold ion passed through the computer chips, it left a trail of free electrons and “holes” in the silicon. Most of these electron-hole pairs (EHPs) recombined with no effect. Unfortunately, some of them occurred across doping boundaries and created an excess current flow.
Due to the way modern CMOS devices are made, this tiny
current was multiplied millions of times until the chip literally cracked. By the time the device exploded, the inrush
currents had gotten too high. In most
space devices, this sort of thing is designed for, but this was a commercial
off the shelf (COTS) computer we had used to save costs. Capacitors all over the board audibly
exploded. I could hear them on the flight
deck.
I thanked God that I was strapped into my seat as the entire vehicle tried to change direction. The push of the SRB’s was now sideways, straining me against my harness. I was having a hard time breathing. I was worried that the sparks might start a fire in my high-oxygen atmosphere – that I might be a repeat of the Apollo 1 mission. There was noting to do but wait out the SRB burn and then start figuring out what had happened. Thank goodness there were only twenty seconds left. Those twenty seconds seemed to last forever.
Getting it Right (Ch 8)
The thrusters have both successfully reeled themselves in. They sit idle, waiting for a command from the mission computer. One last calculation shows that the thrusters should have enough fuel between them to slow the asteroid to a point that I can land on it – based on assumptions, of course.
We’ve assumed that an asteroid’s mass would be about three times that of water, so the estimate of this beast’s mass is about fourteen-billion kilograms! A small “Gravity Sensor” has corroborated this result. The gravity sensor is simply a free-floating mass inside another sphere – Small lasers pinpoint the position of the small mass to within microns. Its movement is only effected by the gravitational pull of the asteroid.
The asteroid is revolving about once every five minutes. Our thrusters will take almost two weeks to slow it down to the point where I can safely attach to the thing. In the meantime, I will separate the shuttle from the boost structure, and go back to the previous bodies. I plan to collect some pieces from the cluster, and a bunch of ice from the proto-comet.
* * *
The SRB’s have finished their burn. Because the control computers are out, they do not eject as intended. I am having a bad day. Communications are still working, and I explain to ground control that we seem to have lost control. No panic, but it seems “Major Tom” might be an appropriate epitaph, after all.
“
“Roger that, shuttle, radar shows you as off course.”
“Roger,
“Shuttle, stand by while we look at the telemetry data – we show a red light on all three control computers.”
“Roger. I will investigate at this end.”
Engineers on the ground are pouring over the telemetry. I am looking for the most obvious things first, and find an opened circuit breaker. I am very tempted to reset it, but I don’t know what caused it to snap, and I don’t want to make things worse.
“
“Confirm C17, shuttle”
“Roger,
“Shuttle, please stand by.”
There’s nothing for me to do now, but sit back and twiddle my thumbs…
About an hour later, I get a call from Earth. They tell me to manually turn off all three
control computers and reset the main breaker.
I do this successfully – who new rocket science was so mundane? I am then told to turn on computers one and
three, and I suddenly have control again!
It was computer two that bit the bullet, and I have one
replacement. I can check out the
original later, in my copious free time.
It takes me an hour to do the job, then I get on the horn with
“
“Shuttle, it’s not so bad – we have a plan to correct your trajectory. All it will take is a long burn of your main engines. This will eat into contingency fuels, but the mission plan shows that you should not be entering any danger levels.”
“Roger that,
Once the upload is complete, I get a call from
“Shuttle – upload is complete. The ship will go autonomous for timing sequences – you’re too far out to do it accurately from here.”
“Roger Houston. Setting up timing sequence, now. T minus 2 minutes and counting.” I tell the computers to execute this new burn. If all goes well, I will be back on course soon enough.
I finish getting myself strapped back into the commander’s seat just before the sequence starts. With a few “pops” of the maneuvering thrusters, the shuttle yaws about ninety degrees. A few seconds later, the main engines begin a gentle push. After a couple of minutes it’s all over and the maneuvering thrusters set us straight. It’ll be about eight months to Mars.
Slingshot (Ch 9)
The trip to the cluster is uneventful. I’ve used the robot arm to pull in some various-sized rocks, and samples of the dust. The mass-spectrometer shows a lot of interesting metals, but getting this mass home would be near impossible – I can’t imagine an easy way to push it around without making it fall apart. A large net might be an idea, but there’s no telling how many of these objects are really around, so it might not be feasible to try to collect just these.
It’s amazing, really. It’s something I’ve kind of known, but the movies make it seem so much more cool. It’s not like Han Solo dodging around in those CGI asteroid belts. Things are pretty far apart out here – there’s no need to be dodging around. There are not even many little things to worry about. All in all, the trip here was pretty boring. These specimens are simply to give the scientific community something to play with back home on Earth.
It took a couple of days to get here, and I’ve been here a couple of days – a week in total. It’ll take a couple of days to make it over to the proto-comet, and if all goes well, I’ll spend a couple of days there. The scientists should love to get a few gallons worth of that thing to check out, rather than the little bits & pieces they got in the 2006 flyby of the stardust missions. Besides, I want some more fuel.
* * *
It’s been a long seven months. I’ve spent about four hours each day just powering things up, doing quick checkouts, and making sure things work the way they’re supposed to. I practiced most of this on Earth, and it took me an hour each day. The NASA folks told me it would take longer in space, but I guess I didn’t really appreciate how much harder it would be in a weightless environment.
I spend a fair amount of the rest of my time working out on the exercise machinery. We couldn’t put the boost structure and shuttle into a spin to get some artificial gravity – the outermost edge is too close to the axis – It would make me pass out just to stand up, as the gravity differential between my head and my feet would be too great.
There was a thought to outfit an external tank as a living quarters. By putting it at the end of a long rope, and spinning the whole mess, maybe we could generate a reasonable amount of artificial gravity. It turns out that to keep a one gee load out there, the number of revolutions per minute required to keep one gee was insane. With a one-kilometer rope, the structure, rope, and tank would have to spin once every minute. I can’t even imagine trying to work inside the shuttle with it spinning at that rate – I imagine it would be impossible – my inner ear would be making me throw up constantly, and that would sure not be any fun.
To put it another way, to make the shuttle spin something reasonable – say, once each hour, the cable length would have to be about two thousand miles. That’s one heck of a daily commute. That’s not to say we didn’t consider it, though. If I were to live way out there for a couple months, and leave things on automatic in the shuttle, then it might be doable. Nobody was sure they trusted the whole mess to run on its own for that long, though – it had never been done, and another occurrence like the fried control computer might leave me stranded. This was not a risk I was willing to take.
My solar arrays were deployed – I had nearly half of a square kilometer of arrays, and they were capable of generating a fair amount of electricity, even out near Mars. Using the solar arrays gave me excess energy, allowing me to heat the shuttle and save my fuel cells at the same time.
It was amazing to see Mars as it slowly came into view. It was always a bright red star, but as it came closer and closer, it was magical. I a color camera set up to take a high-resolution picture about once every hour. When stitched together, the movie would be outstanding. Seeing the frosty poles with unaided eyes was just amazing. I could see a sandstorm progressing across part of the surface. It was more beautiful than I had ever imagined.
I was generating high-resolution imagery, radar maps, and spectrographic analysis of the entire planet. The wealth of scientific data was amazing, and NASA would pay well for some of this data – they were still planning the manned Mars mission, and the resources available on the planet were important to the mission.
After about a month of data collection en route, it was time to fold in the arrays – they couldn’t be extended during maneuvers, as they were just to flimsy. It was amazing how small they were when stowed – just a few years ago I wouldn’t have thought it possible. These new arrays were made of a type of plastic with special coatings, and so fit easily into the cargo bay.
A new program was uploaded from Earth. This new timing sequence would fire a couple of the SRBs to slingshot around the red planet and off to the asteroid belt. I loaded and checked the new software, strapped myself into my seat, and waited. This new load would also correct for any mistakes made to this point – hopefully the engineers back home measured them correctly. The ignition sequence was almost anticlimactic. I could feel and here the motors vibration as it was transmitted through the structure, but there was none of the excitement of the last SRB burn. The empty casings were ejected, and I had another five months to my target.
Hitting the brakes (Ch 10)
The proto-comet was much more interesting than I ever anticipated. The phrase “dirty snowball” doesn’t quite cover it. Imagine making a dirty ice ball, and then letting it melt a bit. The crud seems to have mostly crusted up around the outside. On the “day” side, there are occasionally little eruptions of water and ice. On the “night” side, it is darned cold. The thing has only the slightest tumble – maybe once every eight hours.
I’ve used a special “coiled tube” well driller to attach to the thing. I’ve pulled out quite a bit of material – my tubing and drill bit are heated, so it’s a dirty slush that’s coming out of my end of the pipe. The whole mess is going into one of the three external tanks – it was modified for just this, including some filtration to give me cleaner stuff to electrolyze. I’ll use the solar arrays to electrolyze most of it on the trip back – The hydrogen and oxygen will be liquefied and pumped back into the tank I launched with – it’ll be extra fuel for the mission later. I’ve also broken loose about two-hundred pounds of the ice from the exterior. Scientist back on Earth will have a field day with that, I’m sure.
Out of a fit of silliness, I created a snowball out of the stuff – it wasn’t easy to do while wearing an EVA suit, but it was worth it. My magnetic boot held me in place on the shuttle as I threw mankind’s first space-snowball. I threw it towards the Earth – take that, suckers!
* * *
It’s been about three months since I swung by Mars, and it’s
finally time to start braking. I’ve
spent a fair amount of time in acceleration to get to my current speed, so now
I need to spend a fair amount of time slowing down.
I’ve tried some long range scans with my RADAR, but it doesn’t seem to be picking anything up right now – I must still be too far out for a reasonable return. Testing of my camera system is showing some objects off in the direction I’m headed. Ground control corroborates this, and at least one of them is one I want to visit. They are still too far away to get decent spectroscopy readings, but I’ve sent all the data back to Earth, anyway – I’m sure somebody will want to see it.
I’ve strapped myself into my console, and started the countdown. With a couple of “pops,” the shuttle and boost structure rotate to point away from the asteroid belt. There will be many firing sequences, using a combination of maneuvering thrusters, main engines, and SRB’s. The maneuvering thrusters will go first, and give me a couple days of quarter-gee deceleration. Feeling some gravity will be nice for a change, and it will get me ready for the progressively harder maneuvers coming up. We’ll see just how badly my muscles have atrophied on the trip.
The countdown timer is showing five seconds ‘til burn…
3.. 2.. 1.. Instead of the normal “popping” noises, the maneuvering thrusters are making a dull roar. I feel suddenly heavy as I’m pressed into my seat. Fortunately, my strength training has kept my skeletal muscles relatively strong, so I can lift my arm. This goes on for ten minutes. The next burn will happen in two hours. The burns will get progressively longer and closer together as I get closer to the target. I will get ready for the next burn by heading back to the exercise area – maybe I can get a short workout during that time.
Apogee (Ch 11)
I’ve been back at the asteroid for a week, now, and I’ve been busy. The work was slow-going at first, but I’ve built up some more strength and learned some things. The shuttle has been separated from the boost structure. Several penetrators were fired, and both the shuttle and boost structure were pulled down and secured to the asteroid. It must be similar to flying an old fighter jet – just a big rock with a lot of engine.
Using the robot arm, I’ve positioned the coiled-tube drill and anchored it to the asteroid. Over this has gone one of the external tanks – the engineers hollowed it out when they did their work on the boost structure – it is a glorified roof. Between the shuttle and the tank, I’ve pinned down a long, pressurized tunnel – it’s made of a special Kevlar that will keep the air in, but still be pretty resistant to tears.
As soon as I started letting my air into the tunnel, it blew up like a balloon – I won’t need to wear an EVA suit while I’m working, and that’s a good thing. Of course, I’ve put a spare suit out in the tank – it is also sealed to the asteroid to keep air from escaping.
I’ve extended my solar panels now that I’ve finally landed – as the asteroid approaches Earth, I will be getting more electricity than I know what to do with. Before the final landing, I mounted several SRB’s to the asteroid in varying places. The computer modeling software figured out where to put them – they will get rid of the final roll, as well as give the asteroid a needed push towards Earth.
The timing sequence has started, and I have hold on some handrails just in case.
3.. 2.. 1..
In deep space, I can’t hear a thing. I know that the motors are burning, but it is eerily quiet. The control computer is also controlling a new set of three-axis thrusters will begin maintaining attitude to keep the solar cells pointed toward the sun. I’ve burnt four SRB’s, in this push – it’s not much for something of this size, but the sun’s gravity will do the rest. I’ll be accelerating towards the inner planets soon enough.
* * *
I was disappointed by the second braking burn. My skeletal muscles were strong from my daily exercise regimen, but my heart and diaphragm were weak. A short workout under quarter-gee acceleration really made me tired. As the accelerations got longer and stronger, though, I began to pick up some stamina.
There were several quarter-gee burns – many of them timed during my sleep periods. At first they woke me up, but I got used to them. It makes sense to do it then, as that way it doesn’t interfere with my work schedule.
After a week, the main engine pre-heaters came on, and there were several half-gee burns, followed by some one-gee burns. I tried to stay awake for those – they were really beneficial in getting back some stamina. Ground control didn’t like it much, though. They complained that I was working too hard for my endurance level, and that I was mucking with my work timelines. I told them they were full of it, and that the normal maintenance stuff could be put off for a few days.
Finally, in the last week, the final set of burns occurred – four of them, all with SRB’s, about two minutes each at three gees. None of this worked my heart, though, like the news I just got from home – my oldest daughter was getting married to a guy I’d never met.
Let me tell you, now – crying in space is not a good thing. The tears ball up & float around, and then they get into things. I had received some messages over the course of the mission, so it wasn’t completely unexpected. I’ve seen pictures, and even heard some video, but at fifteen to twenty light-minutes distance, there was no way to hold a real conversation. I didn’t even get to threaten the guy with my shotgun!
After a heartfelt letter home, I needed to get back to work. Now that I was here, it was time to start looking around. I knew I would be doing a lot of maneuvers, so I couldn’t unfold the whole solar array. I would be on limited power again, until I found my target.
A couple of days later, I got a message from my daughter – the wedding would be about the same time I got back if everything went well. I could take her out & get drunk and still threaten her fiancée!
Convergence (Ch 12)
The machinery has been working fine, thus far. The CT drilling machine is busy “hogging” out boreholes in the rock. I’ve sunk thirty-two shafts that are about two-hundred meters deep each – due to the hardness of the asteroid, it took a three months to drill the shafts. The shafts form a circle that is about ten meters across. The drill-shafts have been filled with some special explosives – when I set these off, it will shatter the column formed by the drill holes, and I will be able to excavate a large “room.”
3.. 2.. 1..
Several loud “bangs” shake the ground under my feet. A bunch of dust flies from the holes, as the top part of the cylinder starts to float free. I’ve anchored a cargo net over the thing, but some smaller pieces escape, anyway. The net is straining to hold the “plug” in place – it looks like it will do its job.
Upon closer inspection, the plug is full of cracks – the explosives didn’t quite break it into a jillion small pieces – it should be fairly simple to break it up for smelting. The external tank is making a huge silo to keep junk from floating off into space – this is its main reason d’etre, giving me a nice place to work is purely secondary. There are a series of cargo nets, for lack of a better description holding down tanks of debris.
Some of the tanks have lids and some serious heaters. When we get a little closer to the Earth, the solar arrays will have enough power to melt the rock. Special spectrometers will identify the melted goop in the tanks, and special scrapers will pull off the top layers and put them into cylindrical molds. We’ve designed and built a completing mining operation in space, and now we’re finally getting close to the payoff.
Right now, the solar arrays are generating enough energy to run the drilling machine and break down all that water I collected into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen – There was enough to fill the third external tank nearly a quarter of the way – I’ll transfer as much as possible to the orbiter later.
* * *
The initial push from the SRB’s, while small, was enough. That push was just enough to push the asteroid out of orbit, and start it on its way toward the inner solar system. The Sun’s gravity well has provided enough acceleration to rapidly build up velocity.
It’s taken several months, but the initial push has gotten me into a trailing orbit behind Mars. It’s kind of like playing pool – the push was not towards the Earth or Sun, but towards where Mars would be when we arrive. As the asteroid approached, I fired a pair of the smaller motors – just thirty second burns, but enough to ensure I would orbit Mars, and not crash into it.
The last couple of weeks have been stressful – the life and death type of stress. A new program was uploaded from Earth, and I evacuated all the air from the mining operation – I didn’t want to lose it in any mishaps. All machinery was shut down and secured, as well as the solar arrays. As Mars was getting larger, I strapped into my seat on the asteroid. The three-axis thrusters spun the asteroid so that the shuttle and all equipment was pointing away from the red planet – now I couldn’t see anything.
The asteroid hurtled towards Mars, and began the “aerobraking” sequence. As the asteroid skimmed the outer elements of Mars’ atmosphere, it began to slow radically. The asteroid was only about seventy miles above the surface. For fifteen minutes, the asteroid plowed through the atmosphere, a glowing tail of boiling Martian atmosphere and melted asteroid trailing behind. Eddies of hot winds buffeted the shuttle and the mine site. My “upward” view was through the tail of the asteroid – If I survived, people would probably love this video.
Fortunately, our biggest worry did not occur - the asteroid held together. Mars' gravity pulled the asteroid part-way around the planet, and as soon as we left the atmosphere, the three-axis thrusters fired again. The asteroid began a slow turn to face the other direction. It took about a day for the turn, but when the asteroid's turn was complete, another set of the small thrusters fired. With the help of Mars' gravity well, the small SRB's changed the asteroid’s path just enough to push it into a trailing orbit.
Going Home (Ch 13)
I’m about three months out, yet, and I’ve been getting some
interesting messages from home.
After a couple of exchanges along these lines, they informed me that there should be something waiting for me when I get to L4. I was told to use the radar when I get there to search for a package. What the hell, I don’t remember this being part of the plan.
On the plus side, my antennas are just able to start picking up some terrestrial transmissions. Because the Earth is turning, I can only catch a few minutes here and there, but I really enjoyed seeing a “Tom & Jerry “ last night. I’ve also been able to get some snippets of news, as well – nothing new, just the same old thing; these guys hate those guys, and those other guys over there want to fight with any and all comers.
Now that I’ve gotten closer, I’ve also gotten some requests for interviews. CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox News, the whole gamut – they want to pay me to talk to them. Shoot, after all this time alone, I think I might be willing to pay them to talk to me! I guess I’m the celebrity du jour, again. Hopefully it will blow over and let me have a life in a few months.
In the mean time, the mining operations are continuing. The entire plug has been melted down and waste materials ejected. I’ve probably got several tens of millions of dollars worth of refined material, and not even a tenth of the asteroid has been mined. We’ll be rich, indeed.
* * *
Another new program was uploaded today. I’ve been in an orbit trailing Mars for a month now, waiting for the right window to leave. I’ve gotten myself strapped in, and I’m ready for the action.
3.. 2.. 1..
A couple of the big SRB’s fire, along with a couple of the smaller ones. It’s interesting that I can see no fire coming from them. They emit a smoky haze, though. There is no noise. I can only barely feel the effect of the motors, and that might be my imagination.
The burn lasts for only four minutes, and then it’s all over. I can head back to work in the mine – it’s been operational again since the asteroid fell in behind Mars. The system is now somewhat automated, thanks to the last major hardware I brought with me, automated diggers.
These little diggers are computer controlled, and do little more than scratch at the surface of the asteroid – wherever they are. The computer calculates their locations to ensure they keep at least a meter from the outside of the asteroid – I don’t want any pressure leaks. These little machines look kind of like garden tillers, except that their tiller heads are more like very rough grinding wheels. The wheels are made of a tungsten/diamond blend, so they’re very heavy, very hard, and never wear out. They are temperature monitored, so they will never spin fast enough to cause them to overheat.
The diggers are attached to the equivalent of a large vacuum cleaner. The vacuum sucks up the dust and particles they grind off, and collects them in a large bin. These shavings are fed to the kilns for smelting. In the last month or so, they’ve made considerable progress, boring out another couple hundred cubic meters of ore.
I am storing the smelted material outside under
tie-downs. They are large cylindrical
slugs, about a meter across by two meters tall.
It won’t be long before they are ready for delivery.
Package Pickup (Ch 14)
I’ve got more mined materials, now. I have several tons of tungsten and nickel – soon we’ll be flooding the markets and causing material prices to drop. The biggest problem will be making deliveries. It’s a good thing I collected all that water, as now I have the fuel required to make a couple of runs between L4 and Earth if necessary.
The asteroid is on course to L4 – Only a month or so out. L4’s out in “front” of Earth’s orbit. The Lagrange point is nice, in that this asteroid will stay there without needing any fuel to hold its place in orbit. There is a lot of dust there, but that shouldn’t be any problem.
I am expecting a “delivery” when I reach L4 – an EELV was launched a month or so ago, and will be leaving a large package about the time I arrive. I will need to disembark the shuttle from the asteroid to go find the package and bring it back.
In the meantime, the little diggers are still doing their job. They’re excavating about a ton of raw material per week. That’s kind of slow, but in the big scheme of things, I suppose it’s not too bad. In general, this asteroid has been pretty homogeneous (meaning that metals have been evenly distributed), but one of them seems to be working its way through a lode of pure tungsten. Darned valuable stuff, but it isn’t easy to mine.
The large ingots that have been smelted are really nice metal. All of Earth has trace amounts of radioactivity from nuclear testing in the 1950’s. The only source of metal for certain sensors is the German Navy, sunk between the world wars, and that’s getting hard to come by. Not only is this material not radioactive, but it also has excellent crystal structure – smelting in microgravity has allowed each of these ingots to be really close to monocrystalline. We should get some extra dollars for that – at least from certain customers.
Terrestrial transmissions are nice and strong, but they come and go. I can pick up some, and others not. There seems to be a big war going on down there. I can’t make it all out, yet, so I’ve asked some questions about it. No answers, yet.
* * *
*Clang!*
The shuttle has released the docking clamps, and the buffer springs pushed it upwards, away from the asteroid. The springs released a little unevenly, but in a good manner – the shuttle is nose-up as it leaves the asteroid. Docking will be a problem, later.
The asteroid is entering into L4 space, so this is the best time for me to begin scans. The package has some special electronics that listen for my radar, and then turn on a beacon for me to follow. This makes them much easier to find than the asteroids, even though the package is many times smaller.
After the shuttle cleared the landing zone and work area, a few small puffs from the maneuvering thrusters have me oriented correctly. The dust clouds don’t look much different than the rest of space – they don’t reflect any light, it’s just that some stars seem to get dimmer as my aspect angle changes.
After only five scans, the package beacon shows up plainly on my radar scope. Interestingly, however, there are two beacons where I was expecting only one. I don’t understand, as there was supposed to be only one package.
With a dull roar, I ignite the maneuvering thrusters for a delayed burn. Four hours later, I’m slowing down near the packages. They are easily retrieved with the robot arm. The maneuvering thrusters fire a couple of times, and I’m on my way back to the asteroid.
Upon further inspection, I see that the second package has a
seal that I cannot open – it requires a password. This is a mystery I will have to solve
later. The first package opens as
advertised – inside are a bunch of housings made from a material similar to
that of the shuttle’s tiles. I will put
the ingots into these housings, and launch them towards Earth. Inside, they have tracking mechanisms that
will home in on a beacon in the
You Can Never Go Home (Ch 15)
The asteroid has finally settled into its position at L4. The dust is not noticeably affecting the performance of the solar cells, and that’s a good thing. The operations are going fine. In a month or two, the company will send a crew up to replace me, and bring up spare hardware & so on. I’ll finally get to go home. After so long in space, I’m really looking forward to some simple things like the smell of trees, and a good beer.
The first packages have been sent back, and the ground crews have successfully recovered them. I sent one of the harder ones first – a tungsten ingot that weighed over one ton. We figured we’d try the hard stuff first, and the rest would be easy by comparison. A half ton of gold sharing a container with a half ton of nickel was sent next.
Now that we’ve proved we could do it, I hear there are a couple of competitors chomping at the bit to repeat our success. They are looking at robotic missions – I think they’ll eat up all their profits just trying to make that work. The trip’s been hard on me, but overcoming small obstacles and getting things set up manually seems to be the best way.
We are working out whether or not to move into Earth orbit. We certainly can’t aerobrake the thing, especially now that it’s partially hollowed out – the temperature gradients would surely cause the asteroid to fracture. If we made a mistake and this thing hit the Earth, the resulting explosion would be near to the same as every nuclear weapon ever developed going off at once. The crater would be about 13 kilometers across, and it would look like a magnitude 7.8 earthquake. That’s one hell of a mess for which I surely do not want to be responsible.
* * *
I’ve received some interesting transmissions from the ground. The second package was sent by the US Military. Apparently the war that’s been going on has been causing some trouble, and they’ve seen me as a ripe opportunity. I was briefed onto the program, and once I agreed, they gave me the password to open the package.
The contents of the package really didn’t look a whole lot different from those sent by my company – tubes of various size with heat shielding & sensor packages. These ones have a more deadly purpose, though. Instead of tracking our beacons, they will track the laser designator from an asset in place. Instead of parachutes, they have rocket motors. The government decided to modify the original proposal to be contingent on my acceptance of this mission. It looks like project Thor has be resurrected.
There are some new forms for creating the ingots – various sizes tuned to the explosive yield desired – the engineers asked for iron, tungsten, or other heavy metals. I’ve counted out how many of each, and the ingots are in production now. When finished, I will launch them en masse towards the Earth via a carrier that was included in the package. The carrier will act similar to an ICBM’s MIRV system, and eject one at a time according to ground command. Terrorists look out.
In the meantime, I’ve added a third and fourth digger to the
operation. They will help excavate the
interior of the asteroid, leaving about one to two meters of shell. Once the innards are excavated, the
If they decide to move it in, the whole asteroid will be outfitted with explosives on the interior. This will allow it to be blown into a million little mostly harmless pieces that won’t hurt anyone in the event of a reentry.
The last of the return packages have been sent, including the scientific samples. My replacement crew has launched from the New Mexico Spaceport. They will be here, soon – it’s time for me to get my stuff together and get ready to go. They’re coming in a modified version of the new crew exploration vehicle (CEV) – I’ll be flying the shuttle back for storage in a museum.
I’m looking forward to seeing my family again. It seems I’ve gained a publicist, somehow,
and I am scheduled for a bunch of speaking appearances. My mission diary is set to be published, and
“Shuttle, this is your replacement crew – how are things there?”
“Things are good, RC – looking forward to seeing someone else in person. Did you bring your golf clubs?”
“Negative, shuttle – but we’re still mighty pissed about the slush ball you surprised us with!”
“Ha ha, very funny RC. Set up for landing about 100m down-spin of the shuttle – I’ll help you set up the tunneling and docking clamps.”
“Thanks, Tom – we’ll be there in one day”
“Looking forward to seeing you, shuttle out.”
I can’t believe how edgy I’m getting. It’s like when I first lifted off on this mission, I’m as excited as a kid waiting for Christmas. It’s been over two years since I left Earth. I’m not to the point that I’m talking to rocks, much, but I sure am ready to see my wife and kids.
* * *
Interesting stuff on the news today – it looks like one of
those kinetic energy weapons (
That particular country has been run by warlords for so many
years, and they all hate each other for the most part. They all have shoulder-fired anti-aircraft
missiles (MANPADS), and anything they don’t recognize, they shoot. It has been said that you can measure the
number of MANPADs in
It seems that one of the local warlords was hosting the
terrorists, so there was practically an army protecting the terrorist training
base. These terrorists were directly
linked to a large bombing in
The news video was pretty good – apparently, the military filmed the whole mess and made it public. They explained the whole deal (thankfully, they didn’t say where the materials came from), and did a slow-motion replay. They wanted the terrorists and their ilk to know we could “reach out and touch someone” at our will. I guess we’ll see what the international outcry is, later…
Back to the film, though - there was a soldier pointing a
laser at the camp barracks in the middle of the day. The bad guys were out training – they had a
building with an American flag on it, and were storming the compound. From the sky came a roaring sound – louder
than their weapons and yelling. A
white-hot impactor, trailing white smoke touched the building like the finger
of God. There was a noise like loud
thunder, and the entire building and surrounding area went up like
The soldiers had a high-speed camera trained on the event, and the replays were phenomenal. Even at ten-thousand frames per second, the only impact was still a blur. The impactor was about a meter across by about three meters long – it set the government back about thirty million dollars (Tungsten is going for $50 per pound these days, you figure it out). The rocket motors gave it a reentry speed of nearly fifty kilometers per second.
Military and scientific analysts were being played over and
over – they said the impact was equivalent to a forty kiloton nuclear bomb,
equivalent to about two
There was talk that the military types believed that there was also a large bunker directly beneath the training grounds. Body count was estimated at over three-hundred, but there were few bodies left – most had been vaporized. Certainly, there were at least one hundred in the video that were instantly cremated.
Saying Goodbye (Ch 17)
My replacement crew arrived as scheduled. Their ship landed without incident, and I spent the next week or so helping them set up. One of their tasks would be to put an airlock onto the exterior entrance. They would be putting in air scrubbers and other equipment to make the interior a little more hospitable. They also added four more diggers to the operation.
The extra diggers were checked out and working normally and replacement grinders were put on the original two. Excavation was working well, and they were beginning to section off the interior into multiple rooms. This way, there would be no need for additional structures to be brought from Earth.
The international community saw what we were doing, and began ponying up money to help pay for upgrades to the station. The new crew was expecting another large array of solar panels in the next couple of months. The facility would have power to spare. In the meantime, the forging of ingots and their delivery to Earth was proceeding. The metals market was taking a hit, as we were returning some expensive materials, and buyers were snapping them up at our bargain prices. We’ll be in the black by the end of the year.
* * *
I’m strapped into my seat for my final shuttle trip. I’m finally going home. It’s a good thing, too, as I’ve got “short-itis.” I was probably an accident waiting to happen, and it’s good to get me out. This journey, while exciting, has been exhausting to me.
*CLANG*
The shuttle is floating free, now, slowly floating away from the asteroid. My cameras are recording the view as I pull further away. It’s nothing like the last few times, it now looks almost like a farm – piles of materials, silos, housings, and so on. I have an immense feeling of satisfaction. My bay’s not ugly, she’s a work of art. Nothing will ever be the same for the Earth, again.
I’ve just downloaded a new program. It’ll send me home. In the case of broken thermal tiles, I have
an automatic ejection system installed.
I don’t want to be a repeat of the
Touchdown (Ch 18)
I’ve been in low Earth orbit for a week, now. I’ve been flying in formation with the International Space Station. I’ve been doing slow rolls while the ISS crews look for damaged tiles on the shuttle – this is the last chance to repair anything that’s not quite right.
The ISS crews found broken tiles near the docking
clamps. I took two trips in my EVA suit
to repair those tiles. The putty that is
used to fix the cracks and missing tiles requires two days to cure. I’ve spent that last two days updating my
diaries and uploading the landing routines.
The shuttle will pretty well much fly itself to the runway in Vandenberg
AFB,
The time has come. The shuttle is flying backwards in orbit. The Reaction Control System (RCS) has control.
3.. 2.. 1..
There is a sustained “whoosh,” and I’m pressed into my seat as the maneuvering engines decelerate the shuttle.
The engines stop and then I hear multiple “popping” sounds as the RCS turns the shuttle around. I’m no falling from the sky, thirty degrees nose up.
Halfway around the world, I begin to reenter the atmosphere. I’m basically controlling the descent by using the RCS – I have to work some to keep the nose up and belly down.
Because of the intense heat generated on the shuttle's nose and leading edges of the wings, reinforced carbon-carbon with a temperature resistance of 2300ºF is used to cover these surfaces. The rest of the shuttle including the top of the wings and the payload bay only encounter mild heat effects so they are covered with a thin layer of white insulation called flexible reusable surface insulation (FRSI) which protects up to 700ºF.
It’s been a half-hour since the initial deceleration, and now I’m hitting the atmosphere in earnest. Tremendous heat is building up on the shuttle's underside. The outside air is heating up to the point that it glows. All I can see through the windows is orangish-pink plasma. The reentry heat is stripping away the electrons from the nitrogen and oxygen molecules causing positive ions which ensheath the sides and bottom of the shuttle. Aside of being pretty to look at, it is creating a communications blackout – I won’t be able to talk to anyone for another ten or fifteen minutes.
I have enough air pressure for my flight controls to work, so I turn off the RCS. I’m still coming in to fast – I begin to perform a series of four S-turn maneuvers to slow down. Each of these turns removes energy from the vehicle very much like that experienced by a giant slalom skier.
As I perform the last S-turn, I have five minutes until landing, and I’m still traveling at mach two, and eighty-three thousand feet.
I’m headed towards a fifteen-thousand foot runway – it looks like a skinny postage stamp at this altitude.
I’m eighty-six seconds out; I’m traveling four-hundred twenty-five miles per hour at thirteen-thousand feet – time to start the autoland sequence. The shuttle has a twenty-two degree glide slope and a rate of descent approaching twenty-two thousand feet per minute. The average airliner uses three degrees and a rate of descent of seven-hundred feet per minute.
At seventeen seconds prior to touch down the glideslope changes from twenty-two to one point five degrees.
At fourteen seconds prior to touchdown the landing gear comes – touchdown will be at two-hundred fifteen miles per hour. I can taste a ribeye steak, already!
There is a sudden cross-wind, and the right main gear touches down first. I can feel the contact. It’s a little harder than I expected…
Epilogue (Ch 19)
As the left main gear touched down, the right main collapsed. The shuttle’s right wing dipped into the runway, causing the shuttle to cartwheel down the runway. Remaining stores of hydrazine, hydrogen, and oxygen made for a rather brilliant fireworks display. News footage was played for two weeks.
Accident investigations found that the intense cold to which the landing gear had been subjected for such a long duration had formed hairline cracks in the metal at critical points. The only part of the body found was a hand, still gripping the handhold. This indicated that the pilot had no idea that he was about to die. The “black box” (actually orange) survived and confirmed this.
The funeral was held a week later – the wedding was delayed six months. The family was greatly saddened and given little time to cope, as the media hounded them relentlessly for weeks. Condolences were sent from dignitaries around the world, for his dream had broadened mankind’s horizons.
His wife never remarried. His daughter had 3 kids, two girls and one boy. The boy was the spitting image of his grandfather.
The End.
Copyright, Tom Burke, 2006