by Paul Reaver
A period of learning the controls ensued. Again, John’s team and their engineer partners worked in tandem to become familiarized with the controls and their layouts. Activating the wrong mechanism at the wrong time could be catastrophic. However, after a couple of weeks, everything was thoroughly understood.
They ran numerous simulations after completing the updates. Alexandra had added a second engineer/pilot that was also going to fly on the ship. Both of them and John’s team participated simultaneously. They practiced until everything was second nature.
It was time for the first test flight.
Chapter 21
With everyone on board, one of the engineers used a tow motor to bring the spaceship onto an oversized elevator that was specially made to bring aircraft up to ground level and into a hangar. Abigail said, “Initiating invisibility mode.”
“Invisibility mode confirmed,” said Steve, Alexandra’s flight engineer and copilot. He was going to assist Abigail on this mission.
During one of their meetings, Alexandra’s two engineer pilots and John’s team agreed that they would voice each activity before initiating it, and the counterpart would acknowledge the action, as they had just done. They could also confirm by just saying “roger.” This was quasi-military communication. Though it seemed somewhat superfluous, and perhaps slightly tedious after a while, on this maiden voyage they could not afford to make a mistake. Using this “call and response” form of communication was used to (hopefully) prevent any errors.
They had discussed the use of invisibility and all agreed that the ship should not be visible even while it was still in the hangar. If someone were observing, using binoculars or other visual equipment to see inside the facility (which should not be possible), they would be able to see the spacecraft. Usually, this was not a problem because the area around for many miles was protected using very sophisticated electronic equipment. But with this new ship, they could not take any chances. Also, as had been planned, the so-called “cloak” would protect them from radiation when they were in space.
The ship rolled out of the hanger, shielded by invisibility. From here, a more conventional aircraft would use one of the runways to take off. This new ship did not need a runway.
They had discussed the subject of computer control for the ship, and although they could use the onboard computer to control the ship, John felt as though they should do everything by hand initially. His reasoning for this was primarily safety. Since this was completely new technology, he thought it best if they used manual control to move forward until they had more experience. They had run many scenarios of gravity propulsion through the computer, and this had given them an idea of what to expect if the results of the simulations were correct. It also helped to provide them with a possible starting point for different sections of their flights. So, they would do everything by hand and then refer back to the computer scenarios to see how accurate they were. If they were 100% accurate, they would switch over to computer control, at least for part of their trips. If they were less than 100% accurate, they would reprogram the computer so that the results would be without error.
Once they were a sufficient distance from the hangar, sitting in an aircraft parking area, Joanne said, “Activating antigravity engine.” This would not only power the ship’s flight but also provide 1G of gravity for everyone during the trip for a comfortable ride. Joanne could turn the gravity off at any time if there were a reason to do so. They had done numerous simulations already with zero gravity just in case.
“Antigravity engine activated,” Steve acknowledged.
“Applying 0.1 vertical antigravity,” said Joanne, meaning she was supplying an additional one-tenth of Earth’s gravity to lift the spaceship.
“Roger that,” said Steve.
Looking out the window, everyone could see that the ship was slowly moving straight up.
“Increasing antigravity to 0.3,” said Joanne.
“Currently at 0.3 antigravity,” Steve confirmed.
The ship’s windows showed that the upward momentum had significantly increased.
Abigail was piloting, with Mark occupying the copilot seat.
“Altitude three thousand feet,” said Abigail.
“Adding 0.1 antigravity forward,” said Joanne.
“0.1 gravity forward, roger,” said Steve.
The view from the windows now showed them moving forward at a relatively slow pace; their upward movement was still reasonably rapid.
“Abigail,” said Joanne, “I can cut the vertical antigravity and increase the forward antigravity so that you can fly this bird like a regular plane. What do you think?”
“Let’s do it,” said Abigail. “It will be a good experiment to do as a contingency for the gravity engine.”
“Cutting vertical antigravity,” said Joanne.
“Vertical antigravity neutral,” Steve acknowledged.
“Flight controls transferred to conventional,” said Abigail.
“Roger,” said Steve.
There was a slight shudder in the ship, and a noticeable dip as the control shifted from vertical antigravity to the aerial controls that Abigail was using. But once that passed, the craft flew smoothly and continued to ascend.
“How does it feel, Abigail?” asked Joanne.
“Nice!” replied Abigail. “John, how high do you want to go, and how long do you want this test flight to last?”
“Let’s keep going,” said John. When we reach 40,000 feet, let’s cut back to the gravity engine. Although we could go higher flying the ship as a regular aircraft, at some point, the air will be getting too thin for conventional flight. After we have switched back over to the gravity propulsion, let’s get just above 65 miles to get free of the atmosphere. If the ship remains stable at orbital speed, let’s go for a partial orbit. But Abigail, if you feel anything is not right, let us know, and we’ll abort.”
“Will do,” said Abigail.
“Abigail, I am switching antigravity control to your console so you can use it to control our altitude and forward speed. Let me know if you have any questions.”
“Roger. We have switched antigravity control to my console.”
They had practiced all of this on the ground and in simulation. Abigail was an excellent pilot and had a good idea of what to expect with this test flight. However, she also knew always to expect the unexpected. She flew the ship up to 40,000 feet.
“Altitude is now 40,000 feet,” she said. “Switching to gravity control, activating vertical anti-gravity to 0.3 and forward antigravity to 0.1.”
Steve confirmed the changes. There was another slight shudder in the ship. The ship’s altitude began to increase as the vertical anti-gravity took over, and soon they were at a sub-orbital height.
“Joanne, what setting for the antigravity should I use to maintain this elevation?” asked Abigail.
“Try it at 0.4 and watch the altitude. Remember that you’ll have to continually lower the vertical gravity force once we get to a certain altitude and more so as we get higher,” said Joanne. “As we get higher, the pull of Earth’s gravity will become less, and our vertical speed will increase more than we need to achieve a semi-orbital trajectory.”
“Sounds good,” said Abigail. “Switching to 0.4 antigravity.” Steve again acknowledged the change.
The next few minutes were spent in silence as the ship increased altitude and velocity. The view of the Earth was spectacular as the spacecraft climbed.
“Wow!” said Max. “The pictures of the view from Earth orbit that I’ve seen don’t do it justice.”
“That’s for sure!” said Joanne.
“The ship controls feel good, solid and comfortable,” said Abigail. “As you can all tell, the flight is smooth and steady.”
The ship’s computers were recording everything about the flight, so when they got back to Earth, they could go over the data and use it to plan future missions. The data would help them perfect the ship and advise them of any
little things that were not quite right and not obvious to them during their current flight. In other words, it would help them fine-tune everything about the ship, helping them to continually improve it.
They flew on for another forty-five minutes, and John said, “Ok, Abigail, let’s turn around and head back home.”
“Roger,” said Abigail, and began the process of decreasing the ship’s altitude to bring them back down into the atmosphere. As before, she and Steve did the “call and response” for every navigational change.
The trip back was uneventful. Once they had reached an altitude of 40,000 feet again, Abigail said, “Switching back to normal flight for the return trip.”
“Roger change to normal flight,” said Steve.
Working with Steve, Abigail turned the ship around so they were heading back to the hangar. They reached the point where they needed to slow their speed and lower their altitude in preparation for landing.
“Switching to gravity drive for the descent,” said Abigail.
“Acknowledge switch to gravity drive,” said Steve.
“Reducing forward gravity to 0.1, and increasing vertical gravity to 0.3,” said Abigail.
“Roger,” Steve acknowledged.
The ship began to slow down and descend. As the ship descended, Earth’s gravity would become stronger. The gravity force applied to the ship would have to gradually increase to match Earth’s gravity until they landed, when the ship’s antigravity force would have to match the downward pull of the gravity from Earth. Within about a half an hour, they could see the airfield from which they had launched. When the ship was approximately 5,500 feet above the ground, and hovering over the spot from where they had taken off, Abigail said, “Increasing vertical gravity to 0.5”.
Steve acknowledged the change, the ship descended slowly, and became ever closer to the ground, and Abigail increased the ship’s antigravity force as they got closer to the ground. As they became very near to landing, the last change to the ship’s antigravity was to 0.9 for the vertical lift, and Abigail had used the antigravity engine to stop their forward momentum so they were descending directly down to their landing spot.
At what seemed like the last minute, Abigail said, “Dialing vertical gravity to 1.0”. As soon as she said that, there was a soft bump as the ship landed.
“Wow, nice landing,” said Steve.
Chapter 22
A week later found Alexandra and her engineers and John and his team members in a meeting at Alexandra’s facilities. They were dissecting the first flight of the spaceship to see what they had learned and to brainstorm for possible improvements.
“We have analyzed all of the flight data gathered on the maiden voyage,” said Alexandra. “Everything we have so far looks excellent.”
John said, “We accomplished quite a bit more than I expected on our first flight. I was expecting a flight more like a standard airplane than actually achieving a sub-orbital altitude. But I’m glad we did it as it should make our next mission much more interesting and hopefully easier. Next up, I’d like to see us achieve orbit and make a few passes around the Earth. This would be in preparation for a trip to the Moon. But I feel that first, we need a mission in a vacuum and zero gravity to test the systems further.”
“That sounds very good,” said Alexandra. “Though we’ve discussed it already, the trip to the Moon sounds amazing. That’s what my team and I were talking about. Have you had time to verify that all your equipment is operating at a nominal level? We have inspected the ship to make sure there is nothing wrong with it mechanically or structurally. The ship is ready for the next mission.”
“Yes,” said John. “All of our equipment is shipshape, so to speak.” He smiled. “Although, from our first flight, we found some recorded information which helped us to positively tweak some of our equipment. This should help to make it operate even better on the next mission. When will your team be ready for our next flight?”
“We had tentatively suggested next Thursday at 9 AM,” said Alexandra. “How does that fit in with your schedule?”
“That should work fine,” said John. “We’ll be here at seven to prepare the ship and make some adjustments.
The following Thursday at 7 AM, John and his team were at the ship and ready to start work along with Alexandra and her people. John’s crew was there to make adjustments to their equipment to improve its performance. There were no significant changes, but the effects of the updates they installed could be measured on this next flight to see if they did, indeed, improve the performance of the ship.
One of the main points of this mission was that Jose was going to teleport to the ship while in orbit. This would be a huge step forward for the project.
It took them the full two hours from seven to nine to finish their tweaking and feel satisfied with the results. Everyone strapped in, and the ship pulled out of the hangar to the point from which it would take off. They had activated the invisibility mode to cloak the ship and protect the passengers from radiation.
Abigail, Mark, and Joanne had discussed the upcoming flight during the preceding week, and they had agreed that Mark would fly the ship on his own, with help from Abigail only if necessary. During the takeoff and subsequent flight, Mark would handle the controls with Joanne ready to step in should Mark have any missteps or need any help with the gravity engine. He had followed Abigail’s movements on the previous mission, and felt comfortable with his role as pilot during takeoff and the ascent.
Now Mark sat in the pilot’s seat and said, “Initiating takeoff with 0.3 vertical acceleration followed by 0.2 forward acceleration”.
“Roger 0.3 vertical acceleration and 0.2 forward acceleration,” said Bob, Alexandra’s pilot and engineer on this flight. She had chosen Bob so that an additional member of her team could get some real-world experience on the ship. Steve was also on board.
The ship took off slowly and smoothly. Joanne had modified the antigravity engine so that any change introduced to the gravity power would be gradual enough to ensure a smooth transition from one velocity to another to ensure a smoother flight.
“Gradually increasing forward acceleration to 0.4 and vertical acceleration to 0.5,” said Mark.
“Acknowledging increased forward acceleration to 0.4 and vertical acceleration to 0.5,” said Bob.
The ship could have achieved the height of the orbit they wanted simply by rising vertically. However, it needed forward momentum to acquire and maintain orbit. So they took a flight path that increased their altitude at the same time it increased their forward speed. To maintain a low Earth orbit they needed a velocity of approximately 17,000 miles per hour. The gravity engine helped them achieve this speed smoothly and with a minimal sensation of forward momentum. They had worked out their trajectory so that their required altitude and speed for orbit would coincide.
Mark continued making alterations to their flight path as needed. They had calculated that their projected path would put them into orbit approximately 45 minutes after takeoff. This was an extreme contrast with the space shuttles, which reached orbit in only eight and one-half minutes after take-off!
John’s ship had to reach an extremely fast speed, just as the space shuttles did. But their speed was reached steadily and incrementally. They could have reached orbit more quickly, but this was very early in the game for them. They did not want to stress any of the ship’s systems until they were sure that all of their equipment performed as needed. Besides, they were in no hurry.
The 45 minutes went by amazingly fast, even though most of the crew members were mentally holding their breath. Mark said, “Orbit achieved. Gravity vertical and horizontal acceleration at 0. Gravity engine neutral.”
“Roger,” said Bob.
Everyone broke out into applause, and Abigail said, “Great job, Mark!”
This mission was designated to perform at least several orbits and monitor all of the equipment for anomalies. Each orbit would take them approximately ninety minutes
, and if things went well, they might add another orbit or two to their trip. For now, each member of the crew was glued to the nearest available window to get a view of the Earth from the ship. Everyone was mesmerized. They were much higher than they were before. It was one thing to see sights like this in pictures; it was an entirely different thing to see it in actuality. After a few minutes, one by one – but reluctantly – each crew member pulled themselves away from the windows and began to concentrate on the tasks at hand. Everyone had something to do; if this mission went well, their next trip would be to the Moon, so if there were any glitches, anomalies, or errors, this was the time to find them. As before, they were recording everything about their flight. Once they were back on the ground, they could revisit any time period with any of the equipment on the ship. However, if there were any issues, the best time to find them was during the flight (with the hope that there would be no significant issues), because the crew would have the opportunity to make sure they could be corrected.
