Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “I would like to amend the captain’s suggestion. I already have a concept. I will propose it in general terms; it’s mine, do you understand? You can’t have it. If Lockheed tries to do anything along the lines I suggest, it will be ugly. Don’t do it. On the other hand, I also have another concept that you’re welcome to, and it is in line with much of what you’ve done in the past.”

  Stephanie knew all eyes were on her. The only eyes she cared about were Brian Taverner’s.

  “We live and die as a company, Professor, based on our intellectual property rights. We won’t infringe on yours.”

  “Fine. Then, I’ll start. The background for both concepts is identical.” Stephanie looked around at those at the table before starting.

  “As the Apollo moon landings were winding down, NASA began to consider what should be next. They had built up an enormous stock of goodwill; they essentially had a blank check. They cashed that check and called it the Space Shuttle.

  “As a concept, the shuttle was a fine plan. A space pickup truck. In practice, it was like the pickup truck that Travis McGee drove — a Rolls Royce, with the rear end chopped off and made into a pickup bed. A little extravagant, but it worked as a pickup truck.

  “The problem NASA faced with their space pickup truck was that there wasn’t anything for it to do. There were really no suitable missions. Deep probes into the solar system needed large boosters and were large themselves — they didn’t fit in the shuttle. Modern commercial communications satellites were also too large to fit inside the shuttle.

  “NASA pushed ahead, anyway. They started work on a space station design. Most of the parts for the station were designed to go to orbit aboard the shuttle.

  “Then Challenger died and, with it, America’s space flight innocence. The public asked why those people died. Challenger was on a science mission, but was also tasked to carry a NASA comsat into orbit. True, the satellite had nothing to do with the accident or the deaths, but it was there.

  “The International Space Station became impractical the moment Challenger exploded. No large station crew was going to be permitted to be in space without a way back. A shuttle cost too much to station permanently in orbit and there was considerable doubt a shuttle could stay aloft six months and safely return.

  “Then Columbia died. Again, irony. It wasn’t tasked to the ISS, just science. A space shuttle and crew died after engaging in what amounted to high school science fair projects.”

  The room was silent; there were more than a few hostile glares.

  “And now we come to today. We have a shuttle fleet of three that NASA is hypersensitive about. They won’t launch when there is frost on the lily or a cloud in the sky. Launch windows are now tightly constrained so that down-range stations can visually examine a shuttle even before it reaches orbit. They micromanage everything even more than before. The launch crew has grown to nearly sixty thousand individuals. Oh, and we’ve now had three shuttle launches in the last year, up from two in each of the three previous years.

  “The bottom line is that it costs almost six hundred million dollars to send a can of soup to the ISS. Oh, you can get quite a few cans of soup and many other things, but conceptually, that’s what the shuttle does these days. It flies crews and supplies to orbit for more than a half billion dollars per flight.

  “The Shuttle was due to be retired year before last, but they couldn't because the follow-on vehicle remains drawings on paper and few prototypes that don’t fly. Now it's two years later and the replacement still isn't close to being ready.

  “The one rational thing NASA has done in the last half of the last decade was to decide to service the Hubble Space Telescope with a shuttle mission. They decided that supply missions to the ISS would fly on Russian cargo rockets... oh, and the once inexpensive Russian boosters are now significantly more expensive and the Russian government isn’t as nice as it once was.”

  “So, two concepts. The first is to develop a better way to take crew and light supplies to the ISS in the short term. The second, a better way to haul physically large chunks of equipment and serious tonnages of supplies to the ISS, also in the short term. And, as long as we’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt to have a capability with those vessels to go a little further than low earth orbit. Safely, I might add. The one further recommendation I have is personal: I recommend no vessel be built in this program whose name starts with the letter ‘C.’”

  “And you’d like us to do what with these concepts, Professor?” Brian Taverner asked.

  “Think of this as space junkyard wars, but with a larger budget. I’d like a design using off-the-shelf components that can be easily and safely adapted to fly into orbit using Benko-Chang modified turbines. Instead of triple redundancy on components, I’d like four or five. Preferably at least two options functionally the same, but built along fundamentally different designs.”

  “Budget?” asked one of the women.

  “Well, like I said, the crew to orbit project is mine. I’m willing to spend fifty million on the prototype. After that, half that per unit. Or less. What you all do with the heavy-lifter design, that’s your affair.”

  Stephanie looked around the room. “I’m going to speak heresy now and you are free to agree or disagree as you will, but it’s something I hold to be true. One of the worst things that happened to space science in this country was the “cost plus” contract that could be easily modified. I realize such contracts are your bread and butter, but if you don’t have any restraint on spending... well, nothing restrains your spending. It is not in your company’s best interest to adopt a thousand dollar solution when a million dollar solution works just as well.”

  Someone else, the suit from the XA-4 tour, waved his hand and Stephanie recognized him.

  “You have a very broad concept statement. Let’s narrow it a bit. Off-the-shelf parts you say; that’s fine. Fuel?”

  “The Benko-Chang effect requires a high speed turbine, with additional power inputs to produce the magnetic vortices. The original mobile apparatus was self-contained, and Johnny Chang had no trouble generating sufficient current for the controls and the effect generation from the turbine itself, without interfering with the effect. Thus, we can use anything that can make a turbine spin. So far, we’ve used gas turbines because they are common and relatively inexpensive. We used kerosene for fuel and added bottled oxygen for an oxidizer for operation outside the atmosphere. The bottled oxygen was the biggest weight item on the lunar flight after the vehicle itself.”

  “And where do you want to take off and land?”

  “Any runway suitable for general aviation. It was my thought to modify a general aviation airframe as a quick, short-term solution.”

  There were indrawn breaths up and down the table. Stephanie tried not to let her exasperation show. “I envisage taking an existing airframe, changing the door to a shuttle docking adapter. Engineering isn’t my field, but obviously the craft would also need modifications to the avionics, to all sorts of things. That’s what engineers like you are for: to work out those things.

  “How about return to flight?” the suit asked.

  “What do you mean?” Stephanie replied.

  “How long do you envision it taking one of these vehicles to recycle back to launch status, after it lands?”

  “It’ll be a spacecraft,” Stephanie told him. “I wouldn’t be comfortable, initially, just vacuuming the carpet, making sure the tray tables and seats are locked in the fully upright position and restocking the bar and pantry. A lot of things would need to be checked at first, until we get a baseline on what’s happening. A day or two, at least initially. Eventually, a few hours. Civil aviation standards would be good.”

  “Payload?” the man persisted.

  “A half dozen passengers, two crew. Passenger carry-ons like the airlines do. Perhaps another ton or two of light cargo. This isn’t a heavy lift vehicle. I’ll leave that to you folks.”

  “Do you have fifty million dolla
rs?” Brian Taverner asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I do. I’d say it’s been burning a hole in my wallet for some time now, except it doesn’t fit in my wallet. I use an eighteen-wheeler as a piggy-bank.”

  There was laughter around the table.

  What happened then was what John Gilly had hoped for. Three dozen of the country’s leading aerospace engineers got out their pens and pencils and started doodling on napkins, talking with each other, asking questions of Stephanie. The napkins were replaced by laptops, white boards replaced table cloths and even more questions were asked.

  Around six o’clock in the evening, it was Brian Taverner who called the meeting back to order.

  “I must say, I never expected this degree of ah, call it, enterprising effort on a problem. Isn’t it refreshing to work with someone who doesn’t care a rat’s patootie about mil spec?”

  There was laughter around the room. “Yeah, we’ve gotten a long way from our roots. We’ve let the bean counters and the front office types drive things for entirely too long. Tomorrow, you will all report here at seven in the morning for work on our own project.

  “I’ve been thinking all afternoon if what Professor Kinsella suggested for us to tackle was the right sort of project. You know what? I’m going to need more time to decide what our best interest is. But this I know: something like what Professor Kinsella suggested is bread and butter for the next steps we need to take. We’ll get experience with the hardware, which is a good thing, but she’s right too, that it will be the experience of thinking without the prior ball and chain that will do us the most good in the long run.

  “Anything we build to haul any significant mass to orbit at this point in time is going to be obsolete in a year. We don’t want to spend much on it, but as a prototype, as a learning device, it’s a project worthy of being done, and needs to be done, and if we can keep it cheap, we still may make money!”

  There were nods all around the table.

  “One thing we didn’t ask, Professor, was the time frame you’re expecting for your project?”

  “Oh, I’d like to have something flying in thirty days. Like you, I don’t see it having a long shelf life, but the experience will do everyone a lot of good.”

  “Well, my napkin-based calculation says that you’ve budgeted two to three times too much,” Brian told her.

  “Like I said, this isn’t my field, and I agree with Captain Gilly: there’s nothing better than hitting up experts when you need expert advice!”

  “Professor, could we impose upon you to return tomorrow? We just want to bounce questions off you. Granted, most of the basic stuff we got today, but you have what I would term a refreshing perspective on engineering. Kind of the ultimate in pragmatism.”

  Stephanie smiled. “I watched and learned from Johnny Chang. The young man doesn’t know diddly about theoretical physics, but he certainly knows a lot of practical things. We were doing a final review of the Bug-to-the-Moon project, when someone wondered what the effect of vacuum was going to be on the tires. We’d taken into account all of the instruments and controls; we never thought about the tires.

  “We ended up slathering them with a very low vapor pressure silicon jelly. As of yesterday afternoon, the left front tire, the only one we put telemetry on, has had a steady pressure increase, not a decrease. It’s increased to the point where I’m afraid it’s going to blow out soon, but so far it has remained airtight. The silicon jelly was Johnny’s idea.”

  Chapter 5 — Washington

  The aircraft that waited for them at Burbank airport on Saturday morning was a business jet with no special markings.

  Trina Benko looked around the cabin, her baby in her arms. “Stan? What kind of airplane is this?”

  Stan could only shrug.

  Captain Gilly spoke up. “This is a Gulfstream 550; this particular model seats ten, Mrs. Benko.”

  “Stan never said what this is about; he said we’d won a free trip to Washington, DC.”

  “That’s about it, Mrs. Benko,” John Gilly reassured her. “Did Stan mention who he’s going to be meeting with Monday morning?”

  “He said the President, but I thought he was kidding.”

  “He’s not, Mrs. Benko. Please, sit down. You can hold your son if you want, but it would be safer if your son had his own seat. There are plenty, you don’t have to worry.”

  “It’s unsafe?” the woman said, suddenly nervous and unsure.

  “No, it’s quite safe. The President himself has flown in this particular aircraft several times. So have I.”

  She sat down, leaning close to talk to Stan.

  Stephanie took one of the seats towards the rear of the aircraft, part of a group of four around a table. She delved into her purse and pulled out a pack of cards. She shuffled them quickly and looked around brightly. “Anyone up for a little bridge to kill the time?”

  Anna Sanchez grimaced, looking at Captain Gilly. “She always wins, I don’t know why she even bothers to play with us.”

  “Hope springs eternal,” David Louie said. “Sure, why not? Please, Prof, just don’t suggest we play for money!”

  “Perhaps,” Stephanie told him, “I can entice you?” She reached into a folio she pulled from her purse and handed him a piece of paper and then handed another to Anna as well.

  “What’s this?” David asked.

  “That’s an assignment to each of you of one percent of my patent royalty income on the Benko-Chang patent and any subsequent patents deriving there from.”

  David looked at it and shrugged.

  Anna, though, laughed. “David, David! It means for every billion dollars Professor Kinsella makes, she gives us ten million. I can live with that!”

  “I was talking to Marjorie Cavanaugh in the Rights office,” David said. “She said that Professor Kinsella has set the price for licensing Benko-Chang technology very high.”

  “Ten thousand dollars a turbine,” Stephanie agreed, nodding. “Although I have to disagree with the characterization as to the cost of the license.”

  Stephanie smiled at David. “Did Ms. Cavanaugh report to you the number of license applications, to date?”

  He shook his head.

  Captain Gilly laughed. “Let’s see. You, Professor, have applied for sixteen, Lockheed two hundred. The two of you, Mr. Louie, each made $2160 dollars yesterday, assuming you sign off on Professor Kinsella’s proffer.”

  Anna Sanchez pulled a pen out of her purse, signed her copy and kited it back to Stephanie. “Yowza! Almost enough to buy books for next semester!”

  The three Caltech alumni at the table chuckled.

  David waved towards the front of the aircraft. “Why do they act like morons?”

  “I won’t speculate,” Professor Kinsella said. “But some of the senior people in the department have told them that it won’t be worth anything. Johnny Chang disagrees, but Stan Benko is... Stan Benko.”

  For the next two hours they played rubber bridge, trading partners after each rubber.

  It was, John Gilly thought, quite clear that if there was strategy involved with a hand, Stephanie Kinsella was on top of it. Finally they started their approach to Andrews Air Force Base and Stephanie put the cards away.

  Stephanie lagged behind the others as they climbed down the steps that had been wheeled up to the aircraft after they had stopped.

  John Gilly grinned. “I know when I’m in the doghouse. It’s something you learn, being married.”

  Stephanie passed him a quick smile. “My parents taught me early. Tell me, Captain, did you take anything away from Thursday and Friday?”

  “That you were prepared, in spite of my efforts to surprise you.”

  “It wasn’t much of a surprise,” Stephanie told him. “Anything else?”

  “You didn’t like the general idea, but then you steered things where you wanted and were okay with it.”

  “I am, Captain, twenty-two years of age. I’m not a little kid who needs to be dressed b
y her mommy. You might not think I understand what it is I want to do, but I assure you that I’ve thought more about this than you have. More than you, more than the President and more than all of the President’s men have thought about it. More than all of you combined.

  “It was that way yesterday, it’s that way today, it will be that way a week from now, a year from now and five years from now. You and the President are big boys, it’s not my job to tell you how to button your shirts or tie your shoes. I’m here to offer advice, to offer a plan. I can’t make decisions for you; that’s your job.

  “You will find I work well with others. While I’m naturally bossy and anal, that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the issues. You need to make sure the President knows that I understand what the world is like just as much as he does, because so far neither of you have impressed me very much. That I’m here speaks well of the President. What happened Thursday and Friday speaks to a juvenile delight in a meaningless surprise, a surprise that was guessable almost the instant you offered your mysterious invitation.

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you did for me, because I do — but I’m not happy about the way you did it or some of your implicit assumptions behind it. You know the project I want to manage. It shouldn’t be hard to understand that I want a crew of the best engineers obtainable. I have every intention of letting them do their jobs. My project is going to need the services of some of the smartest technicians and support staff that exist. I have every intention of letting them do their jobs.

  “I may be young, Captain, but if you low ball me, if the President low balls me, that’s your problem. At a certain point I’ll decide you’re clueless and take another route to achieve my goals.”

  “I’m sorry, Stephanie. It was a simple desire to see you grin and go, ‘Gosh wow!’” He smiled at her. “I was seduced by the dark side of the Force.”

  “Well, let that happen again and I’ll tell your wife about how easy it is to seduce you.”

  That resulted in a bark of laughter from Captain Gilly.