KR_IME
Copyright 2013, Andrew Broderick,
all rights reserved.
This book is dedicated to Nigel Broderick
Acknowledgements
The late Arthur C. Clarke (1917 – 2008) was a visionary, scientist, futurist, and author, of the highest caliber. His works were cosmic in sweep, and yet true to the innermost thoughts of his characters. He is my inspiration as a writer, and in aiming to emulate his fine blend of hard science fiction with a human appeal I am treading in the footsteps of a giant.
Moving on to persons very much alive, I would like to thank the brilliant Alex Protsenko. In his single-minded devotion to this project, he not only produced the stunning cover illustration but was also my senior editor. Not many people could fulfill both roles so well.
Foreword
I use the word ‘astronauts’ even when cosmonauts and/or taikonauts are included, for brevity and flow. No offense to Russia or China!
KR_IME is primarily a work of self-expression. Enjoy!
1
NASA Administrator Dan Williams entered the Oval Office. President James Brady rose to greet him, and the two shook hands warmly.
“How are you, Dan?” asked the President.
“I’m well, sir. And yourself?”
“Never better; life’s treating me well.”
With the formalities over, the President beckoned Dan to take a seat. “Care for a drink?” He motioned to the crystal decanter of fine Bourbon on his desk.
“No, thank you.”
“So, to what do we owe the pleasure, Administrator?” he asked, stretching back in his chair.
Dan had been waiting a very long time for this moment.
“Well, sir, there’s been a breakthrough in deep space propulsion…” he began hesitantly. “You remember we spoke about the VASIMR engine a while ago?”
“Yes,” answered the President, though he could recall the conversation only vaguely.
“Well, we’ve achieved sustained exhaust velocities in excess of 250 kilometers a second.”
“What does that mean in English?”
“It means we can send people to Mars.”
Silence.
“And back.” He paused for effect. “Three months each way. On one tank of gas.”
The President nodded slowly, the corner of his lip curling into a smile. “And you’re sure it works?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Dan, now grinning like a schoolboy who had discovered a secret cave. “It’s been running in a test chamber for three years now. We have nukes that are small and light enough to power it. It’s ready for space.” He continued, “We already did a quick back-of-the-envelope study, and I’m certain we can power a human mission there and back.” He paused. “The bad news, however, is there isn’t enough mass fraction – er, payload capacity – to send a Mars lander as well. But, there’s plenty we can do from Martian orbit. The two main missions would be landing on the moons, and operating telepresence robots on the surface.”
The President nodded thoughtfully. “And the cost?”
“Into the hundreds of billions, sir.”
Brady paused again, contemplating. This went on for a full minute, during which he was silent, and his eyes fixed on some indefinite point in the distance. It was a minute that felt like very long time to Dan. He grew increasingly uncomfortable, and unsure of how to take this reaction – he had not been expecting it. He was speaking to the leader of the free world; a man used to making momentous decisions, seemingly on a dime. Would he accept the proposal, or wouldn’t he?
At last, the President sat forward, and said, “Humanity has to explore the solar system. It’s been talked about for too long. It’s time to go. America is going to take the lead, but we’re going to need international partners. The main spacefaring nations. Contact Russia, ESA, Japan and China. Form a working group. Get it hashed out, and get back to me with estimates within six months. Then we’ll try and sell it to the American people.”
“Sir, yes sir,” replied Dan with enthusiasm and an undisguised, broad grin on his face. It was the most important White House meeting any NASA Administrator had ever attended. Humanity was finally heading out on a real, daring, space mission. It was time to leave Earth, our cradle, behind.
2
It was the greatest press event of the century. Media from every country and ethnicity on Earth were assembled, at the headquarters of the newly-created International Deep Space Agency (IDSA), in Lyon, France. Luminaries from all the participating space agencies, heads of state, and other officials took up the rest of the space in the vast auditorium.
An expectant hush filled the room as IDSA chief Fernand Alliaume walked up to the podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began in his strong French accent, “as you know, humanity has decided it will reach beyond the orbit of Earth’s moon and explore the deep Solar System. It is humankind’s destiny to explore, and to reach beyond what we already know. All the people of Earth want it. Our technology has advanced to the point where we can achieve it. There is no need to wait any longer.”
Kinuko Sasake waited nervously in the wings, with the others. She glanced at Emile, the French crew member. He smiled back. “There is no going back now.” The others nodded, their insides more knotted up at the thought of being immediately thrust into the world spotlight than at the thought of being thrust on a trajectory to Mars.
“Now, the reason you are all gathered, watching from every part of the globe, is that you want to know who will represent us: which men and women will make the trip to the planet Mars. I will keep you waiting no longer; it is my honor to introduce them to you now. In no particular order, we have:
European Space Agency: Alessia Abbado
European Space Agency: Emile Ouvrard
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency: Kinuko Sasake
China National Space Administration: Kan Tung-chi
National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Martin Robbins
National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Christopher Fay
Russian Federal Space Agency: Nikita Vinogradov
Russian Federal Space Agency: Aleksandr Kozlov
The six men and two women filed onto the stage as their names were called, and took their seat on a daïs in the center of the stage. Each wore an orange flight suit, bearing their flag on the left side of the chest and the mission patch on the right. The audience rose, clapped, and cheered. From Times Square to the mountains of Nepal, there was thunderous applause, whooping, and banging of pots, pans, or whatever was nearby and would make a noise.
It took a full minute until the auditorium quieted down again. Alliaume continued, “These are the men and women who will make history as the first humans to visit the environs of Mars. May they carry with them the spirit of peace and unity, in the name of all humankind.”
Alliaume exited the stage to the left. More rapturous applause. Billions watched close-ups of the astronauts’ faces as they smiled and waved to the cameras – some of them wearing a look of slight uncertainty, as the weight of their new-found celebrity bore down on them. Talking-head commentators began to rattle off their biographies, and space experts weighed in on what each could bring to the mission.
Later that evening, the eight astronauts ate dinner together at the Crew Quarters at the IDSA. Tomorrow, they would join, and train with, their backup crew. For now, it was just the eight of them. They were mentally overwhelmed by the day’s events – the huge press conference, and all the greeting and hand-shaking afterwards. They ate in silence.
After about ten minutes Aleksandr, who was to be the ship’s commander, said slowly in his deep-throated Russian accent: “Fate has bound us together.” The male Russian voice, when used to full effect, could make any stat
ement take on added weight and profundity. “We are the eight, but we will live or die as one. Let us toast to this: to life or death as one.” They all raised their glasses, and repeated his words. Though they were all single – the selection process had excluded anyone with a spouse or significant other because of the risks involved – they were now inseparable.
Afterwards, they played cards in their quarters. They were enjoying the calm before the storm of training began. “I will have to get used to under-dressing now,” Alessia said. She was attractive and accustomed to dressing in high style, as many Italians did. Her remark drew knowing chuckles, as they would have to give up many creature comforts on the long-duration mission.
“I’ll only get to tinker with stuff until we actually set off,” said Christopher, the Chief Engineer. “If I have to tinker with stuff in flight, it means something’s gone wrong, and we really don’t want that.” More chuckles. They knew their lives depended on everything working properly, and doing so for years. They would be on their own – a repair or rescue mission would be impossible.
Tung-chi stayed mostly quiet. Martin, the other American, was salivating at the thought of actually touching another planetary body. “Phobos,” he mused. A coal-black lump of rock orbiting Mars. It wasn’t Mars, Titan, Europa, Venus, or Encedalus. He would have given his right arm to visit any of those bodies. However, Phobos was where they were heading, and they would come the closest to Mars of any human beings in history. It was a long way from the University of Michigan, where he had gained his PhD in planetary science; it seemed even further from his home town of Copper Harbor, Michigan, given its other-worldly remoteness on the shore of Lake Superior. However, being one of the first humans to actually touch another celestial body made him a very lucky scientist indeed.
Lying in his bunk in the Crew Quarters that night, Christopher suspected the other men were asleep – all electronic devices were off, and their breathing had slowed. He, however, could not sleep. His mind kept running over his life, and how he got to this most unlikely of places.
His mind drifted back twelve years. He stood in his family’s two-car garage in Medford, Oregon, admiring his handiwork. He was a tall lad, skinny, with wavy hair that was somewhere between blond and red. The garage was built onto the side of their very average, three-bedroom ranch-style home. Beer in hand, he surveyed the contraption, and the mess of tools and parts covered all but the center of the garage’s floor. There was just about room to park the family car, and a small path that he had reluctantly cleared from there to the inside door that led into the house. Motors of all sizes, gears, bike parts, bits of wire, old computers and computer parts, lights and assorted electronics were everywhere. The rest of the family was out and the garage door was open, letting in the light and breeze of a day that was maybe warm, but certainly not hot. An old track by the Outhere Brothers blared from a boombox.
He heard the throaty roar of a familiar car engine. It pulled up to the curb. He knew it to be his friend Greg’s old Corvette, that they had spent many hours working on together. Sure enough, Greg got out and strolled up to the door.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Oh, not much,” Christopher replied. “I only built a... TIME MACHINE!” he said with great flair, pointing to his creation. Greg looked for a moment, and said “Dude, that’s a refrigerator with two revolving lights on it.”
“No, it’s not. See?” He pointed out the old-fashioned analog alarm clock welded to the door.
“Oh, right. I see. So that gives it a notion of what time you want to go to, and the flashing lights tell people not to bother you when you’re actually doing the time travel?”
“Exactly!”
“Good Lord!” Greg said, grinning as he tried to repress laughter. “Were you particularly bored today?”
“Yep!” Christopher replied. He paused for a minute. “I couldn’t focus on the robotics project ‘cause I’m too excited. I got accepted to Harvard.”
“Of course you did,” his friend replied with a completely straight face, knowing this was more of Christopher’s baloney.
“Why do you never believe anything I say?”
“Because you’re full of BS, that’s why.”
“Okay, Stanford.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, Oregon State.”
“Now, that I can believe. For real?”
“For real.”
Greg whooped. “Congratulations! Mechanical engineering?”
“Nope. Space systems.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Four-year degree, baby.”
“Very cool.” Greg paused, in genuine admiration. He realized his friend would be moving over 200 miles away. Christopher sensed Greg’s sadness. “Yeah, I know.” He paused for a second. “Brewskis are in order, though.”
“Yes. Yes they are.” They had never let being years under the legal minimum drinking age stop them, and weren’t about to start now that they were on the cusp of manhood. They cracked open a couple of cold Bud Lights and hung out inside – talking about everything and nothing, the way only good friends can.
Christopher’s mind snapped back to the present day. The image of that moment dissolved, and instead of a young Greg sitting on his couch, he saw the ceiling tiles in the nearly-dark room. He thought about Greg’s now-domestic life in contrast to his giant leap, as it were, into the unknown. He wondered why on earth the most famous human beings in history were not afforded more luxury than a basic bunkhouse. The answer, of course, was obvious: their training would not cosset them, but rather test them to their limits. Only tried-and-true men and women of grit and determination would, by the collective will of humanity, be shot across the Solar System.
3
T-minus 1199 days
Months of grueling training had gone by. The crew’s mental and physical fitness had been further tested and strengthened. Simulator training had begun, now that the design of the Mars-bound ship was more or less finalized. Fabrication and assembly had begun on the ship’s main modules. Many countries had submitted proposals for experiments to be carried out on board, and the mission’s scientific committees were evaluating them subject to the mass and power budgets available.
The latter was not really much of a problem, in contrast to most space probes and landers of the past, which were solar-powered. For those probes, every watt was precious and had to be budgeted carefully. By contrast, their nuclear reactor had already been completed and tested, and could output almost five hundred megawatts total, which was forty megawatts more than was required for propulsion. That meant a large balance of power was available for the rest of the craft and the experiments on board.
They had arrived at the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, where vehicle integration testing was to take place. It was still one of the largest indoor spaces in the world – so large, in fact, that small clouds had been known to form at the ceiling. Unlike the huge moon rockets of the past, what was needed now was not its height but its width. They were attending a keel-laying ceremony. This usually applied to ocean-going ships, as the keel was the first part to be built. However, the Mars ship’s biggest component was so much like a keel that it only seemed appropriate. It was a truss, one-and-a-half meters wide, that extended the whole 144-meter length of the ship. The first 100 meters of the truss was purely to separate the nuclear reactor from the rest of the ship, for safety. Forward of there, the other modules and structures would be attached to or around it, making the truss the backbone of the entire spacecraft.
The truss was very strong, yet lightweight, and made of titanium. However, it would not have to bear great loads. Even the main force upon it, which would be the engine thrust along the ship’s axis, would be minute in comparison to traditional fire-breathing rockets of decades past. Once assembled in space, the ship would never so much as touch the atmosphere of a planet, much less land on one. She was built purely for orbit-to-orbit transport.
The ship was also na
med at this point. Many names had been proposed, and naming competitions had drawn thousands of entries. However, petty politics similar to those in place when the International Space Station was named meant the participating nations couldn’t agree on a name. As with the Space Station, the only thing they could settle on was purely functional: International Mars Explorer, or IME. Fernand Alliaume performed the honors, on a small podium in the giant hangar-like space with a small knot of dignitaries from the various space agencies, the astronauts, and a small press contingent.
Afterwards the truss, which was built in ten-meter sections, would be dismantled for transport to and reassembly in orbit. Before that happened, however, the crew approached it much as one would an altar. It was the first part of the ship they could see and actually touch. It wasn’t just the ship’s backbone; it was their backbone – the structure around which all their life-support systems and habitation modules would be built.
4
T-minus 1146 days
The crew’s LearJet took off from Edwards Air Force base, en route to Huntsville, Alabama. Today, they would see the power plant that would take them to Mars. The chatter subsided, as they approached cruising altitude. Training was rigorous and exhausting, and several of them fell asleep – including Kinuko.
She dreamed vividly, of a precise moment in her life. She wasn’t sure why she thought of this particular scene so much – she supposed it had a deeper meaning in her subconscious, that a psychoanalyst would be able to pry open, but she didn’t particularly want to open that can of worms.
Kinuko Sasake was twelve again. She turned the corner, past a vacant lot surrounded by a wire mesh fence, onto her street. It consisted of drab, low-rise apartment buildings. It was set upon a natural elevation, and hence had a view of much of Tokyo.
Dressed in her school uniform with her backpack slung over her shoulder, she was a typical schoolgirl in all but intellect. (In that area, she towered above her peers.) The sky was overcast and raining that misty kind of rain – almost too fine to be called rain, but still capable of soaking a person to the skin. She hated the city – its size and bustle, its pollution, and its teeming millions of people and robots all scurrying about, going nowhere fast, like rats on a treadmill. She wondered if the reason it never rained properly here was because the soot particles in the air might cause water to condense and fall as droplets, rather than the big fat raindrops that come from real weather-driven rain.
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