Helium 3: Fight for the Future

by Brandon Q. Morris

  Enough. Karl stopped the mental loop. There was a simple solution. They had to open the cover, preferably by repeating the cold start. It was anyone’s guess what had gone wrong there. It was a typical coordination problem. An engineer’s perspective was different from that of a programmer. But that was why they were there. However, before he could restart Hera, he’d have to clear it with the group, since a colleague might have been currently working on another instrument.

  Karl rolled his chair back, put his feet up on the desk, and clasped his hands behind his head. He didn’t care that he could be seen from the corridor. He’d completed his work for the day and could now think about the egg Neville had laid in his nest.

  It seemed unlikely anyone was jerking him around. 67P, where Philae must still be waiting under the rocky overhang, was a short-period comet. It approached the sun roughly every six years, not quite as close as Earth’s orbit, but still close enough that Rosetta could reach it. It was last here in 2021, six years after a robot had explored it. Its period had recently shortened a little, probably due to Jupiter’s gravitational influence. So its next visit should be... this year.

  But that wasn’t enough. Philae could call out as often as it liked, and no one would hear. Its transmitter was too weak, and it was too far away. But what Neville had received undoubtedly came from the lander. How could that be? There must be a connection somewhere. A radio signal like that just couldn’t happen by accident.

  What was the little lander actually capable of? Karl didn’t have to think about it for long, because he knew its technical capabilities. Philae had a battery that it could charge with its solar cells. The efficiency of the solar cells might be somewhat reduced after 12 years, but the capacity should still be enough to switch on the lander and operate its most essential systems for a few minutes.

  Back in 2014, Philae had wound up at least partly in shadow. The solar cells hadn’t provided enough power, and Philae had run out of energy and fallen silent. If the lander was transmitting again, it must have left the shadow. Something must have happened on 67P to alter its location. That would be quite an exciting development for a researcher! But how did the signal reach Earth without the Rosetta probe as a go-between? He had no idea.

  But he knew people who might be able to help him. Karl looked at the clock. It was still too early for the first call. Robert Millikan at Green Bank Observatory probably wasn’t in his office yet. And he was nervous about making the second call.

  No one knew Comet 67P as well as Prof. Dr. Sylvia Stoll.

  Karl opted for a more friendly approach this time. “Hello, Joe!”

  If Joe sensed that Karl was trying to backpedal, he didn’t let on. “This is a surprise. Karl. What a pleasure. What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I’d like to speak to... your wife. Is she there?” Karl deliberately avoided using her name. He’d have to get used to the idea that she was no longer...

  “She’s helping the older one with his homework.”

  “Homework?”

  “Yeah, they still get it at school these days.”

  Karl laughed. His ex-wife was helping the son he never wanted to have. A stroke of luck—he didn’t have to speak to Sylvia. He probably wouldn’t have been able to get a word out.

  “Good. Then just ask her if she could...”

  “Wait, she’s coming. Must be finished.”

  “Who is it?” he heard faintly in the background.

  “Your ex-husband,” replied Joe.

  Something clattered.

  “This is a surprise,” said Sylvia’s voice on the line.

  “That’s what your husband said.”

  “You’ve never called us at home, not since—”

  “—since the divorce.”

  “Exactly.” She sounded a little piqued. “To what do I owe this... honor?”

  “A professional question.”

  “And that couldn’t wait till tomorrow? I have to be at the university at ten.”

  “Sorry. I’d like to call another old friend next, and I need your opinion first.”

  “Fine. What’s it about?”

  “67P.”

  “I’ve had nothing to do with Churyumov-Gerasimenko for ten years.”

  “But you have the memory of an elephant.”

  “You always accused me of that. And now you want to exploit it?”

  “I just want to know how likely it is that the comet could have changed.”

  “Come on, Karl, that was so long ago. 67P consists of two parts, but I don’t have the details in my head anymore. Right now I could tell you every detail about Didymos and Didymoon, but old Churyumov—”

  “Please, Sylvia.”

  “It’s too much to ask right now. I want to spend the evening with my family, even if that’s hard for you to understand.”

  She sounded bitter, as though she was still holding it against him that his work had always come first. And yet she’d qualified as a professor while he’d never even completed a dissertation.

  “Just a few minutes, please,” he said, feeling like he was going down on his knees.

  “I have a suggestion. My first lecture starts at eleven tomorrow. If you call me at my office at ten, I’ll have had a chance to do some reading first, and you’ll get your answer.”

  “But at ten—”

  “I know, you’re normally still asleep, but it’s important, isn’t it?”

  “All right, Sylvia. I’ll call you at ten.”

  Did he even have her office number? But to ask her for it now... He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He could hear a child in the background, calling, “Mama.” Sylvia said goodbye and hung up.

  Karl sat in his control room holding the warm telephone receiver.

  “Green Bank Observatory, Visitor Center. You’re speaking with Mary. How can I direct your call on this beautiful summer’s day?”

  “Hello. Charly Stoll here from Germany, I’ll like to speak with Bob, Robert Millikan. Can you put me through?”

  “Of course, doll, he’s in his office waiting for his first tour. Who shall I say is calling? I didn’t quite catch your name.”

  “Charly from Germany. I’m sure he’ll remember me.”

  “Okay, Charly from Germany, I’m sure Bob will be pleased to get your call. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Then you have a wonderful day.”

  “Thanks.”

  The line went quiet. At least there wasn’t any of that crappy hold music. Sometimes it annoyed him that he’d had to do without an assistant for the last two years, but it was probably better than being greeted every morning by Mary.

  “Millikan here. What is it?”

  That was him, his old friend. Karl had known Robert Millikan even before the Rosetta mission. Millikan was an excellent radio astronomer, and he’d helped ESA at the start of the millennium to construct the ESTRACK network, which they’d used to follow and steer the Rosetta probe. Hadn’t he also been with them on the notorious Oktoberfest jaunt? In any case, Bob had naturalized, married a German, built a house, planted a tree, and fathered a son. Martin, if he remembered correctly.

  “Who is this?” asked Bob, sounding a little irritated.

  “Sorry. It’s me, Charly,” he replied.

  “The Charly?”

  “Yes, the very one.”

  “Hey, this is a surprise! How long has it been?”

  “Five or six years?”

  At some point after the Rosetta mission, Robert had abruptly packed his bags and gone back to the States. Everyone had been baffled. He’d even left his son behind.

  “Yeah, since... Doesn’t matter. I guess you haven’t heard much from me.”

  “I haven’t, but that’s okay. I’m sure you had your reasons.”

  “Well, I thought so at the time. But surely you’re not calling to reminisce about old times?”

  The question almost sounded like a plea. But Karl had no intention
of discussing the past with Robert. It would be a waste of time—it couldn’t be changed now, anyway.

  “No. Or yes. But on a professional level.”

  “Then fire away.”

  Karl told him what Neville thought he’d received via the New Norcia antenna. Robert listened without interrupting. Was he just being courteous, or was he completely disinterested?

  “What do you think?” Karl finally asked.

  “Neville knows what he’s doing. He oversaw the construction of the station in Western Australia and calibrated the antenna. Neville’s not wrong.”

  “I agree. But then, how did the signal reach us?”

  “The lander is the primary source, but it can’t have transmitted the signal that arrived in New Norcia.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought.”

  “The answer seems pretty simple to me. Back in the day, the Rosetta probe amplified the signal and sent it on. So there must be another relay now that’s assumed this function. Is there another probe out there that could do that?”

  “None of the current missions is intended as a signal relay for Philae.”

  “But you know how it works, Charly. You borrow the code that’s already been shown to work once and transfer it to the next project. That’s the safest way to operate. There’s enough space in the probes’ memory banks these days. How do you know there isn’t some spaceship out there containing the command to relay the Philae signals?”

  That sounded plausible. Philae was assumed dead. It would waste a few kilobytes of memory, but otherwise it wouldn’t do any harm for another probe to carry around the old program code from Rosetta. No one had expected Philae to make contact again. Karl himself had even transplanted program modules that had been tried and tested in practice into other probes. Rosetta had been a brilliant success.

  “There aren’t that many missions out there, though,” said Karl. “Only we and the Japanese had access to the data. So at the moment, only Hera could serve as a relay. There aren’t any other ESA probes underway nearby.”

  “Then you know where to look.”

  August 15, 2026 – Green Bank Observatory

  The children were finally safely back in their yellow school bus. Robert pasted on a smile and waved. The driver and the teacher waved back. The children were wearing earbuds and busying themselves with their smartphones—in blatant disregard of the fact that it wasn’t allowed here! He’d expressly forbidden it twice. But the researchers would know the reason for the resulting spike in their measurement results. That was why Mary always hung the visitor schedule in the lab. For the last five minutes before the buses arrived at the door, and the first five minutes after they left, the measurements were useless due to electronic interference.

  Robert turned around. Mary had probably brought cake, but his destination wasn’t his office this time. He was heading for the Jansky Lab, from where he could control the antennas. His assistant would be disappointed. But Charly’s call had made him pensive. Why couldn’t the past just leave him in peace?

  Gravel crunched under his shoes. Maybe it would help if he solved the problem that was occupying his old friend. If he could say to him, ‘listen Charly, this is where the signal’s coming from,’ then he probably wouldn’t hear from him again for a long time—just like he hadn’t heard from his ex-wife or his son for years. Germany was far away, and that was how he wanted it to stay.

  The heavy iron door squeaked as he entered the bunker-like lab. The metal roller-blinds were down over the windows, and narrow strips of sunlight slanted through the swirling dust particles. A man and a woman in white smocks were seated at their computers, typing. The man, one of the guest scientists, looked up at him. What was his name again? The man had only been here for two weeks, but Mary had probably already made a point of remembering his name.

  Now the scientist was smiling at him. He must have introduced himself already. Robert approached. The woman was wearing headphones with a cable running from her ears down under the desk. She didn’t seem to have noticed him.

  “Hello, Bob,” the man greeted him.

  Robert squinted to read his name badge—Thorsten Niesner. “Hallo, Thorsten,” he said.

  “Without the H,” said the man, in a strong German accent.

  “Excuse me, Thorsten,” said Robert, pronouncing the name with a hard T.

  “What can I do for you?” asked Thorsten.

  “Um, nothing... or, um... Wait, is the big dish free right now?”

  “I... yes, I was just about to—”

  “That’s great. Can I ask you to aim it at a particular target for just a few minutes?”

  His harmless-sounding request was actually quite impertinent. The man had probably had to wait his turn to use the antenna, and now he comes along...

  “Of course. What’s the target?” Robert was lucky that Niesner was so eager to help. Or so inexperienced. Or both. If you wanted to get ahead, you had to fight for time on the expensive instruments. That was another reason he’d eventually given up on pursuing an academic career.

  Robert blushed. He didn’t even know where the Hera probe was. If he was unlucky, it might not even be visible from their position.

  “One moment. Could I quickly use your computer?”

  Niesner nodded.

  Robert opened the ESA website. Great! It listed the current positions of the probes on the home page. The ESA must be really proud of this project. Now he just needed to do the math. Fortunately, he’d learned how to do this and practiced it ad nauseum. Hera should be visible! He noted down the figures on a piece of paper.

  “Please aim at these coordinates,” he said, handing them to Niesner.

  The air conditioning droned. He could hear faint music, as though in the distance. It must be coming from the headphones of the woman still concentrating on her monitor. It took a while for the antenna to reposition. Niesner was probably silently cursing him. But he didn’t let it show, and this earned him Robert’s respect. Robert was the longest-serving member of staff at the observatory, but he wasn’t the boss, who was somewhere else entirely.

  “So, I think we have it,” said Niesner.

  From an unimaginable distance, radio signals hit the parabolic dish, were focused, amplified, separated from the background radiation, and processed. They ran through long cables into the lab, where they finally appeared in front of him on the screen.

  They were clear signals. Almost too clear. As Robert wasn’t involved in the Hera project—he lacked the keys to decode it. But none of it came from Philae. If that was the only probe that was a potential relay, then Neville must have made a mistake.

  “Bad news?” asked Thorsten-without-an-H.

  He’d correctly interpreted Bob’s expression. Thorsten looked at the clock on the wall. He was probably calculating whether there was still time for his own project. But Robert had bad news for him, too. He’d have to exploit his helpfulness once more. Robert sat at the computer and searched for new data.

  Then he converted it and wrote down the results. “I’m afraid I’ll need to take a look at these coordinates, too.”

  Niesner pulled an unhappy face, but he didn’t object. Robert felt sorry for the man who could be his son. No, not quite. Martin must still be in school.

  “Thank you very much,” said Robert. “I really appreciate it. If you ever need a recommendation, I’ll be happy to help.”

  “Oh, that’s very kind of you.” Then he sat down and entered the data.

  Robert was excited. It was just a hunch, and his colleagues might think it was ridiculous, but something told him things were going to get interesting today.

  August 16, 2026 – Lunar Gateway

  “Can you help me please, Livia?”

  Daniel turned around and pointed at his side with his thumb. He’d made a mistake by putting on the gloves before doing up the zippers. Livia bent down, and he heard the rattling sound of the zipper.

  “It’s quite stiff,” said Livia.

  “Y
eah, the material fatigues quickly—we should let Mission Control know.”

  She slapped him on the ass with her gloved hand. “Maybe you just ate too much and haven’t been exercising enough.”

  “Hey, that’s sexual harassment!”

  She was probably right, though. The orange suits, called Orion Crew Survival Suits, OCSS in NASA speak, were tailor-made for each astronaut. But how was he supposed to exercise properly on the four-day trip here? No wonder he was getting fat when he didn’t even have gravity on his side. And, unfortunately, the NASA chefs had learned a lot since his flight to the ISS six years ago. Nothing was too expensive for the Artemis program.

  “Are you nearly ready?” asked Dave.

  “And this zipper here, too, please,” said Daniel, lifting his arms. Livia floated around him.

  “There, done,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Thomzig? Schult? I’m waiting!”

  Dave was becoming impatient. He was already buckled into his commander’s seat and wearing an expression of irritation. Daniel never knew quite where he stood with Dave. Sometimes Dave behaved like a buddy, and then he’d revert to being the boss. But David Willinger was an experienced astronaut. At 37, he was one of the oldest in the Artemis program.

  “Let’s go, Daniel, get your black ass into that seat.”

  Nor was he very politically correct. Daniel didn’t mind. The main thing was that he got them all back home safe. He got into his seat, to Dave’s left, and buckled himself in.

  “Hey, you’ll get us in trouble,” said Livia. “If you let something like that slip out during live transmission, you’re screwed. It’d be a shame to lose your little white ass.”

  Like Daniel, Livia was African-American. Two years ago, the first woman landed on the moon as part of the Artemis III crew. Now they were the new pinnacle of diversity here in Artemis VI. The president probably had a hand in it, wanting to score reelection points with groups he’d previously neglected. But no, that wasn’t how NASA worked. Decision-making processes took way too long to be influenced by short-term politics—Daniel already realized this at the age of 27.