by T I WADE
“Leveling out for our descent, forty seconds to release,” stated Bob as the passengers felt a little weightlessness take hold of their bodies. “Going down, she’s heavy…46,000 feet….44…41…39, pulling out, engines to full thrust. Here we go guys, good luck…43…45…49……51!”
At 51,000 feet Jonesy activated the rocket igniters. They would need ten seconds before Maggie, the co-pilot, could push the actual igniters, which would cause an instantaneous explosion out of the rear of the shuttle.
“53,000 feet, 390 knots, release activated,” stated Bob calmly five seconds later.
“Roger, release activation,” stated Jonesy as he watched the front of the cargo hold quickly retreat and sunlight filled the cockpit.
“53,250, 380 knots, good luck Jonesy, you are on your own, turning aircraft to port…now.”
Jonesy was busy trying to keep the shuttle on it’s upwards glide slope as the wings deployed. It felt like an eternity as he waited. He glanced up to see the C-5, it was gone from directly above them and the altimeter was starting to show descent.
“Ignition,” ordered the pilot and Maggie did as commanded. Wings extended, falling through 52,000. Rockets activated…………oh shit! That’s hard on the back!” was all he said as he looked forward as the craft began to accelerate. He noticed the C-5 off to his right about 300 yards away as they rocketed past it.
“Ascending through 58,000 feet, turning her over on her back, 580 knots…620 knots….700 knots…we are through the sound barrier at flight level 67 and climbing.”
As the speed increased, the controls became rock hard in Jonesy’s hands. There wasn’t much he could do now until the first stage expended itself. Like the NASA shuttle always flew, he had rolled the shuttle onto its back, the glide slope was a degree out, their direction two degrees out, and he managed to get her on course as the flight proceeded into new territory and the flight controls were taken away from him.
His back hurt, his face wanted to enter his brain and his breakfast wanted to park itself in his upper legs somewhere.
“You are good to go from here,” stated a voice from ground control. “Your corrections were spot on, your trajectory is perfect and we show you at 97,000 feet and 2,400 knots.”
“100,000 feet,” stated Jonesy a second later, “…flight level 112 at 3,800 knots. I hope these motors are never turbocharged. They already hurt like hell! Passing through 150,000 at 4,500 knots. Computer is now showing two speeds, knots and Mach speed as programmed….187,000 feet at Mach 9 or 7,000 knots.”
“Still perfect exit,” stated ground. “Weather clear and we still have cameras on you, and you look beautiful, as good as anything NASA ever produced. Your exhaust trails should be now out of sight of the naked eye.”
“Roger that. It’s getting dark up here; the sun looks beautiful, changing color, approaching second-stage activation. Flight level 230 at Mach 15.”
“Second-stage igniter ready,” stated Maggie.
Suddenly at 243,000 feet above earth the first-stage lost power.
“Ignite,” ordered Jonesy and there was a second kick in the back, half as hard as the first, and the craft continued heading further into the upper atmosphere. The force in Jonesy’s back had now gone and he checked his information readouts; still climbing, going through 270,000 at Mach 16 under full power. “Two hundred ninety thousand feet…I’m pulling back on the hydrogen throttles, power to three-quarters….300,000 feet…and I’m getting control back. Computer is activating side thruster doors, using thrusters to bring us straight and level. I’ve turned flight controls over to autopilot, computer reducing power to one half, speed Mach 19, using thrusters to turn us upright. Speed Mach 19.5, altitude 300,000 feet, computer says we are flying straight and level.”
“Change heading 3.35 degrees to port, you are heading off course,” stated ground control and Maggie dialed in the change to the computer. “Over reaction, you are now heading one degree to starboard.” Maggie again dialed in the information and the thrusters did their job, and slowly aligned the aircraft. “From here, it looks like your speed needs to increase,” suggested ground control. “In three seconds we will lose direct communications and go to satellite feed. You are now over the Atlantic.”
“Roger that,” replied Jonesy. “Increasing power by 3 percent…… computer shows Mach 19.6….decreasing power by 1 percent.”
“Sixteen minutes to re-entry,” stated ground control. “You are over The Azores and half a second in front of your estimated time, I believe we have a 3 percent window in which to operate and you are still in the 1 percent bracket.”
“It is so beautiful up here,” stated Jonesy over the intercom, and for the first time Maggie looked out of the craft’s windshield down towards earth.
“The coast of France and Portugal,” observed Maggie. “The Alps already have snow, see the line?”
“I see,” replied the others.
“Sierra Bravo I, deviation; 2 degrees off course,” reported ground control.
“Roger that, ground control,” replied Maggie, giving the computer the information.
“Sierra Bravo I, speed increasing, activate forward thruster for three seconds. Over.”
“Roger,” replied Jonesy. “Speed decreasing back to Mach 19.6. I see the Middle East coming up, and I’m sure we saw the silver glinting space station head over us from left to right.”
“Affirmative, that was the International Space Station,” replied ground control. “Your systems are completely tested, working perfectly. Sierra Bravo I, your computers are in complete control of your flight. Over.”
“Roger that,” replied Jonesy now confident his readouts were accurate. “Ten minutes to activate re-entry procedures.”
For the first time, he and Maggie had a break and with the shuttle flying perfectly, they could now look down as Asia began to cover the globe below them.
“Sierra Bravo I to ground control,” stated Jonesy several minutes later as the Pacific could just be seen as the earth rotated. “One minute to re-entry decent. We will be without communications for eleven minutes, beginning in four minutes from now.”
Ground acknowledged and the thrusters were activated on time to push the shuttle’s nose down for re-entry. Jonesy had to power up the rear liquid nitrogen thruster to actually increase his speed to descend, and once the correct speed was reached, he flared the nose up, and the team prepared for a hot re-entry. They were at a lower speed than if they were reentering from actual space, and they had to compensate.
“Speed at Mach 22.3 or 17,000 knots, nose coming up, descending through 290,000 feet, we are over the Chinese coast, thruster doors are closed. Hear from you guys in eleven min….” and Jonesy’s voice disappeared from the airwaves in Ground Control in Nevada.
First, it was totally silent in the shuttle’s cockpit; then a sound and a buzzing noise could be heard through the floor of the craft. It got louder and louder and an orange glow began to be seen through the side portals. Maggie closed the outside portal doors and from then on, for 150 seconds, all Jonesy could do was monitor the computerized flight on instruments only. Both pilots monitored the computers, which were keeping the angle of the aircraft perfectly aligned for its flaming return to earth. There was no way he could manually fly the shuttle.
Their readouts slowed and came to a complete stop. The LED lights just froze and one by one went off. To the crew it seemed like an eternity and pictures of the NASA shuttle disintegrating a decade or so earlier went through Jonesy’s mind.
For ten long minutes nothing happened, except the noise got louder and louder. Nobody spoke. Then Jonesy’s ear detected a lesser roar from below his feet. His feet felt warm, warmer than usual, and slowly the roar dissipated.
Suddenly the altitude LED screen blinked on a few times and then showed 197,000 feet. Then the forward speed numbers lit up; 8,300 knots showed on the dial.
“Activate window doors,” Jonesy ordered Maggie, and daylight entered the craft again. “Comput
ers show us 300 miles past Hawaii, and I believe within our 3 percent window.”
“Sierra Bravo I to ground, do you copy? Over.” stated Maggie on the radio. There was silence, but several seconds later they were answered on her third try.
“Ground to Sierra Bravo I, we have you safe and sound. Computer readouts coming through, you are low, by 10,000 feet, change heading 4 degrees to starboard, your speed is within the 3 percent safety barrier. Over.”
“I will see if the computer can change her glide angle,” replied Jonesy. At this speed, any minute mistake could end the flight then and there. “Increasing glide slope 1 percent,” stated the pilot making the smallest changes possible. “Speed decreasing through 8,000 knots, it seems to be working as altitude decrease has dropped from 4,000 feet per minute to 3,200 feet per minute.”
“Roger that,” replied ground. “Keep her there for three minutes, which should have you on the correct glide slope.”
Slowly the forward speed decreased as the small wings began to feel minute amounts of atmosphere, and the thrust from the liquid hydrogen motors used up the last liquid fuel in the tanks. Once the fuel was gone, the angle would certainly increase rapidly.
“I see the U.S. coastline coming up,” stated Jonesy as Maggie closed the rear motor down, its job done. The aircraft, still flown by computer, became more maneuverable at 5,000 knots and at a little over 100,000 feet.
As the craft entered real atmospheric conditions, the speed began to decrease rapidly, and the altitude seemed to slip away.
“I have manual flight,” stated Jonesy two minutes later as Maggie switched over the computerized auto-pilot system to manual control. “Speed 2,900 knots at 85,000 feet.
“Your speed is too high,” stated ground control. You have 3,000 feet more altitude than you need, bleed off forward speed. Over.”
“Roger,” replied Jonesy and pulled the nose up slightly.
“More!” stated ground control. He did so and for once the shuttle wasn’t losing height and her forward momentum kept her straight and level. Jonesy flew straight and level for thirty seconds before the speed bleed-off forced her down rapidly towards earth again.
“Sierra Bravo, you are crossing into Nevada at 72,000 feet; your speed is far too fast at 1,140 knots. You still have 2,000 extra feet altitude,” stated ground a couple of minutes later.
Jonesy acknowledged and did what all pilots wanted to do to lose added height and speed rapidly. He started flying her in “S” turns and brought her nose up a degree or two. He could only use his air brakes on a half notch setting below 680 knots, below the speed of sound.
“You are at minimum altitude, forty miles and your speed is still too high,” stated ground control.
“No problem, I have the added speed to compensate. Let me fly her in. Out.” Jonesy did not need the team on the ground anymore and concentrated on what Maggie would tell him.
“Thirty miles to target, speed 840 knots, height 60,000 feet,” she told him while he concentrated on the flying. They were nearing the last 50,000 feet, where they had done the many practice flights. Jonesy brought up the nose even more and quickly the excess speed bled off. “Twenty miles to target 55,000 feet, speed 720 knots.” He concentrated on his flying, and decided to leave the nose up for another couple of seconds. “Fifteen miles to target 48,000 feet, 690 knots. Air brakes available.” Maggie suddenly realized that he was working his butt off trying not to use them. She smiled; he wanted a perfect landing. “Ten miles to target, 34,000 feet, 580 knots,” she read out and Jonesy smiled slightly. “Five miles to target, 21,000 feet, 499 knots. Three miles to target, target in sight, 16,500 feet, 440 knots. One mile to target, 9,000 feet, 370 knots, you need air brakes.”
“Crap!” stated Jonesy. He was too high and too fast, his perfect approach out by so little from 180,000 feet, and he had to use the air brakes. He let the air brakes out at half notch for two seconds and retracted them.
“Perfect slope 300 yards out, 1,500 feet, 300 knots, flaring out…… wheels down,” stated Jonesy.
Jonesy and Maggie brought down Ryan’s first foray into near space to a perfect conclusion, except that the larger chutes had not yet arrived and they ended in the flat and dusty dirt, a dozen yards past the end of the runway.
Chapter 15
The second last Christmas for many.
Boy! Did the first beer taste good to Jonesy. It was getting dark outside; the day had been a long one with his first flight to the outer atmosphere and the long debriefing afterwards. He felt very good about his flying, he was back on top of his ability, and knew it. He went over the day’s proceedings in his mind.
After the flight, the shuttle was wheeled into Hangar Six for inspection. The pilots and passengers, who had been aboard, as well as Suzi and VIN, were asked to take part in the debriefing in Hangar One’s Ground Control; everyone met over a well-deserved lunch; then, for five hours, they went over every second of the flight.
“So, Herr Smidt, Mr. Nikolaevich, Ms. Grigorevna, do you think the computers can be accurately recalibrated with all the collected flight data?”
“Ja, to a point,” replied Herr Smidt, an older German scientist in charge of computing the shuttle systems. “We can reprogram up to the maximum altitude the shuttle achieved, no more. Then we can match the next re-entry of either shuttle with the exact altitude, position above earth, and re-entry speed. This new information will give the computers a more exact re-entry map and slope through the atmosphere. Of course we have to wait to compute data from higher altitudes, but as your flights get further away from the atmosphere, we can reprogram the computers in all the space craft. Once we have data from your first flight to the 22,500 mile altitude, the new information will aid us in recalibrating all future flights to that altitude.”
“Is there any reason why we cannot slow the craft down with one extra earth revolution and then have a lower altitude, speed, and glide slope? This would give us eleven minutes in the hot re-entry zone instead of the full eighteen minutes from a normal altitude high-speed re-entry. What is stopping us from doing that?” Ryan asked his team.
“Just speed,” Ms. Grigorevna replied; she also looked to be in her seventies. “Due to the small size of the shuttles, a single forward thruster would need to slow her from 25,000 knots to 14,500. This will take two hours, or two earth revolutions, and use up all remaining hydrogen fuel for re-entry.”
“A solution?” asked Ryan.
“We could add a larger thruster,” the scientist responded.
“Do we have room?” Ryan asked.
“We would need to redesign and build the nose cone of both shuttles, but I believe there is room,” Mr. Nikolaevich added.
“The reason is that with the low re-entry point this morning, seven complete minutes of heat on the heat-resistant tiles was reduced by lower speed and altitude; this decreases the chances of something going wrong by nearly 40 percent while the craft is totally helpless in space. I would like to see the report on blast damage from the bricks first, but I think that the useful life of the bricks themselves could be extended by the same amount. Remember, we only need approximately ninety flights into space, forty-five from each craft; if one fails, our whole space project will be extended ad infinitum and we will never achieve our goals. How much more liquid hydrogen will be needed for a second thruster?”
“Well,” interrupted Herr Muller. “If we changed the forward thruster to one of the larger units we are currently building for the Astermine spacecraft, we could add an extra tank along the floor of the cargo bay. A three inch high tank wouldn’t be in the way of the cargo,” he suggested.
“Approximately 80 pounds of added liquid hydrogen and the extra weight of 20 pounds for the larger motor will displace the same amount of cargo on each flight,” added Ms. Grigorevna.
“Fewer passengers in the cockpit could solve the weight adjustment; that means that we will be short of the new motors. It takes two months to build these motors, so I suggest we start bu
ilding four more of this more powerful version immediately, and equip the shuttles with the necessary added fuel tank. We will have to leave Astermine One with her original motors until the new ones are ready. We don’t have time to change her motors, but we do have enough time to adapt the more powerful thrusters to Astermine Two. Our first mining expedition must begin on schedule,” continued Ryan. All three scientists nodded that they would get started.
“Pilots, if our team here can tighten up your computer re-entry programs to eliminate seven minutes of heat with no communications, how would that sound?” asked Ryan.
“Well, my feet were getting pretty hot,” responded Jonesy. “We have now achieved one re-entry from 300,000 feet. I think that Ms. Sinclair, Ms. Sullivan, and I could do it blindfolded, if we knew the computers would spit us out of the fireball in the right place at the right speed with decent altitude.” Both Maggie and Penny nodded their agreement.
For four more hours the debriefing and “think-tank” continued. Fatigue was beginning to show on the face of everyone who had had the ride of their life hours earlier. Ryan skillfully changed direction.
“Herr Smidt, I believe we have some of Mr. Rose’s home brew here for special occasions? I think that right now is a special occasion, so please administer some pain relief to all in attendance. It is time to celebrate. We are halfway there.”
Christmas was quick in coming. With hundreds of hours of computer flight saved on the computers aboard the shuttle in Hangar Six, work came to an end for the pilots for the last week of the year.
The political front was also quiet. The country now knew who would lead the nation for the next four years, and Ryan spent time on many phone calls to friends trying to figure out what this change in leadership meant for his program. He had a bad feeling that he was going to run out of time very soon.
There was no interest in returning home for Christmas, even by Maggie and Penny, who had parents or friends they could go back to.
