She picked it up and read it before handing it to John.
“You still with us, Professor?” the President asked.
“Sir, you will recall that these folks went to the Fore Trojans. Partly that was because there’s another party at the Aft Trojans.”
“The habitat run by two teenagers?”
“That’s the one, sir. Those teenagers heard about this, and they have sent a reasonable explanation based on their own experience. It will take a while to confirm it, however.”
“You do what you have to do, to confirm it. I don’t want to hear about it now. I want you and Captain Gilly on a fast jet back to DC. I’ll have the Air Force whip up something for you. The two of you get to Hickam AFB, ASAP. I will talk to you here in Washington, day after tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” Stephanie told him.
“Aye, aye, sir,” John Gilly added.
Stephanie and John had a long time to talk on the flight to DC.
Chapter 8 — Help is Still Coming
John Gilly proffered his pass to the gate guard at the entrance to the White House parking lot. He was sure the man recognized him, just as he was positive the guard didn’t recognize John’s passenger.
“Ma’am, may I see your ID?” the guard asked politely.
Stephanie Kinsella had the pieces of plastic ready and handed them over. The guard looked at her hard for a few seconds and then checked his list. Both of their names were on it for today, so he stepped back and saluted. He was merely the first of many layers of security.
John pulled forward, headed for the visitor’s area of the parking lot. He glanced at Stephanie, aware of her anger. “It’s nothing, Stephanie.”
“Nothing? What, you couldn’t see the disbelief in the man’s eyes? I look like I’m twenty-something. You look like a salty naval captain. And I outrank you? That’s obscene.”
“Those are the facts of life, Stephanie. Besides, you have no right to complain — you go out of your way to stay out of the limelight.”
“John, you’ve been in the Navy longer than I’ve been alive. It’s not right,” Stephanie said, ignoring his last comment.
“Maybe not, but that’s the way it is. And you’re not in the Navy, anyway, and neither am I, these days. Hush, don’t make a fuss.”
“Oh, you know me and titles. I’m a sucker for them. I won’t make a fuss.”
John Gilly snorted in derision. Sure, of course! Not!
They got out of his car and walked towards the White House.
“Do you have any idea why he wants to see us, Stephanie?” he said, mentioning a subject they’d avoided up until then.
“John, he didn’t consult me, as you’ll recall. He didn’t consult you. He just told us to come.”
“Stephanie, I know a waffle when I hear it. Do you want me to ask again?”
“Guess what, John? All those recommendations on your part about involving the Navy in the management of the Space Service are going to come home to roost.”
John reached out and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry about what happened, Stephanie. It was just one of those things.”
She glanced at him, but kept walking. “I’m sorry about the twenty-eight civilians and one Space Service pilot that died as well, John. My crews go up knowing the risks; the Space Service was operating some of my ships... at least ships that used to be mine. Those people were brave but ignorant, and that ignorance got a lot of brave people killed — even if they weren’t much smarter.”
He looked at her. “And is that why you agreed to come today?”
“You bet, John. And, as we said before, it wasn’t as if we were given a choice about coming.”
“I don’t think he’s going to listen to you; you’re kind of a broken record. Both of us are.”
“On the other hand, we didn’t invite ourselves. When was the last time you talked to him?”
John Gilly shut up. Stephanie was right. Neither of them had asked for this meeting and it had been months since he’d seen the President.
The Ad Astra project was ticking along like clockwork, a mind-boggling two months ahead of schedule — and a quarter billion dollars under budget. People in government were in a state of shock and denial; half of them were still convinced that it would fail spectacularly at the last minute.
Moreover, the conservative blogs and some newspapers were starting to ask why other projects couldn’t be run in the same fashion, sending a cold wind sweeping through all of Washington’s K-Street lobbyists and defense contractors.
A few minutes later they were seated in the White House Map Room, with only the President’s Chief of Staff present. The President breezed in a few minutes late. “Admiral Kinsella, Captain Gilly.” The President nodded to his Chief of Staff who got up and left, never having uttered a word.
“Whatever,” Stephanie told him.
“Sir!” John said, trying to sound like an eager beaver.
“In an hour we have a meeting with a large working group,” the President went on. “They were tasked about doing something about the grim numbers of late.”
“Those numbers being that one of ten people who go into space die there?” Stephanie asked. “My! What a surprise!”
“No, I suspect it’s not a surprise,” the President replied. “Still, a lot of those people are Americans; I’d like to bring down the number of deaths. People are unhappy and the most recent incident served to crystallize opinion.”
“Give the Space Service over to the Navy,” Stephanie told him, her voice bitter. “That and require proof of basic competence for everyone who goes outside the atmosphere.”
“And I would justify this to the Air Force how?” the President inquired. “And as hard as that would be, it rather pales beside trying to require the Chinese or Russians to do anything. Even the French and British would ignore me.”
“The same way you justify giving the ball to a second string quarterback after the starter loses the ball three times in three consecutive drives in the closing minutes of the first half. ‘Sorry, but what you’re doing doesn’t work. We’ll try giving the ball to someone else.’”
The President nodded. “I have a question, Professor. I’ve tried to get the answer from Captain Gilly, from a couple of admirals and a couple of Air Force generals. You’ve spoken about institutional differences. You have a knack of cutting through the junk. Tell me what you’re talking about in a way I can understand, because right now, I don’t.”
“An Air Force aircraft commander prepares for missions that last hours; very few ever prepare for something longer. Because of fuel and other constraints, they are going to need replenishment frequently. If there is a malfunction of their aircraft, they can land almost at once, most places. And, if the malfunction is serious enough, they land almost at once period.
“An aircraft commander is frequently the only crew member aboard his craft. A lot of the remaining missions have two crewmen. Few aircraft commanders are responsible for more than a dozen aircrew at a time.
“The captain of a naval ship is going to be at sea for weeks and months. Frequently, if there is a serious malfunction, they can’t get help for hours and hours, and it could easily be days. A submarine skipper and his crew could be trapped for weeks underwater.
“Navy ships, even the smallest, have crews that number a hundred or more. Destroyers and cruisers have crews that number in the hundreds and aircraft carriers have crews that number in the thousands.
“All of these differences inform mission planning and execution.”
“It would seem to me,” the President mused, “that the difference is just in scale and time frame.”
“Sir, there’s a reason most modern warships, no matter what size, carry a doctor. When was the last time an aircraft carried a doctor, unless it was a medivac flight? And those doctors aren’t integral to the unit, but borrowed.”
“We have flight surgeons,” he told her.
“And they are not integral to the operational units
— they are attached to a local hospital. Even when your pilots deploy overseas, the doctors are attached to a hospital not to the squadron, much less an individual aircraft.
“The point is, sir, that naval officers have to prepare for contingencies that an aircraft commander would never have to worry about. No aircraft commander carries a spare engine. Or a staff dentist. They don’t have to deal with pregnant crew members who’ve been on a cruise long enough to get past the first trimester.”
Captain Gilly spoke up, “Neither do our ships... the spare engine, anyway. Dentists — yes, we have those on the larger ships and the smaller ships operating alone. Pregnant women are transferred ashore as soon as their pregnancy is known.”
“Perhaps you don’t carry spare engines, but you carry a lot of spare parts, and even more importantly, crew expertise in fixing anything that’s broken and machine shops that can turn out parts in an emergency. The ship’s commander, the ship’s officers, NCOs and crew are all aware of the dangers and work together to minimize those. They exercise to deal with various contingencies, including damage control. How many Air Force officers ever actually practice bailing out before they have to do it for real?”
“It’s too dangerous,” the President said. “It’s the ultimate last ditch.”
“Well, the Navy practices launching boats and rafts; the crewmen have individual floatation devices, and are taught how use those, and if all else fails, the Navy teaches their people to swim. There is a whole array of options open to the crew as individuals and groups. They are trained in those options and practice them regularly.
“Mr. President, the catastrophe in the Fore Trojans was because a poorly engineered vehicle was used in a rescue it was marginal for. I knew that and let them go anyway. Ten Space Service pilots volunteered and carried out the mission. One of them died, plus twenty-eight civilians.
“Mr. President, there is nothing I can find at fault with what the pilot who was killed did. Still, it is clear to me that his inexperience and lack of training may have played a role.
“That man, Mr. President, had never once been EVA in space. Not ever. He had never been EVA on an asteroid surface. He had no idea that tracking in ‘dirt’ was dangerous. I mean, we have dirt here, right? It doesn’t mean anything, right?”
“I haven’t seen the final report. That’s supposed to be coming in another month or so.”
“The ‘dirt’ at that distance from the sun was a mixture of finely-powdered rock dust, organics and frozen methane, Mr. President. That’s what they were tracking in. They got those people aboard, cranked up the heaters and the methane started evaporating. Methane is an odorless, colorless gas... we use it for natural gas, but we add a little something to it so everyone can tell if there’s even a tiny leak. They didn’t know what the crud they’d tracked in was doing. At some point, there was a static spark, and the resulting explosion blew the passenger cabin open to space, and the resulting fire, however brief, killed everyone in the passenger cabin.
“One of those rescued survived because she was forward, talking to the command pilot. She managed to get the cabin door shut between the command deck and the rest of the shuttle. Pity about the twenty-five people who died in the explosion and subsequent compartment fire and decompression.”
“You’re saying that it was an avoidable accident,” the President told her.
“Exactly.
“Further, too many members of the Space Service are Air Force officers and they stick together, sir. The few naval officers in the Space Force are getting the shaft when it comes to assignments and promotions. Their morale is essentially gone and now they are refusing missions their Air Force CO’s are ordering them out on. None of the members of the Space Service are receiving adequate training.”
“Captain Gilly?”
“She’s right, sir. I’ve said this before and so has Admiral Kinsella.”
“But it was always in abstractions, when you were talking about institutional differences and all that twaddle. I blame myself, because I thought you were talking about rank and organizational structures.” He looked at them and sighed.
“You understand that the reason you’re here are those refusals to fly as much as anything else? It’s been a long time since naval officers have essentially mutinied.”
“Mr. President, those men have big brass ones, never forget it. I can get away refusing those rescues because I’m me and no one wants to make an issue of it. There’s a reason people come to me first and the Space Service second. This time I allowed the Space Service to buy and use my equipment,” Stephanie told him.
“We made a decent profit on that transaction,” Stephanie went on, “but you understand my shareholders’ concerns about the bad PR involved in profiting from so many deaths.”
“You’re the only stockholder,” the President replied sourly.
“Like I said, there was unanimous consent that it was a bad idea. With only one remaining vehicle, we’ve decided to go out of the space rescue business.”
“Wonderful! I’m getting a lot of flack for all the casualties. I have to do something — preferably something dramatic.”
Stephanie looked at him steadily. “Sir, people who go into space at this point of time are going to die in great numbers and frequently terribly. It is impossible to put much of a dent in it. About the only thing we can do is be more selective in the people we allow outside the atmosphere and the rescues we attempt. It looks doubly bad when the firemen die in the rescue, as well as those they are there to ostensibly help.”
“That’s what you’ve done... refuse to go if it’s too dangerous.”
“There was a reason for that as I’ve explained.”
“The Air Force says they’re willing to take the risks. Only volunteers fly. They have said they would be willing to buy more vehicles from you, if you were to make them available.”
“Mr. President, I’m a lady. I am going to resist the very real temptation I’m feeling right now to spit. One year, eight months and twenty-two days ago we signed the deal for me to provide shuttle service to the ISS. Five weeks later, to the day, the first shuttle reached low earth orbit, and a week later, it rendezvoused with the ISS. I built six of those vehicles in the next weeks.
“Since then, you can get those plans on the Internet. They have always been available to the government for the asking. And now, nearly two years down the line, every Tom, Dick and Harry are flying their own spacecraft, except the Space Service. Now the Space Service wants to buy technology that’s nearly two years old. Right now the Space Service flies leased ships from other manufacturers.
“Sir, surely you’ve read the articles — I’ve seen several — about Moore’s Law as applied to space vehicles. So far, it’s been holding, although with different parameters than with integrated circuits. Instead of doubling performance, halving cost and reducing in size by half every eighteen months, the wags are predicted a halving of cost and a doubling of size of the vehicle. I personally think it’s ludicrous, but then, I’m not a reporter.
“Mr. President, for the foreseeable future the most valuable cargo spaceships are going to carry is people.
“As for the crews, sir, if you know your career tanks the first time you refuse a mission, that’s a lot of pressure to fly.”
“It doesn’t seem to faze those Navy pilots who refused to go up.”
“Mr. President,” John Gilly said levelly, “when your career is already tanked because of professional jealousy, why on earth would you want to stick out your neck for nothing?”
The President rocked back, obviously surprised. “It’s that bad?”
“Sir,” Stephanie interjected, “the numbers are clear. Since the Space Service was formed nearly three-quarters of all Air Force officers who’ve flown missions have been promoted. Zero naval officers have been promoted, even though some of them have flown a half dozen missions.”
The President’s eyes turned baleful.
He turned to Captain Gilly
. “I thought it was a one-time thing, John. I’m truly sorry. I thought I put the fear of God into the Air Force the first time.”
“Sir, you cashiered a first lieutenant, a captain and a lieutenant colonel. From a force in the Space Service of twenty-five thousand, 90% of whom are Air Force officers. You didn’t even cause a hiccup. They lose many times that to retirement and failure to reenlist every day.”
“Captain Gilly, I’ll entertain a suggestion from you for a new commander of the Space Service.”
“Admiral Delgado, sir. He’s served as a fighter pilot, he’s commanded a carrier fighter squadron, an Air Group, he’s commanded two carriers, both times in combat, and is currently up for Commander, Pacific Forces.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.
“Now, it’s time to shift gears. I’m getting a lot of flack from Congress, the press and the public about why we’re falling behind when it comes to interstellar exploration. The recent return of two probes, supposedly flown by El Al, but everyone knows were run by the Israeli Defense Force, with data on a dozen star systems has caught everyone’s attention.”
He waved at Stephanie. “Professor?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know where to begin. First, as I alluded to a bit ago, the Space Service is laughable when it comes to development. Miss Sanchez recently joked that if the Space Service had been in charge of developing automobiles for Ford, the Model T would first have appeared in 1966 and would have been the size of a dump truck.
“Sir, the Israelis sent out six probes and got two back. That’s peachy keen for unmanned probes, but the clamor isn’t that we send robots, but crews. The same people howling for fast action would be the first ones to howl for your head when you lost two thirds of the crews.”
“I figured. But still, we could do that robot thing.”
“Why bother? The Israelis are about ready to launch a second wave; this time twelve probes.
“And there is still the little matter of developing a manned vehicle in the near term. We’re nearly ready to go.”
“The Israelis do seem to be way ahead of everyone else when it comes to robotics,” the President admitted, trying to change the subject.
Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1) Page 15
