Astrotwins — Project Blastoff

by Mark Kelly

  “Okay, good.” Scott stepped back. “I gotta go.”

  “Yeah, you do,” said Mark. For a second, the twins looked at each other. To most people, their faces formed a mirror image. The twins alone saw all the differences.

  “Hey, see ya,” Scott said at last.

  “Yeah,” said Mark. “Be careful.”

  “Uh . . . yeah, I’m kind of counting on you to help with that.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  The twins half grinned. They knew they sounded stupid. And they knew there was nothing else to say.

  Scott raised his hand to wave, then turned and jogged toward the rocket.

  NASA astronauts get an elevator ride to their spacecraft. The Saturn rockets that helped put men on the moon were more than 350 feet—thirty-five stories—tall. The Atlas rocket that launched Friendship 7 and the other Mercury flights was about 100 feet tall.

  But thanks to Mr. Drizzle’s superior design and high-performance “rocket candy” fuel, the Crazy 8 launch vehicle was comparatively puny, and no elevator was necessary. Grandpa had borrowed an orange painters’ scaffolding from a builder friend. It now stood alongside the rocket to enable entry and exit. Scott put his helmet on to free his hands; then, thinking of all the times he had climbed the tree in his front yard, he ascended hand over hand.

  On the top of the platform, Barry and Howard were waiting.

  “We’ve gone over every gauge. Every switch is in the right place. Every circuit breaker is closed,” Barry said. “The capsule is go!”

  “Are you ready?” Howard asked Scott.

  Scott gave him a thumbs-up, and Howard smiled one of his rare smiles. “Then get in there!”

  The square opening was tiny—each side less than 24 inches in length. Scott took off his helmet and pushed it in ahead of him, then swung his body inside, feetfirst, which was the only way to do it. Astronaut John Glenn had famously said you didn’t climb into the Mercury capsule, you tried it on. This was true even if, like Scott, you were a seventy-five-pound kid.

  It took some serious maneuvering for Scott to get the helmet back, pull it over his head, and position himself on the seat. As in the simulator, he was now on his back with his knees aimed up. The instrument panel was only a couple of feet from his face, and above it was the small window, now facing west and showing trees and blue sky. All told, the spacecraft packed 120 controls—55 electrical switches, 30 fuses, 35 mechanical levers—and countless circuit breakers.

  The hatch was still open, and now Scott heard a sound that must have been Barry’s voice—only with his helmet on, Scott couldn’t understand the words. He turned his head to say, “What?” but only in time to see the hatch close.

  There was a definite thump, and he was alone.

  He remembered Lisa’s question: “Are you freaking out?”

  A little, he thought.

  Better get busy.

  The first thing on the checklist was to flip the switch that turned on the radio inside his helmet.

  “Greenwood Control, this is Crazy 8, how do you read?”

  “Loud and clear, Crazy 8.” Mark’s voice in his ear was a comfort.

  By now it was T-minus-15 minutes. During the time that remained, Scott strapped himself in, centered the attitude control handle, put the guard on the switch to fire the retro rockets, moved the battery switches to on, and retracted the periscope, which looked out from its own little door on the opposite side of the capsule. The controls for the periscope were between his knees.

  It wasn’t entirely silent in the capsule as he worked. He heard the hiss of the air through the pipes, the hum of the fan, and at one point some bumps that must have meant Egg was swiveling the nozzles on the rocket engine to test them.

  Then there was the chatter over the radio—Egg, Lisa, Barry, and Howard reporting in on the systems for which they were responsible, “Communications, go,” “Retro, go,” “Guidance, go,” “Enviro, go!”

  Scott himself was the last item on the list. “Crazy 8, this is Greenwood Control. Are you go for launch?”

  “I guess,” Scott said. “That is—go!”

  The minutes counted down and then the seconds—just as they did in training.

  The automatic engine starter was due to kick in at T-minus-18 seconds. Scott had wondered how that would feel and soon found out—there was a sound like a crackle and then the faintest jiggle, and then Mark’s voice intoning the final countdown: “Seven—six—five—four—three—two—one—ignition!”

  Scott just had time to wonder if Mr. Drizzle’s rocket candy was for real, if he was actually about to be the first kid in orbit, when—pow-pow-pow—the clamps at the base of the rocket released and, with a solid, exciting surge, Crazy 8 leaped skyward, powered by 360,000 pounds of thrust.

  CHAPTER 33

  * * *

  When solid fuel ignites, there is instantaneous tooth-rattling vibration. For a second, it seemed to Scott that his spacecraft was coming apart . . . but it held together, and so did he. He glanced at the air speed indicator, located on the old speedometer they had recalibrated, and watched in awe as it ticked upward.

  Mark’s voice crackled in Scott’s ear. “We have liftoff at 2:32.29 p.m. GMT.”

  The time was 9:32 in the morning in New Jersey. Scott knew GMT stood for Greenwich Mean Time, which is what NASA uses because it’s the same everywhere in the world. “Roger,” he said. “The clock is running. We are under way.”

  It seemed to Scott that he had been airborne only a few seconds when the capsule bounced, shuddered, and bounced again. He checked the altimeter: 35,000 feet, Max Q, the point at which the forces buffeting the capsule were greatest and, true to its name, Crazy 8 reacted by wobbling, bucking, and shimmying.

  We built the machine to survive this, Scott reminded himself. It’s normal. But at the same time, it had been a lot easier to feel confident when he was in Nando’s shop with his feet on the ground and his friends around him.

  Barry had calculated the flight path that would put the capsule into its orbit; Howard had programmed the electronic guidance system to follow it. For now, Scott was just along for the ride as Crazy 8 shot straight up. Twenty seconds after liftoff, Scott reported that altimeter, clock, and compass readings were good. Mark didn’t answer right away, and Scott tried again: “Greenwood Control? Crazy 8. Come in please.”

  Static crackled in his ear, and then . . . strange sounds: a wailing siren, a confused tangle of shouts.

  Am I imagining things? Scott wondered. “Greenwood Control, do you—?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” said Mark. He sounded breathless, but continued, “I’m fine. That is, Roger. We have a visual on your flight path, and it looks good.”

  Scott wanted to ask about the noises on the ground but decided he had better things to do. Stay focused. Stay busy. Using tables prepared by Lisa, he cross-checked altitude, air speed, and pitch attitude to ensure he was continuously on course. He was. Just the way it was supposed to, the capsule rose vertically for thirty seconds before arcing gradually to the east.

  Everything looked fine and then—only half a minute later—the ride smoothed out and the Gs began to build, pushing Scott against his seat with the force of an invisible six-hundred-pound gorilla until, as if he’d crested the top of the roller coaster, the force began to drop, drop, and drop until, at five minutes after launch, Scott was weightless—and entering orbit 100 miles above Earth.

  Scott took a deep breath, the first in a while, then heard three little popgun pops, each of which bumped the spacecraft forward.

  “Greenwood Control, Crazy 8. Engine cutoff and the posigrades have fired.”

  “Roger, Crazy 8. That’s great news.”

  Having done its job, the Drizzle rocket had shut down and separated from the capsule. Now the capsule performed a turn so that the blunt end—the one protected by the heat shield—was in front.

  Scott was overcome by a host of sensations.

  Where a moment ago an invisible gorilla had sat
on his chest, now he was floating in his harness. It was a little like being buoyed by water—only there was no water—and surprisingly, after a few moments, it didn’t even seem that strange. As an experiment, he let go of the pencil in his hand and watched, fascinated, as it floated and spun in the air.

  Then there was the view. Once the capsule had turned around, the periscope with its eight-inch eyepiece had extended. Now Scott could look down through the eyepiece and see for hundreds of miles in every direction: the sun’s clear light on white clouds; patches of brilliant blue water—the Atlantic Ocean. Behind him, the brown-and-green coastline of the United States receded, as did the Drizzle rocket, beginning its own descent into the water. He could look out the window, too, and it was just incredible.

  “Greenwood Control, Crazy 8. Wow!”

  “Wow what? Is everything okay?” Mark sounded worried.

  “Roger, everything’s fine. It’s just really beautiful up here. Earth is like a big blue ball, and it floats—it’s just floating there in space.”

  He knew he probably sounded pretty stupid, but he didn’t care.

  “Crazy 8, Greenwood Control. Oh—good to hear. Hey, you know you’ll be dipping below the horizon soon. That’ll put you out of radio range. While we can still talk, Egg wants you to know she left you a surprise in the ditty bag.”

  A surprise? What could possibly be surprising now?

  “Roger, Greenwood Control. I’ll check.”

  The ditty bag, stowed in a compartment by his left thigh, contained emergency essentials like a flashlight and a knife. Now he opened the compartment, and the bag rose like an obedient ghost to meet him. Inside, besides the items he expected, he found a plastic sandwich bag full of cookies. Check that. It used to be full of cookies. Unfortunately, Max Q, not to mention all those Gs, had been hard on them, and what he held was a bag of crumbs.

  “Crazy 8, Greenwood Control. Did you find the present?”

  “That’s affirmative, Greenwood Control. Uh . . . uh-oh.” Before he could stop them, a swarm of chocolate chip gravel escaped the bag and began to find its way everywhere. Shoot! How was he going to get the crumbs back in the bag? Every time he caught some, more escaped. He seemed to be engaged in a cookie gravel battle of epic proportions.

  Frustrated, Scott said, “Nice thought, Greenwood, but the cookies got crushed and it’s kind of a mess, actually.”

  “Crazy 8, Greenwood. So sorry. Next time we’ll send a vacuum cleaner.”

  It’s not funny, Scott thought, batting at the cloud, which was a mistake because it just caused the crumbs to spread out more widely. Those guys on the ground don’t get that it’s different in space, and all this mess could cause a problem.

  Suddenly, he felt very far away.

  “Greenwood Control, Crazy 8. Do you read? The view is really beautiful from up here. I can see the East Coast of the United States south to Georgia, I think.”

  No answer.

  “Greenwood Control?”

  No answer.

  So that was it. T-plus-10 minutes and he was out of radio range. NASA astronauts had a network of communication centers all over the world, so they were almost never without company and support, not to mention that there was radar monitoring of every move. Project Blastoff did not have such luxuries. Scott was traveling east and for the next hour or so—till he reached the West Coast of the United States—he was really on his own.

  CHAPTER 34

  * * *

  Scott knew he was traveling at around 17,500 miles per hour, that daylight would last about forty minutes, and that night would last the same. Watching the Atlantic rush by below him, he thought about being an object in motion, a satellite in orbit around Earth.

  According to Newton’s first law, an object in motion stays in motion unless something else interferes. In this case two things interfered. One was atmosphere. It was thin at that altitude but still present. The other was gravity, pulling the spacecraft back toward Earth. Orbit is the balancing act between the satellite’s straight-line momentum and gravity’s pull.

  Scott thought of Astronaut Bill Anders’s response to a kindergartner who asked which astronaut was driving Apollo 8, the first NASA mission to orbit the moon. Anders had said that none of the astronauts was driving. Mr. Isaac Newton was.

  Having studied an atlas, Scott recognized the west coast of Africa when it appeared below him, with sand dunes and dust storms on the desert and everywhere clouds of all sizes, shapes, and colors. A few moments later he saw a sight very familiar from geography—Italy’s boot-shaped peninsula jutting into the blue Mediterranean Sea.

  Most beautiful of all was sunset over the Indian Ocean, right on schedule at T-plus-43 minutes. Glowing with blue-white intensity, the nearest star dropped Earthward, creating a brilliant display of orange, red, purple, and blue stripes fading into black space. Above, the sky shone with white dots, the steadily burning stars.

  Scott had known to expect the stars’ steady gaze. It’s only interference from Earth’s atmosphere that makes them twinkle, and he was above that interference now. The transformation of something familiar—starlight—into something strange made Scott feel even more alone.

  How would he ever be able to describe it?

  Meanwhile, the radio was quiet but the capsule was not. There was the faint, steady shhh of air flowing in the environmental control system, the clicking of the gyros as they moved in the IMU, and the occasional ssss of the hydrogen peroxide–powered nozzles on the thrusters outside, firing intermittently to keep the capsule steady.

  Reaction engines, Scott thought, and said another silent thanks to Mr. Newton.

  It could be there’s only so much grandeur a kid can take in. Over the Pacific, Scott decided to do a little flying on his own. This required toggling the manual panel switch to on and taking the control stick in his right hand. Aligning the horizon display on the periscope with Earth’s horizon, he tugged and twisted the stick to move the capsule up, down, right, left, and sideways, listening to the sound of the little thrusters firing outside.

  He had done a decent job of imitating them during the sims with Mark in their bedroom, he decided.

  Scott knew he wouldn’t knock himself out of orbit. Instead, he was changing Crazy 8’s attitude—spinning, twisting, and pivoting it within the bounds of its trajectory. The Mercury astronauts had had their troubles keeping their capsules’ attitudes on target, but so far Crazy 8 had done fine.

  The shortest night of Scott’s life was soon over. If the stars of deep space had been eerie, sunlit Earth seemed alive and inviting. Space travel, Scott thought, was thrilling—but looking Earthward, he felt the emotional pull of home like the physical pull of gravity.

  For comfort, he opened the faceplate on his helmet, reached out, and awkwardly, with his gloved right hand, grabbed a handful of the cookie dust and brought it to his mouth. Delicious—but he wished he had milk to go with it.

  Scott checked the clock. It was T-plus-65 minutes—already time to implement the re-entry checklist, which began: Check your seat belt.

  Re-entry was the most dangerous part of the trip. As Crazy 8 descended, it would leave the near vacuum of space and hit the thickening atmosphere at high speed. The friction between air and spacecraft would create a heat pulse around the capsule with a temperature close to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, almost as hot as the sun.

  Only the heat shield and the aeronautic design of the capsule protected him.

  And if something was to go wrong?

  He would be a crispy critter, and Crazy 8 a meteor that flashed for an instant, then disappeared.

  Approaching California, the automatic system went to work, moving Crazy 8 to proper attitude and activating re-entry control. The three retrorockets fired one after the other, each slowing velocity by 500 feet per second. In his seat, Scott felt them like shoves from a ghostly hand.

  These three burns were supposed to set him on a path for Greenwood Lake. If they succeeded, Barry and Howard—who had done the
math and the programming—truly were geniuses.

  Meanwhile, with every action of the electronic control, the appropriate indicator light flashed yellow, then green, to say all was well.

  And then—suddenly—all was not well. Instead of turning green, one of the yellow lights, the one for periscope operation, turned red.

  Had the periscope failed to retract? Was it stuck? Was the door still open?

  The light did not offer details. Scott peered down into the eyepiece and saw only gray. The door seemed to be closed. But if it was open even the merest crack, the superheated plasma created on re-entry would leak inside—destroying Crazy 8 and Scott Kelly, too.

  CHAPTER 35

  * * *

  They had trained for this. They had trained for everything.

  As a result, Scott knew exactly what to do. Calmly, he reached between his knees and grasped the periscope’s manual control handle. Pumping it would override the electronic system.

  Except . . . the handle was stuck, wouldn’t budge a millimeter.

  And the red light stayed lit.

  “Greenwood Control, Crazy 8. Come in, Greenwood Control. I’ve got a problem. Over.”

  There was a crackle in the speaker and then—what a wonderful sound—his brother’s voice: “Go ahead, Crazy 8—and it’s great to hear you!”

  “Roger,” Scott said, “great to hear you, too, but listen.” Then he described the situation.

  “Crazy 8.” Mark’s voice was steady. “Stand by for instructions.”

  How long? Scott thought. And the next few seconds were the longest of his life. Then came Mark’s voice again. “Crazy 8, Greenwood Control. Did you say something about cookie crumbs?”

  By this time, cookie crumbs were the furthest thing from Scott’s mind, but he answered, “Uh, that’s affirmative.”