America One - The Launch

by T I WADE

  Ryan was helped off with his upper suit while he stood outside. Even though it was late afternoon on December the 8th, the sun was pleasant on his face; the temperature felt cold, exactly like when he had taken off his helmet inside the first cube.

  Suzi, Mr. Rose, and her team had months of work to complete and would not be back on Earth. Her hangars were empty and the biological side of his dream was complete in space except for one last small load of newly born chickens and rabbits; they would be included on a launch just after Christmas with the last member of Suzi’s team.

  Ryan was interested in seeing how his plans for Hangar Seven were coming along. First he showered and then he enjoyed a steak: something he was certainly going to miss. His crew had four tons of deboned beef and another four tons of pork ready for launch in large freezers in Hangar Six, if there was time for them to be sent up. These two loads would be enough meat for a steak dinner and a pork dinner once every alternate week for the first five years. Over his meal, Ryan hoped that the incoming U.S. military wouldn’t get them first.

  After dinner it was dark, so he walked over to Hangar Seven. The four security guards allowed him into the hangar; its interior had certainly changed since he had seen it last ten days earlier.

  Inside the hangar a dirt slope led underground into a rectangular cavern longer and wider than all the space cubes built together. The ground loaders around the slope inside the enclosed hangar were silent, and he walked down the steep slope which ran under the apron of the airfield.

  A group of six people were actively at work down there under lights. This group of men had supervised the larger construction teams Ryan originally contracted to build the airfield, the bungalows, and the hotel, and all were either Russian or European. This team had started the excavation under the apron with ten men, but they were also part of the larger group who built America One. This was the crew being transferred up on every flight and this was the secret chamber he didn’t want anybody to know about; only men going on the long journey into space were working here.

  “Vitalily, how many more days before my storage chamber is complete? Your team has only three more flights before you are all up there.”

  “Da, Ryan, we have finished the cement work on the flat roof, walls, and floor of the cavern. Tomorrow we cut the hole in the cement inside the hangar for the elevator to move your stores down here. It will take us a day to set up the electrics and batteries down here to operate the hydraulic elevator. Then the last four of us work days three and four, bolting the two hydraulic opening arms onto the thick slab of concrete. Lastly, we activate the radio frequency responder to open the elevator. Five days, Ryan and you can fill her up.”

  “How did you manage to get the slab to look the same as the sun drenched concrete outside the hangar?” Ryan asked.

  “It took time, but we painted the Nano-silicone covering the right color. The slab will still collect radiant energy from the sun and we hope it blends into the same color as the others over time,” Vitalily replied.

  “So, once you are finished, the slab will look the same as the others, and then we can dismantle this hangar?”

  “Da, the opening will always be the first slab that is directly off the apron. This one, 10- by 30-foot concrete slab will become the floor of the vertical elevator into your underground chamber,” Vitalily explained pointing to the slab. “The heavy-duty elevator, even with the heavy weight of the concrete, can drop whatever weight you want stored in here, apart from your Dead Chicken.”

  The cavern had been planned two years earlier by the team. It would be totally secure from detection from above ground, and large enough to house thousands of the different supplies America One could need when she returned to Earth sometime in the future.

  Laid less than two years earlier, the apron concrete was a foot thick, thick enough to have a fully loaded C-5 trundle over it, and thick enough to protect the storage depot from the weather for decades. The cavern’s roof was ten feet under the apron, and the cavern was comprised of ten of the apron’s hundreds of slabs. The cavern was 100 feet wide, 300 feet long and 20 feet high.

  Vitalily’s team had painted the elevator slab with a very thin layer of the same unnoticeable Nano-silicone paint that surrounded the outer walls and cylinders of the space station, and the airfield’s whole concrete apron. The ten dozen concrete slabs would power up dozens of large lithium batteries in the cavern, which would store enough energy to keep the underground area in perfect condition for long-term storage, thermostatically controlled, and the electronic systems operating year round.

  The hydraulic arms, when activated by a radio signal from the cockpit of America One, or from a controller Ryan or somebody else would have with them, would lower the slab vertically down to the cavern’s floor.

  Once the cavern was complete in a few days the hangar was to be dismantled, leaving the hangar’s concrete floor open to the weather.

  In this perfect, dry, and temperature-controlled geothermal environment, the supplies should be in stable conditions for decades if anybody ever returned to need them. There was a long list of what was needed to be secretly transported into the cavern, and Ryan was going through them in his office when his cell phone rang.

  “Mr. Richmond, Hal McNealy here, from Cape Canaveral. We have a problem. This is my third call to you; I was told you were away?”

  “Yes, Hal, I had a week of vacation in a quiet spot to work on the president’s proposal and ideas. Why?”

  “I’m glad to hear that you are coming to a compromise between Astermine and the government. I can’t wait to get into your company’s driver’s seat, so to speak.”

  “No, it won’t be long now. Now, how can I help NASA?”

  “As you are aware DX2014 broke up mysteriously a couple of months ago. The guys at Kitt told us that the possible approach of these four large meteors is becoming extremely dangerous. As of yesterday, earth has a 52.5 percent chance of being hit by the fourth rock, up from 49.1 percent a week ago. There are only three weeks left before these rocks get into our nuclear defense range, i.e., where the country can launch a strike against the rocks.”

  “So what has that got to do with me?” Ryan asked.

  “One of the guys that worked for you told us about a laser that you were working on, to do precisely what Ivan Yarkovsky wrote in his papers at the beginning of this century; to move meteors off a direct orbital course.”

  “Yes, he has always been one of my mentors. We have been working on a laser that could divert small meteors out of our spacecraft’s path. I’m talking about meteors or asteroids no larger than a small car. What we have learned, Hal, is that we can disintegrate small particles of rock up to 1,000 miles in front our shuttlecraft in space. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet tried our only working laser on anything bigger than rocks the size of a tennis ball.”

  “And where is this laser at the moment?” the head of NASA asked.

  “Currently orbiting earth at 1,000 miles up, and on one of our unmanned mining craft made obsolete due to excessive import duties.”

  “Is this unmanned spacecraft part of the deal the government gets when they buy you out?”

  “I would assume so, but I haven’t made a decision on when I’m going to sell yet. Hal, as a scientist you know it is better to complete a project before handing it on. All I want right now is to complete my tests to make sure that when I do sell, nobody can come back to me and say that I gave them a lousy deal. We are halfway through testing all our flight craft. The mining craft could be sent out towards the asteroid if it becomes necessary, but I must send up liquid hydrogen tanks to refuel it and that again lengthens the time needed to complete my tests, plus I could lose a valuable craft in the process.”

  “Well, the president did give you forty-five days. How much more time do you need?”

  “I need ninety days, to the end of March, to complete my tests. If I have to hold my test flights to send up fuel to combat this asteroid, then additional days wi
ll be needed to complete my tests. After my tests are complete, at my cost may I add, you at NASA will receive everything still here in Nevada on this piece of dirt in perfect working order on April 15th, plus all the information I have on this project. I am figuring out how, or when, I should sign the craft in space over to you. My astronauts will need to train yours on flight management.”

  “You stated that your laser is at a 1,000-mile altitude. Can you show us that you have such a weapon? If I gave you coordinates of say an old car, or a truck here at Cape Canaveral, could you show us what it could do? Then I could speak to the president about extending your time.”

  “I suppose so. I will need a few days to get the craft powered up with its solar wings, and I could demonstrate our laser ability, as long as you buy me more time with the president.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. I will get some old rusted vehicles out here somewhere so you can try and burn a hole in them. How much clear space do you need around the target?” asked the NASA administrator.

  “I appreciate that, Hal, only about a couple hundred feet in case the aim is off slightly. We have never tested the full strength of it,” replied Ryan.

  When the call was ended, Ryan checked to see when SB III would be going up again. He wanted to buy as much time as possible, and they had about twenty-four days before this asteroid could become an imminent threat. Luckily the asteroids were travelling slowly; 4,100 miles an hour faster than Earth’s rotation around the sun wasn’t fast. SB III was due up on the next flight within twenty-four hours, and he decided to set up the demonstration on its following flight in ten days.

  Hal McNealy had been a little surprised that it would take so long, until Ryan asked him for some plutonium-238 to power the laser up. McNealy told him that he had no chance getting plutonium. Without nuclear power, he told the NASA administrator, it would take a week using solar power to give the laser enough strength to omit one long burst, and a couple of short, weaker bursts. Ryan didn’t want NASA to take this show of strength too seriously. The government would certainly act faster against him if they felt threatened by a dangerous weapon up there. He had been told they did have their own laser system, undergoing tests at Boeing, and inside a C-130.

  SB III’s cargo that day was actually Ryan’s second laser, with a long list of equipment on the cargo manifest including two of the new hydrogen pulse motors, parts for the thrust motors already in space, tools, computers, frozen rabbit and chicken sperm, distilled water, cylinders of pure liquid oxygen, hydrogen, helium and argon for storage, and air tanks to complete the atmosphere for Cube Four.

  This flight meant that the second laser could be connected to America One’s nuclear reactor about the same time the asteroids came into range. For Ryan’s team, into range meant that the asteroids would have passed the position where they would either hit or miss the moon and then Earth had only about thirty-two hours before the remaining asteroids would enter the atmosphere.

  For the next seven days, Nevada was quiet, and the next three flights went off as planned. Exactly a week later, on December 16th, his friend at Hubble phoned him.

  The chances of a possible impact on earth from DX2014D was now 87.7 percent, Ryan was told, and they had fourteen days before the moon could get direct hits from DX2014A, B, and C, but D looked like it could miss their first line of defense, the moon. Ryan was told that he was getting the final readouts an hour before they were due to be sent to the president and NASA. The most likely impact zone DX2014D had to date was a thousand square-mile area of the Pacific; the closest, 100 miles off shore in-between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

  Ryan already knew this. The two still-working beacons left by Jonesy and VIN were transmitting from the first two asteroids. Up to a couple of days ago his team knew the approximate whereabouts of the second two rocks from Hubble telling him how far away they were to the ones he could track. Now all four rocks had narrowed the distance from each other with only 1,800 miles between them.

  In addition, Ryan’s ground control team had all their crafts’ positions, the position of the ISS, the moon’s position and the asteroids’ trajectory; it looked like the middle two parts of DX2014 would certainly impact the dark side of the moon. DX2014A had a 17.9 percent chance of impacting the moon, DX2014B a 72.1 percent chance, and DX2014C, the biggest of the four asteroids, had a 91.1 percent likelihood. The position of the fourth rock, DX2014D, showed only a 12.4 percent chance of hitting the moon, and an 87.6 percent chance of missing the moon and entering Earth’s atmosphere 230,000 miles behind the moon.

  Ivan and America One would be well out of the way of the incoming path of the asteroids which, if they entered Earth’s atmosphere, would enter steeply somewhere over Asia where they could break up and then hit earth in the Pacific 22,500 miles below the stations.

  Several teams were working on possible tsunami figures from a water impact of this potential disaster. According to the scenario prepared by Ryan’s ground control team, the one-mile wide asteroid, DX2014D could still be a 250-yard-wide piece of rock when it entered the ocean and generate a water crater over a mile in diameter. At a distance of ten miles from "ground zero" the resulting deep-water tsunami would be about 100 feet high, but by the time the wave travelled 100 miles it would be reduced to a height of about 40 feet; however, that size tsunami could still become a 30 to 40-foot deadly wave along the West Coast.

  The surge from this impact could reach across the whole of Los Angeles, San Francisco, parts of San Diego and Seattle with lesser impacts on Hawaii and further afield.

  Several hours later, McNealy called Ryan.

  “Mr. Richmond, we have a problem.”

  ‘Yes, I’m also able to track the incoming four asteroids.”

  “We want you to arm whatever you have up there and get ready to use your laser to knock the fourth rock off course if it misses impact on the moon.”

  “I don’t think so,” replied Ryan.

  “You don’t what!?” replied McNealy. “This will be a direct order from the President of the United States of America if necessary.”

  “I understand, but what happens if I blast this incoming rock and it does more damage than if I hadn’t turned it out of its initial direction? I don’t believe I have the ability to change its course. I also believe that we should be thankful that the potential impact zone is in water. Also, it could breakup and, like many asteroids and meters, fizzle into nothing before it hits terra firma. Plus, DX2014D still has a good chance that it could just sail by leaving a few damaged satellites in its path.”

  “Well, with my experience and knowledge of a laser-beam deviation versus a nuclear warhead impact,” replied Hal McNealy. “I know which one is better, and I also know that the military was looking forward to the opportunity to blast this asteroid into a million pieces, until I told them about the possible destruction of their entire GPS satellite and early warning systems. What does Bill Withers say?”

  “He agrees with me, Hal,” Ryan stated. “Bill is standing right beside me.”

  “Put him on the phone, Ryan.” Ryan handed the phone to the past Administrator of NASA.

  For twenty minutes they argued about the use of force against this incoming asteroid. Listening to what Bill was arguing about, it seemed to Ryan that McNealy’s real interest was to reduce the destruction of the satellites in space. The space junk was the most deadly “predator” up there for all the operating systems in space. The ISS was already climbing a 100 miles higher to get out of the way of any possible hits from propelled junk. McNealy also made the suggestion, which Bill Withers agreed with, that with all the junk suddenly traveling in all directions, it would be harder for Ryan’s launches to complete low orbits without hitting something. They returned to the possible laser test in Florida, and Ryan reluctantly told him that the laser could be ready for a test within twenty-four hours. He was angry that one of his trusted scientists had violated his promise of secrecy to tell NASA about his laser.

  Once the first l
aser aboard the shuttle was activated, it would take less than a second to arm itself, lock onto the coordinates given by NASA, and attempt to burn a hole in whatever they had as a target in Florida. The second laser, once attached to America One, would be three times more powerful in moving this asteroid off course. Both lasers, with a computerized sequence, burning the asteroid in two different places could actually move an incoming object of this mammoth size.

  Ryan was handed back the phone. “So, what do you guys think is best?” he asked Hal putting his cell phone on speaker so that they could have a continuing conversation.

  “I would still like to see your test here in Florida, then my guys here could work out which set of strikes against this asteroid would be the best. Bill suggested a long-distance 100,000 mile nuclear strike followed by a laser strike on any pieces still large enough to get through our atmosphere.”

  “Ryan, Hal,” stated Bill Withers, “a nuclear strike at 100,000 miles above earth is the maximum distance the military’s six newly-developed warheads could reach in the window of time given. If the asteroid has missed the moon, the missile’s aim will need to be recalculated to allow for any possible curves from the gravitational pulls from both planets. I believe this distance would be the best position for a direct hit, or even better a nuclear blast next to it to knock it off course. The minimum distance is 60,000 miles, no closer, to allow the particles to spread out before buzzing our stuff up there. The duration of flight by our new rockets with their one megaton load would take the warhead ten hours to reach that distance, once the rocket runs out of fuel at a 300-plus mile altitude. A blast next to it should divert the rock away from earth at an angle, or even a direct hit will turn the target into a billion small pieces that could scatter before putting our satellites in danger. From my calculations, any direct hit within 60,000 miles of earth will not give the shrapnel time to dissipate, putting our entire space arsenal into jeopardy. Once debris reaches to within 1,000 miles of earth, I believe that with the radar-locking equipment Ryan has on his laser, he will be close enough to get a blast onto any large pieces, hopefully splitting them apart even further.”