by Ben Bova
“Booster separation,” Yamagata said calmly.
Thrasher’s heart resumed beating. It’s okay. Normal. Routine. Everything’s on track.
He couldn’t see the bird anymore. It was too high, and a rack of clouds was gliding across his field of view. People began to clap their hands, applauding the successful launch.
“Good launch,” said Yamagata. “Let’s go to the control center and watch the orbital insertion.”
His knees still weak, Thrasher followed the ILS executive down from the observation stands, Polk and Ornsteen trailing behind him. They walked through the tropical humidity toward the concrete building that housed the mission control center.
It’s like walking through soup, Thrasher thought. He was perspiring heavily, his summerweight jacket feeling sodden, rumpled, despite the breeze from the ocean.
Ornsteen came up beside him, “I thought she blew up,” he confessed.
“Just separating the solid rocket boosters,” Thrasher said, like a veteran.
Polk said, “Now comes the tricky part, inserting the payload into the proper orbit.”
“Does it matter that much?” Thrasher asked as they walked through the soggy heat. “I mean, as long as it gets into any orbit, you’ll be able to reach it, won’t you?”
“Sure,” said the astronaut, “but every move you make up there takes extra energy, which means it costs extra fuel. If she doesn’t reach the proper orbit, or if the aero shield doesn’t separate, if the payload doesn’t deploy . . . there’s still a lot that can go wrong.”
“Thanks for the cheerful news,” Thrasher groused.
The control center was abuzz with quiet intensity, the four-person launch team at their consoles, the big wall screens showing data coming in from the spacecraft’s sensors. Thrasher noted the graph that displayed the rocket’s planned trajectory and its actual track. The two curves overlay each other snugly.
The launch team chief, a chubby Japanese-American in white coveralls bearing the ILS logo, smiled at Yamagata.
“Everything on track, sir.”
Yamagata smiled back at him. “Good.”
Thrasher watched, feeling totally useless, as the payload separated from the Delta IV booster and the upper stage engines kicked in.
“Orbital insertion in seven minutes,” announced the launch team chief.
“Lookin’ good,” Polk muttered.
The wall screens all went blank for an instant. Thrasher felt his stomach go hollow. The screens came back on, but no data was flashing across them. They blinked like a man suddenly hit by an overpowering light.
“Anomaly!” shouted one of the controllers.
Thrasher saw that the curve displaying the craft’s track had abruptly stopped. The launch team chief scuttled to one of the consoles and bent over the man sitting at it. Yamagata looked suddenly tense, wired.
“What’s happening?” Ornsteen whispered.
“She blew up,” said Yamagata, his face grim. “The upper stage exploded.”
Thrasher’s vision went blurry; his eyes were filled with tears.
6
BOARD MEETING
White-bearded Gregory Sampson looked like a stern, almost angry biblical patriarch. “How much does this set us back?” he demanded.
The meeting of Mars, Inc.’s board of directors was taking place as scheduled, in the corporation’s Portales headquarters, two weeks after the disaster at Cape Canaveral.
Thrasher had barely slept the whole long, agonizing time. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw the TV news programs showing the telescope view of the rocket’s upper stage blowing itself to bits. Interviews, inquiries, reviews of the launch procedures, discussions with the insurance carrier, with Yamagata’s ILS people, with NASA’s safety office. Thrasher tossed in bed fitfully, seeing in his mind’s eye Hamilton Reed smiling his beady-eyed smile as the accident investigation team reported their findings.
“We shouldn’t have pushed the launch schedule ahead like we did,” Jessie Margulis moaned, shaking his head mournfully. “We pushed too hard, too fast.”
Thrasher appreciated the “we,” but he knew that Jessie was blaming his decision, his pushing the launch team.
The blame for the accident was fixed on a faulty fuel valve on the upper stage’s main engine. The engine exploded, igniting the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant tanks in the blink of an eye. The first segment of the Mars One spacecraft now rested at the bottom of the Atlantic, in a thousand pieces.
Despite all the inspections and safety checks, Thrasher raged to himself, despite our zero-defects procedure, one lousy valve failed and blew the bird to hell.
“We’ll go forward,” he replied a hundred times to news reporters. “We’re going to Mars. This accident won’t stop us.”
But his own board of directors was not so sure.
Sitting at the head of the conference table, weary and baggy-eyed from lack of sleep, Thrasher replied to Sampson, “It’s pretty bad. We have the backup hardware, of course, but it’s going to take several weeks before it’s ready to launch, and even longer before we can get on the launch schedule at the Cape again.”
Still looking like a disapproving grandfather, Sampson growled, “I understand there’s also a problem with the insurance coverage.”
Before Thrasher could reply, David Kahn answered in his grating voice, “There’s some question about whether this accident could be attributed to an Act of God. If that’s the finding, then the insurance company doesn’t have to pay out.” Thrasher thought the gnomish old man looked almost smug about it.
“It wasn’t an Act of God,” Thrasher replied, as evenly as he could manage. “The investigating team found that a faulty propellant valve on the rocket engine was the cause of the explosion.”
“That’s just a preliminary finding, from what I hear,” said Kahn.
Will Portal, sitting halfway down the table, looked alarmed. “You mean we might not even get insurance coverage?”
“We’ll get it,” Thrasher said, hoping that it was true.
“If you hadn’t accelerated the launch date, Artie,” rasped the elder Kahn, “we wouldn’t be in this fix.”
“And if we grew wings we could fly to Mars on our own,” Thrasher retorted.
Charles Kahn, looking every inch the dashing corporate executive in his blue three-piece suit and expensive tan, countered, “The real question is, where does this leave us? Can we continue—”
“We’re going on,” Thrasher said flatly. “The program continues.”
“Does it?” asked Sampson. “Can we absorb this loss and stay afloat?”
“We’re going on,” Thrasher insisted. “Accidents happen. We’ll get past this and move on.”
“Throwing good money after bad?” Sampson asked, breaking into a sly grin.
“We’ll stay within budget,” said Thrasher.
“Even if the insurance doesn’t come through?”
“Even if hell freezes over,” Thrasher snapped.
David Kahn focused his cold eyes on Thrasher. “Our budget is strained to the maximum, Artie. You know that, I know that, the entire board knows it. Another accident like this and—”
Simmering inwardly, Thrasher said, “It would help if you told your insurance people to stop waltzing around and pay up.”
“They’re within their rights to see if this falls into the ‘Acts of God’ clause.”
“They’re throwing fine print at us,” Thrasher complained.
With a boyish smile, Will Portal asked softly, “Instead of trying to dissect the past, why don’t we look at where we are and where we’re going?”
Thrasher shot him a grateful glance. “Right. We’re preparing the backup hardware for launch—”
“And if that blows up?” Sampson asked.
“We’re up shit’s creek,” David Kahn wheezed. “In a leaky canoe, without a paddle.”
“So what do you want to do?” Thrasher demanded.
“Cut our losses. Canc
el the entire operation.”
“No.”
“I’m not going to put another cent of my money into this,” Kahn said.
Jabbing a finger at the liver-spotted old man, Thrasher insisted, “You signed an agreement for five years’ worth of funding. You try to pull out now and I’ll sue you for what you owe, plus damages.”
“Go right ahead. I have more lawyers than you do. Better ones, too.”
Sampson hauled himself to his feet. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he said, making a calming gesture with both his hands, “let’s not fight amongst ourselves. We’ve had a setback, but Will is right: we ought to be moving forward, not filling the air with recriminations and threats.”
Thrasher felt puzzled, but grateful. Greg wants to toss me out on my butt, he knew, but he’s telling Jenghis to cool it. Maybe he really wants us to succeed.
Sampson went on, “I move that we offer Artie a vote of confidence in his leadership.”
Mumbles and head shaking up and down the conference table.
Then Sampson added, “Of course, if we have one more disaster like this, I would expect Artie to either resign or cancel the project altogether.”
I’ll die first, Thrasher told himself. And he heard his father’s last words again: Do something you can be proud of, something worth doing.
Mars. That’s something we can both be proud of, Dad.
7
HOUSTON
Thrasher spent the next Sunday walking a real estate agent through his mansion out in River Oaks. The woman was sharp-eyed, her shoulder length hair a shade of golden blonde that came only from the best salons, very stylishly dressed in a cranberry red skirted suit that she described as her “church-goin’ clothes.”
“It’s very impressive, Mr. Thrasher,” she said, her voice restrained, well modulated, with only a tiny bit of insistence showing through.
“I was thinking of asking six mill for it,” Thrasher said. He knew it was nowhere near enough to help with the Mars project, but at least it would bring him some pocket money and cut off the drain of upkeep on a house he hadn’t slept in since Vicki Zane had moved to Chicago.
The woman pursed her lips. “That’s a bit on the high side, considering today’s market conditions.”
“Really?”
“If you want to move it quickly, I’d peg the price around four million, four and a half.”
Thrasher sucked in a breath. “Make it five.”
“But you said you wanted to move it quickly.”
“Five.”
“Four-eight. That will attract buyers and offer you some room for negotiating.”
“Okay,” he said, feeling a little desperate. “Four million eight.” To himself he added, I’ll invest it in a nice safe CD and live off the interest. For a while.
“I heard about the accident, of course,” said Bart Rutherford. “Anything I can do to help?”
Thrasher leaned back in his desk chair and stared at the retired engineer’s image on his phone screen. Rutherford was apparently in his home on the Pacific coast, sitting in a big recliner, wearing an unbuttoned flowered shirt. His long blond hair was slicked back, glistening, as if he had just stepped out of a shower, or maybe the surf. Through the window behind him Thrasher could see a clear blue California sky with gulls soaring past.
“The investigating team found the problem,” Thrasher replied. “Bad valve on the fuel injector of the upper stage’s main engine.”
“So I heard,” said Rutherford. “Those injectors are usually very reliable.”
“This one wasn’t.”
Rutherford looked perfectly relaxed and happy. But he asked, “Did your investigating team look into the possibilities of deliberate tinkering?”
“Deliberate . . . you mean sabotage?”
With a shrug, Rutherford said, “Just an idea that popped into my mind.”
“Who in the world would want to sabotage us?” Thrasher asked, yet in his mind a list of suspects sprang up: Greg Sampson, Hamilton Reed, the Chinese . . .
“I’d start by looking at the people who inspected that valve and okayed it.”
“The government investigators have already done that, I’m sure.”
“Maybe,” Rutherford said. “But have they checked the guys’ bank records?”
“That’s ridiculous!” Thrasher snapped. But immediately he added, “I think.”
“Think about it some more, Art.” Rutherford said it mildly, almost as if they were discussing the weather.
Thrasher sat behind his desk, his thoughts tumbling wildly. A saboteur? Somebody working for me deliberately caused the accident?
Rutherford said, “I have a friend who’s a pretty sharp private investigator. Maybe she could help. She’s not connected with you, so she’ll be able to operate pretty freely.”
Shaking his head, Thrasher objected, “I don’t want to start a witch hunt.”
“If you do have a saboteur somewhere in your outfit, he might try to strike again.”
“Or she,” Thrasher muttered.
“Or she.”
“Is this investigator discreet? Can he be trusted?”
“She,” said Rutherford. “She’s handled several insurance cases. Maybe I can arrange a meeting with her for you.”
Still feeling uncertain about it, Thrasher heard himself say, “Okay, Bart. Have her talk directly to me. Nobody else, not even my secretary.”
Rutherford nodded solemnly. “Will do.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, by the way,” the engineer said, his face lighting up, “I’ve had some conversations with the Astrolaunch people. And Boeing. They’re both working on a hypersonic passenger-carrying transport, but at a low level. Just computer designs and simulations. Too big an investment for them to do much more.”
Glad to be dealing with something more concrete than sniffing around for saboteurs, Thrasher asked, “And?”
“I’ve accepted a consulting job with Astrolaunch, to see how their existing orbital launching hardware might be modified to a commercial surface-to-surface transport.”
“Good.”
“Boeing’s tough competition, you know.”
“I don’t mind having two outfits working toward the same goal. Competition can be healthy.”
Rutherford shrugged nonchalantly. “Easy for you to say, Art. No matter who loses this competition, you’ll win. Houston to anywhere on Earth in less than an hour.”
“Once you get through the airport,” Thrasher reminded him.
8
PORTALES
“I want our own people inspecting the components of the next Delta IV we use,” Thrasher said.
Jessie Margulis gaped at him. “What do you mean?”
They were standing in the assembly shed, where the Mars One spacecraft loomed over them, missing the segment that had been flown to Cape Canaveral and lost in the accident. Thrasher looked at the gaping hole in the gleaming flank of the vessel and thought of a badly wounded animal.
The backup modules rested on individual cradles across the cavernous chamber. A team of technicians were clambering around the segment that would be sent to the Cape for launching, their voices echoing off the shed’s metal walls and ceiling.
“Our own inspectors,” said Thrasher, over the noise from the technicians. “Separate from the ILS team. Zero defects on the launch rocket, just like the stuff we build ourselves.”
“But that’ll add to our cost and slow down the schedule, Art.”
“I know. But that’s what I want.”
Margulis seemed to have aged five years since the accident. His little goatee was frayed, his eyes bloodshot, his sandy hair noticeably gray at the temples.
Clearly upset, the program chief erupted, “How the hell do you expect me to keep on this schedule when you want to add another layer of delay? I can’t do it, Art! This’ll break our backs.”
Thrasher shouted back, “We can’t afford to have another launch failure, Jess. I want our own people inspecting e
very mother-loving weld, valve, circuit board, wiring assembly . . . every goddamned thing that goes into the next booster.”
“ILS won’t stand for that.”
“Yes they will. I’ve already talked to Yamagata about it.”
“You’re killing us!”
“Do you want another goddamned bird blown up?”
“Do you want to stay on schedule or not?”
Thrasher realized the technicians had stopped their work and were staring at them.
More softly, he said, “Jess, this is how it’s going to be. Period. End of discussion.”
Margulis just stood there, his usually soft brown eyes glaring, his chest heaving.
Thrasher said, “Have our inspection team work on a late shift. I’ll authorize the overtime. That way it won’t delay the schedule. Put our team in competition with Yamagata’s, give them bonuses for any faults they discover. Okay?”
For several heartbeats Margulis said nothing. At last he breathed an unenthusiastic, “Okay.”
“Thanks, Jess.” Thrasher patted his shoulder.
“You’re the boss,” said Margulis. Thrasher heard his unspoken complaint, but I wish you stayed in your office and let me do my job.
Reynold R. Reynolds had more bad news for Thrasher when he got back to the partitioned cubbyhole he used as an office in the Portales headquarters.
Linda, in Houston, had relayed a phone message from the Washington rep about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
R Cubed’s fleshy face looked dismally unhappy on the phone screen. “NRC’s been up in arms since the launch failure,” he said, his voice heavy. “They’re dead-set against letting you launch a nuclear reactor.”
Thrasher bit back a reply, knowing that he was watching a recording.
“I’m trying to get a meeting set up with the chairman, but his people are trying to duck out of it,” Reynolds went on. “I’m pulling some strings with the Senate committee people who oversee the NRC, maybe that’ll help.”
