Warp Speed

by Travis S. Taylor

  "Pointing and tracking is the big bugaboo here. Let's see . . ." Something dinged in my mind. "Let's go find Fines."

  We found Terrence in the Russian Zarya Control Module poking around.

  "Terrence, my man, I have a puzzle for you." I filled him in on the problem. The two of us started talking and drawing on pads. Tabitha interrupted with an occasional comment. After about an hour of deliberation we still hadn't come up with any brilliant ideas.

  "Well Tabitha, I guess it is an EVA after all," I admitted. She seemed disappointed. While we were talking, one of the Russian crewmen drifted by with a piece of equipment in his hand and a roll of duct tape in the other. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the cosmonaut delicately taped the instrument he was carrying to a telescopic extension rod he was supporting against a control panel.

  "What's that?" I asked him, interrupting Terrence mid-sentence.

  "This is a star tracker camera. It needs to be extended further from the airlock door for the experiment we're performing."

  "You mean that the duct tape will survive in space?" I was flabbergasted.

  "You Americans always think things must cost billions before you can use them." He scowled and drifted back out of the module with his star tracker on a makeshift extension pole.

  He was right. NASA would have done a study for six months on extension poles and then released a Request For Quote to several different contractors to bid on the pole. After Peer Review Services paid, fed, and boarded a small army to grade them and Legal okayed the decision, an award would be given to one of the contractors. The contractor would have to build three or four of these things and destroy them in shake tests, vacuum tests, and the like. Then a fancy new space-qualified extension pole would be manufactured. Of course it would fail somehow and need a modification. All of this to the tune of about three million dollars. How much does a roll of duct tape cost? Heck NASCAR has been using it for years. But I digress again. I went back to the conversation with Terrence and Tabitha.

  "Terrence, how much mass is the dish on your mini radar system?" I thought aloud.

  "No way, Anson. If we use that system for pointing and tracking, it would give away the accuracy of it to the Japanese. No more secret." Terrence tugged at his lower lip.

  "Can't we just not use it at optimum capacity? Besides, If we duct tape a telescope to it, there would sure be a heck of a lot of jitter in that connection."

  Tabitha interjected, "No matter anyway. Terrence's system is in the payload bay of the Shuttle. I just don't see a way to do this without an EVA."

  "How much time do we have before the rendezvous?" I asked.

  Tabitha looked at her watch, "About twenty-two hours."

  "Even if we do an EVA, what do we do?" I wasn't sure if this problem had a good solution.

  "The Japanese do an EVA and bring in their broken telescope. Wangche has been depressurizing for a while now. Then we go from there."

  "Yes ma'am, Colonel." Terrence saluted and departed. I hadn't seen anybody salute Tabitha before. It must have been an instinct for Terrence.

  Wangche Lynn brought the Japanese Low Noise Optical Instrument Package in through the airlock a couple of hours later. While waiting, Tabitha and I had dinner in the Habitation Module. We played around for about ten minutes in the microgravity. I spun her around a few times and she had me do some flying spin kicks. I soon realized that spin kicks are virtually impossible without gravity. Tabitha did a few dazzling spins and tucks and flips that affected me in just the right way. I really wished there were some hidey-hole that we could find and get friendly. That just wasn't going to happen. This was the longest period of time we'd been in space that Tabitha was just Tabitha and not Colonel Ames--and it was very short-lived, too short-lived. I had had something on my mind that I wanted to talk to her about at the right moment, and this one didn't last long enough. Or I chickened out.

  Upon further inspection of the JLNOIP, Wangche decided that the optic was damaged but salvageable, but the pointing system was completely destroyed. Tabitha and I knew that there would be only one way to fix it and accomplish the tasks that the Japanese/Chinese crew had been preparing for the past month. We also knew that they couldn't have access to the classified equipment in the payload bay either.

  "Here's the plan," I said to Tabitha, not giving her time to interrupt once I had her attention. "You sneak the telescope and the focal plane instruments away from the Japanese module. I'll give the optics and detectors a once over. Then Terrence and I will go out into the Shuttle and attach the thing to the radar assembly of his experiment. We feed the telemetry, point and track data, and the focal plane images through the modem on Terrence's experiment. Tomorrow, during the rendezvous, we send Wangche and company the feedback control sequences and let them point the telescope for the experiment. When it's over we cut the circuit and fly off in the Shuttle." I paused for air.

  "We have to get approval first!" I knew she would say that.

  Believe it or not, we got approval for the EVA and for the process we planned. The biggest hurdle was getting Terrence's bosses to okay the project but we assured them no damage or exfiltration of the equipment technology would take place.

  Typical of NASA, some group of engineers dirtside were put to work developing a schedule for us. After the bright boys figured out about how long it would take us to do the job, they added a twenty percent contingency to that, then added another time delay according to some formula for designing EVAs. Tabitha was told to schedule a four-hour later departure from ISS than in the original flight plan. I really didn't believe that it would take us four extra hours to complete the tasks, but I kept my mouth shut. Besides, Terrence and I had to start preparing for the EVA. The Shuttle environment would have to be brought back down to lower than atmospheric pressure immediately. Lowering the pressure in the environment would help prevent getting the bends in the very low pressure environment of the spacesuits.

  Since this was a NASA-sanctioned plan, Tabitha didn't have to sneak the telescope away from Wangche after all. She just explained that we had a fix and the foreign astronauts couldn't be involved with it. Then she asked them plainly if they wanted to get the data for the rendezvous or not.

  The JLNOIP focal plane detectors were all in good and operational condition. The primary optic on the other hand, had a scratch about an inch wide across it from one side to the other. Even worse, the scratch had been caused when the support for the secondary mirror, called a spider, collapsed into the larger primary mirror due to the force on it from the "Lemote Manipuratol Alm" or Remote Manipulator Arm. So, a new spider had to be rigged somehow or other. I was able to repair the structural pieces from parts on the Shuttle and the ISS. However, the large primary mirror couldn't be made as good as new without serious repolishing and recoating. I did some quick calculations on a scratchpad and discovered that the total aperture of the telescope wouldn't be required in order to gather enough light to image the satellite rendezvous only twenty-eight thousand miles away. This meant that the efficiency of the primary optic could be a little worse than its original specifications. I did comment that the inch wide scratch across the optics diameter wasn't to factory specs. I also did some image calculations and decided that the error in the image that the scratch would cause would be negligible. Some slight spatial filtering would take place, but that just couldn't be helped. Maybe the Japanese team had an optical wavefront guru working for them who could clean that part out of the images later.

  I managed to bang the telescope and the rest of the JLNOIP back in working order and Terrence and I completed the EVA to mount it on his radar pointing and tracking experiment hardware in the Shuttle bay. We used some bungee cord, a few hose clamps, a lot of duct tape, and some ISS camera-mounting hardware we "McGuyvered" into a mount for the JLNOIP. Terrence and I played with the point-and-track algorithms until we had the telescope pointing to classified parameters. Duct tape is amazing. Then Terrence wrote a random noise function into the code tha
t would cause the JLNOIP to demonstrate a pointing jitter just short of state-of-the-art. I was impressed by Lieutenant Fine's engineering prowess.

  We handed the datalink over to Wangche and the Japanese team about thirty minutes before the rendezvous. From the oohs and ahs and the machine gun Japanese banter we could hear over the UHF, they must have been impressed. I high-fived Terrence and reminded him that we weren't getting paid for this work since we were payload specialists.

  "Hey! Perhaps we should bill NASA when we get back," he joked.

  "I'll have my lawyer look into it," I agreed only a little more seriously. "I'm certain there would be a way to call this misuse of private resources or some other legalese term. Maybe since you're Air Force, we could get the Inspector General involved."

  We left ISS about three hours and fifty-eight minutes later than the original flight plan. Those bright boys at NASA are good at schedules I guess. As we departed from the Docking Module I muttered to myself, "Glad I kept my mouth shut about the schedule thing."

  "What's that?" Terrence overheard me.

  "Nothing. I'm just glad to be here."

  "Me too!" he said.

  CHAPTER 9

  Two sleep cycles later I was on the line with Jim doing my preflight fire-up sequences. Zephram, the warp flight demonstrator, was itching to be put together and fired off--or at least I was ready for it to be put together and fired off. The computer bus for the three ECCs was placed on standby mode. The star trackers and the attitude control system (ACS) was brought online and the onboard command and data handling or C&DH was powered up.

  "Jim, does the plumbing check for the ACS thrusters?"

  "Roger that, Anson. Lox and Hydrazine tankage is nominal. My numbers show the same as yours."

  "Okay, I'm going to run the sequence to bring the data stream off the hardwire direct connection with the Shuttle to the temporary wireless UHF link."

  "Have you cut the circuit breakers to the probe main communications bus? We don't want to fry the TWeeTA system." Jim reminded me.

  "Roger, Jim. Per the checklist the TWeeTa bus circuit breakers are open. Here we go. I'm cutting the hardline." I waited to see if data still flowed through my laptop from the wireless digital UHF modem connection. "Jim, I read a strong radio signal with eight-seven percent signal quality. Copy?"

  "Roger, Anson. My numbers concur. It looks like we're done until you go out there and start snapping some parts together."

  "Yeah. Jim, I'll start suiting up and will be back online in about fifty-six minutes or so. Anson out."

  I made my way through the forward cabin to the flight deck. The air in the Shuttle was a little thinner today since an EVA was planned. I was trying to acclimate myself to it again. It was easier this time than before the EVA at the ISS. On the way to the forward section of the flight deck I bumped, and I mean that literally, into Tracy and Malcom Edmunds. They seemed busy. I'm not sure doing what. How could they have been training for a Shuttle mission while stationed on ISS for the past two or three months?

  "What're you guys doing?" I asked.

  "Malcom and I are working on the video equipment. We thought we would help document your EVA." Tracy smiled, then turned back to her work.

  "Have you guys seen the boss?"

  "She's up front," Malcom responded.

  Tabitha was reading some flight data from a monitor and marking checks on a pad. I watched her for a second before I considered interrupting. I had a lot on my mind. An EVA, the first ever warp drive, and the woman I love--quite a bit to process while navigating close quarters in microgravity.

  "Just a sec, Anson," she said without looking up. How she knew it was me I will never know. I didn't even get to interrupt her. She finished flipping a switch or two and checking boxes on her pad. She stuck the pad to a Velcro patch on the side of her seat and turned to me, "Ready to go outside?" She had a big girly grin and looked less business-as-usual.

  "That's what I was coming to tell you. We have about forty minutes of sucking pure O2 to do," I said.

  "Yeah, don't want to get the bends."

  "But before we get to that . . ." I looked around and made sure we were alone. "Can we talk for a second?" I asked. I felt in my pocket to make sure the reason for this conversation was still there.

  "Sure, what's on your mind? We're about eight and half minutes ahead of schedule. We've got time to burn." She looked at her wristwatch.

  I floated up close to her. "Well, uh. You see, uh. It is like this--"

  "Spit it out, Anson. We only have a few minutes." Colonel Ames said.

  "Boy! You can sure spoil a mood. Anyway, I was just thinking that we have been seeing a lot of each other over the last couple of years and all. And that I have really enjoyed it." She seemed to soften slightly.

  "I have also," is all Tabitha said.

  "Uh, I mean, I like your daughter a lot. And your parents," I stalled.

  "They like you too," she added.

  "Well . . ." I began again, "Uh . . ." Major Donald stuck his head through the hatch into the flight deck.

  "You guys ready for your EVA? You ought to be on oxygen by now." Tabitha snapped to attention as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. I had to wait. The time would come. Maybe later. Maybe later! Damnit-all-to-hell!

  "Yeah Ray. Take over the checklists here. Anson and I are going to suit up." We left for the aft section of the Shuttle.

  "So, what were you saying, Anson?" she asked.

  "Never mind. I'll tell you later. Besides, we have stuff to do."

  Twenty minutes later we were in our Liquid Cooling-and-Ventilation Garments (LCVG) and had been on the oxygen masks for a while. The LCVGs are basically just white Spandex long johns with tubing running throughout them. Water flows through the tubes to keep the body cool. The water is handled by the Primary Life-Support System or PLSS. The PLSS pumps the coolant around the body and also accomplishes any air handling. The PLSS can handle up to a million joules of heat per hour. You have to be working really hard to generate that kind of heat. As an example, I like to tell students that if a postage stamp is burned only about 200 joules of heat is released. So, the PLSS is fairly robust. The major portion of the PLSS is housed in the backpack unit and interfaces to the LCVG through ductwork and ventilation tubes in the suit. Tabitha and I helped each other with the various parts of our suits.

  The Hard Upper Torso (HUT) and the Space Suit Assembly portions of the suits were snapped in place and we began running diagnostics. Finally, we managed to completely suit ourselves into the Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs). I still prefer to call them spacesuits or environment suits. But when in Rome!

  We did our final checklists for the EMU communications systems and then made our way into the airlock. The airlock of the Shuttle is just big enough for two fully suited astronauts to fit inside. The two D-shaped doors were closed and the pressure hatches were ready to be cycled. Tabitha and I did one last visual check of our suits. This being my second EVA, it was all old hat to me. The hatch for the outer exit has six interconnected latches with a gearbox and an actuator system. I looked through the polycarbonate plastic window in the hatch as Tabitha checked the actuators and then the pressure gauges on each side of the two pressure-equalization valves. Both the inner and outer hatches were sealed.

  "Okay, Ray, I'm going to cycle the pressure." Tabitha announced.

  Depressurization of the airlock started. I could hear a slight hissing at first and then nothing. I checked my suit pressure one last time. Everything was A-okay at about four pounds per square inch.

  "The pressure gauge shows zero. I'm going to open the hatch." Tabitha called out each step by the book. She grabbed the latch mechanism and the dual pressure seals let loose without a sound. I didn't even feel it through my EMU. I could see the payload bay through the hatchway.

  "Entering the payload bay."

  "Roger that," someone from Houston responded.

  "Houston, this is Clemons. I am following the co
lonel into the bay."

  "Go for EVA, Anson! HOSC online here!" Jim had just come back online down in Huntsville. The warp probe components, soon to be call sign Zephram, was more than ready out in the payload bay.

  Several minutes of preparation and disconnecting and connecting things followed next. Rayford piloted the Remote Manipulator Arm from inside the Shuttle so that the end of the Arm seemed to hover ever present above--or was that below?--us. Final disconnect process had been checked through for the cylindrical warp field system and for one of the ECCs.

  "Houston, we're ready to detach the containment system for the probe and ECC number one." Tabitha started to work with her powered ratchet and removed a set of bolts. Once, just for fun, I held the ratchet on a bolt and turned it on while my feet weren't planted to anything. I slowly began to spin about the bolt axis in a clockwise fashion. Tabitha wasn't amused.

  "Quit clowning around, Anson!"

  "Hey, I paid for this ride. I'm going to get some fun out of it!" I joked.

  She still wasn't amused. Getting back to business I tethered both of us to the ECC as Rayford powered the Remote Manipulator Arm over to us. I worried with catching the Arm and attaching it to the ECC while Tabitha danced around like a busy bee in prime honey season connecting this, undoing that, and fiddling with the other thing.

  "That's good there, Ray. Houston, I have the Remote Manipulator Arm Platform connected and Tabitha and I are go for an egress from the payload bay." I waited for a reply from Tabitha, Rayford, Houston and Huntsville, in any order.

  "Roger that, Anson," Rayford said.

  "Houston here. Go for ECC egress," Houston confirmed.

  "Hunstville here. Roger that. Go for ECC egress," Jim replied.

  "Tabitha, are all the ECC egress connectors locked?" Jim's voice came over the UHF.

  "Roger that. Connector cables linked and we are go."

  Both of us were extremely busy. I really would've liked to have been able to stop and take in the incredible view, but we had to make sure that each of the three ECCs went through the same egress process and then were connected, via special thin-walled telescopic titanium connector tubes about ten centimeters in diameter each and ultra-strong polymer support cables about five millimeters in diameter each, before letting them float out into space away from the shuttle. Also, the main fuselage and spacecraft bus housing, the central cylinder, would then have to be guided by the Arm, Tabitha on one side, and me on the other making minor course corrections. We had to thread the central cylinder through the three ECCs like a needle and thread. Once the ECCs were in place, they looked like large ice cubes supported by toothpicks. The toothpicks were in turn stuck into a large cylinder (an analogously scaled object would be a toilet paper roll) about its circumference at one-hundred-twenty-degree intervals. They were also closer to one end of the cylinder than the other.