by Jeff Pollard
“You can't be afraid to call for an abort,” Tim says, scolding his passengers. “If any of the three of you had hit the abort button, the Griffin would have blasted away from the rocket, then safely landed under parachutes. Instead we're all dead because you hesitated.”
Kingsley smirks, “Stephanie, I think we're going to need a refill in here.” Arnold, Caroline, and Richard are bewildered and covered in Champagne and vomit.
Chapter 11
Cape Canaveral
4 days to Launch of Griffin 7
“Are we pushing too hard?” Travis Clayton asks Kingsley as the two of them walk through the huge open doors into the assembly hangar, where the first and second stages of Eagle 9-12 are being put together. Griffin 7 sits on a rolling cart, ready to be raised and mated to the horizontal rocket. “It's one thing if you and me and Tim have a hard landing and get rattled. It's quite another thing if three celebrities are shaken and battered by a rough landing and spend two weeks in the hospital. You injure a celebrity and you can kiss your space program good bye.”
“We're not pushing too hard,” K replies, as he eyes the mating of the two stages.
“We're putting the rocket together and we don't even know its destination yet,” Travis says.
“Would you relax,” K replies. “I'm sorry I bumped you from this flight, but you're commanding Griffin 8 with Justin Timberlake, Robert Downey Jr., and Scar-Jo, so relax alright.”
“I'm not concerned cause you bumped me, this isn't personal,” Travis replies. “Maybe we're just pushing too hard.”
“That's what Scar-Jo said last night,” K replies. Travis doesn't laugh. K's new assistant, Stephanie, rushes after them.
“K, you've got a call from Ms. Hammersmith,” Stephanie says.
“What does she want?” K asks as he climbs a ladder and closely watches as the stages come together.
“She wants to talk to you.”
“Just relay it,” K says. “Hey, watch for these cold-reaction-jets,” K says to a technician, “we haven't had these on here before, so just be careful around them.”
“She says NASA has offered to pay half the price, 110 million, because passengers weren't part of that deal,” Stephanie relays.
“No deal,” K replies.
“No deal,” Stephanie forwards the message. “She says you're an asshole. But, you weren't supposed to hear that.”
“Like I don't know she thinks I'm an asshole,” K says shaking his head.
“She says she's taking the deal, and if you think you can negotiate a better deal, then you do it yourself,” Stephanie relays.
“Fine, then I will, tell her I'm coming down there.”
K enters the conference room a few miles away from the SpacEx launch pad, where Brittany Hammersmith and several SpacEx lawyers have been negotiating with NASA higher-ups.
“Kingsley!” NASA Assistant Administrator for Public Relations, Michael Wasserman says excitedly, extending his hand toward K.
“Hey, this guy,” K says sarcastically, leaving him hanging. “This is as high as it goes for the negotiation? The Assistant Administrator for Public Relations?” K asks, flicking at Wasserman's badge.
“This is my purview as you are a member of the public with whom we are relating,” Wasserman says.
“It's just so telling, so fitting, that you lump in a company that puts people into space with the Orlando Sentinel as things that your PR department deals with. Nice to know you take us seriously.”
“Look, we're not here to talk about the NASA Bureaucracy, are we?” Wasserman asks. “So here's the deal, 110 million and-”
“Who are you talking to? You talking to me?” K asks, feigning ignorance.
“Yes?” Wasserman is confused.
“I'm sorry, NASA deals directly with the SpacEx Janitorial Department. Since that's what you guys do, right? You make trash in space and need somebody to take it out for you. So, I'll get Scruffy, the janitor, down here and you can deal with him.”
“Kingsley, this doesn't need to be a pissing contest,” Wasserman says dismissively.
“Okay, so not a pissing contest, let's be equals and discuss terms of our deal, as equals,” K says.
“Alright.”
“So SpacEx has presented the CEO of the company, go get your CEO.”
“I can't get the CEO,” Wasserman says.
“Oh, so we don't get to talk to the real decision makers, we get delegated to, is that right?”
“Kingsley, you made your point,” Hammersmith scolds.
“Have I?” K asks. “Because last time I checked, guys like this don't get to make decisions. They're told what to do and then they rigidly do it. That's why you never negotiate with someone who doesn't have the power to make a decision.”
“Just tell him,” Brittney says to Mr. Wasserman.
“So, as I was saying, we're offering 110 million, since the contract was designed to prove that SpacEx can deliver a human cargo, but we did not imagine you would be charging customers. Now we're providing a service, staying on our space station, which you are profiting from. For all intents and purposes, we shouldn't have to pay you a dime, since we should be charging you to use our station.”
“We had a deal that we deliver people to the station, proving we can do it, and in exchange you pay us 220 million dollars. So what part of this equation has changed exactly. This contract does not say a god damn word about what that human cargo is.”
“Look, K,” Wasserman says.
“You don't call me K,” K says.
“Mr. Pretorius, the contract was written up with the understanding that the passengers be SpacEx employees.” Kingsley whips his phone out, searching through his contacts. “What are you doing?”
“Who me?” K asks.
“Yes you.”
“Just a second,” K says, putting his phone to his ear. “Hey Arnold, would you go get me a coffee, I'll pay you twenty bucks to find me a decent espresso. Later.”
“What?”
“Hmm?” K plays dumb.
“What was the point of that?” Wasserman asks.
“Oh, I was just talking to one of my employees. Told him to get me some coffee, in return for money that I'm paying him. You might know my assistant, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He used to be in movies I think, but now he works for me.”
“You're not really trying to tell me that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a SpacEx employee are you?” Wasserman asks.
“Define employee,” K says flatly.
“Kingsley, we're not going to get anywhere with this kind of nonsense.”
“Really?” K asks. “How about this kind of nonsense. You will be paying me 220 million dollars in return for me proving that my company can transfer human cargo, as per our contract. If you decide to not honor this contract, then we will be suing you for the 220 million dollars, as well as the damages of wasting a 120 million dollar launch of a space capsule, as well as a refund of the 60 million dollars for our passengers who were denied the service of visiting the space station which you denied them illegally. That comes to 400 million dollars. So that's your choice, let us go and pay us 220, or don't let us and we're coming for 400 million, plus you know, using our ample time in the public spotlight to point out that NASA is a corrupt conglomeration of the military-industrial-congressional-pork-complex. It's up to you,” K says, walking toward the door and beckoning for all of the present SpacEx employees to follow.
The crew of Griffin 7, suited up in their orange and blue SpacEx flight suits, ride the elevator inside the launch tower, rising alongside their Eagle 9 rocket. The pilot and flight engineer wear orange with blue trim, while passengers wear blue suits with orange trim.
As they reach the top of the launch tower, two pad technicians open the elevator doors and lead the crew of five to the hatch on the side of Griffin 7. It takes a good thirty minutes to get all five astronauts snugly into their custom-molded cushioned seats and strapped in. They start on the pre-flight checklist, hitting the buttons, f
lipping the switches, following the hundreds of steps it takes to get a spaceship ready to fly.
“Alright, we're on internal power,” Kingsley says into the radio.
“T-Minus twelve minutes,” Pilot Tim Bowe says. The passengers look to each other, ready for their wait to be over.
“Terminal launch count auto-sequence has started,” Launch Control says over the radio.
“Griffin, confirm computer has started auto-sequence,” Payload Control requests.
“Confirm, clock is running,” Kingsley says.
“Griffin, switch launch enable to flight,” Payload control adds.
“Launch enable,” Kingsley says looking at his touchscreen, he presses and holds on the screen, changing the virtual switch to 'flight.' Previous spacecraft like the shuttle, Apollo, and Soyuz had banks of actual switches taking up a considerable amount of the cabin's volume. In the Griffin, nearly all the switches are on these touch screens. With real switches they had protective barriers, plastic covers, and other means to prevent accidentally tripping a switch by bumping into it when floating in zero-g. Touch screens are sensitive enough that you could quite easily bump into them and cause accidental input. For Griffin's touchscreens they have a few ways of preventing this. One is that many of the digital buttons require you press and hold for more than a split second, but holding too long won't work either. The touchscreens can also tell the difference between a warm finger and a clothed elbow or a piece of debris. To enable the astronauts to press buttons while in suits, the fingertips of their gloves are coated in a special conducting material that the computer can recognize. Additionally, the touchscreens can be locked with a manual switch to prevent accidental inputs. To top it all off, some inputs, those with serious enough ramifications, will prompt the user with an annoying, “are you sure?” And when those are activated it creates an alert in the corner of each astronauts screen as well as at mission control.
You might wonder why you would bother with all of the potential trouble of touchscreens, but the layout of the Griffin capsule is the payoff for this potential risk. During launch, when doing maneuvers, during re-entry and so on, the astronauts are in a cockpit with all of their necessary controls and information surrounding them. But once in orbit, the control consoles swivel back up snugly against the walls, and the seats are folded down into the “floor,” creating a roomy open space inside the cabin. This would be impossible with huge banks of manual switches.
“Pre-valves coming open,” Rocket Control says.
“Starting chill on first stage engines,” First Stage Control says. Kingsley, as Flight Engineer watches the data on all nine Arthur engines of the first stage. Each engine has several temperature sensors in various places. In order to keep the engine bell from overheating during flight, the cold RP-1 fuel is actually pumped through the walls of the engine bell before heading to the combustion chamber. More than 100 pounds of Kerosene races through the nozzle every second, and is able to absorb ten megaWatts of thermal energy, thus enabling the engine to burn hotter and for longer without overheating the metal of the nozzle. This is called regenerative cooling. The Space Shuttle Main Engines actually use cryogenically cold liquid hydrogen to cool the nozzle, which means you have an incredible range of temperatures, with liquid hydrogen at -418 degrees Fahrenheit (-250 Celsius) flowing through the walls of a nozzle that's containing combustion at 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit (3,315 degrees Celsius).
You need to use regenerative cooling in order to reuse an engine. If you aren't going to reuse it, you can use much simpler ablative cooling. Ablative materials are destroyed and in the process they dissipate the heat. This is how most heat-shields work. But they do need to be completely replaced and that may not be easy to do with an engine nozzle. The larger engine bell on the Arthur engine in the second stage of the Eagle 9 uses the standard nozzle with regenerative cooling, but then has an extension to the nozzle which is made of a niobium alloy that radiatively cools the nozzle extension, making the second stage vacuum Arthur theoretically capable of being re-used.
Kingsley monitors the temperature sensors, making sure the RP-1 is flowing and chilling each of the first stage engines. They all look good. . . at first.
“First stage,” K says, “check out the temperature sensors on Engine 3.”
“Roger, I'm seeing a temperature spike on 3,” the call comes back.
“Is the chill not working?” Bowe asks, “maybe there's a problem with flow.”
“Okay Engines 2 and 6 are showing spikes now too,” K says, alarmed. Bowe looks over, seeing the temperatures of Engine 3's neighbors starting to rise, and it continues spreading.
“We've got a fire,” Kingsley says.
“Activate the extinguishers,” Tim orders.
“Already did,” K replies. The passengers, bug-eyed, anxious, strain to look at Kingsley or Tim and get a read on what's happening. Kingsley eyes the temperature readings closely, waiting to see if the extinguishers have done their job. Seeing no positive change in the temperature sensors, Kingsley acts. “Emergency evac!”
Immediately all five astronauts quickly unstrap themselves from their seats. Tim and Kingsley are unstrapped first, having trained with these suits and seats for years now. Tim and K go to work unlocking and opening the hatch, a procedure they have down to less than six seconds. They remain at the sides of the hatch and give the passengers a boost out of the hatch and back onto the grated deck of the launch tower. Tim helps K out, then K turns around and gives Tim a hand, pulling him out. The pilot is always the last one out.
Caroline rushes to the other end of the tower platform, and jumps into a metal slide. The slide is a tube, a lot like those you'd find at a waterpark. It dives down from the launch tower at a staggering 76 degrees, not far off from a vertical 90 degrees. The bottom of the tube is flush aluminum, while the top half of the tube is grated with holes.
Caroline throws herself into the nearly vertical tube, picking up speed as she quickly descends. The tube flattens out, taking her farther away from the tower, finally settling on a 20 degree angle that carries her into the underground bunker more than a hundred yards away from the launch site. She flies out of the tube, landing on mats laid out on the landing. She quickly rolls to her left, giving room for Richard to land as he comes flying down right behind her. She gets up on her knees just as Richard comes in and lands on his butt on the mat. She helps him to roll out of the way as Arnold is right behind him. Arnold's huge frame crashes into the mat only two seconds after Richard. Without Caroline's help the astronauts would have collided.
The three passengers, suddenly finding themselves in an underground concrete bunker, are assaulted by a loud alarm and flashing red lights.
“Seal the tube,” a voice announces over an intercom. The three of them pull the circular cover away from the wall, closing it like a bank-vault-door over the tube opening, sealing them off from the outside world.
The fire from the exploding rocket could be chasing them down their escape tube and whether all of the astronauts have gotten out or not, if they order the door closed, you close the door.
Arnold, Richard, and Caroline lock the cover and get to their feet. There's a single door at the other end of the bunker that looks like it came from a submarine. The three of them sit in seats along the walls designed for people in space suits, since the heavy suits are difficult to stand in for very long. They have to keep their suits on until given the okay to take them off, which is done to protect them from the possibility of the exploding rocket breaching the bunker in some way. Richard activates the cooling system in the bunker to keep them from overheating in their suits while Arnold and Caroline connect a cable from the side of their seat into ports on their suits, connecting their headsets to launch control.
Back at the top of the launch tower, Tim had just jumped into the tube on his way down to meeting the closed door. He'll have to cushion the collision by bending his legs on impact. K stops short of the tube. He opens his helmet and takes in a
breath of fresh air. The two tower technicians are still there, on either side of the tube.
“What was their time?” K asks.
“From evacuation order to sealing of the hatch was thirty-five seconds.”
“Not bad,” K says. Had this been a real emergency the technicians would not have been there. If it were a real countdown, the tower is cleared of all personnel well before T-minus ten minutes. If an emergency evac is ordered while the tower personnel are there, then they would have helped the astronauts from the hatch to the tube and then followed after them down the rescue tube. Since this was a test of an emergency evac late in the countdown, the two tower technicians were there only as a safety precaution, but aren't allowed to help out.
“Give them the all clear to open the hatch,” K says. One of the techs communicates with the astronauts linked in to the loop in the bunker.
“It's open,” the tech replies. Kingsley then jumps into the tube for his quick ride down to the bunker. A ride he has taken dozens of times. He emerges from the tube, hitting the mats and rolling away as they are all trained to do, even if nobody is following after them.
“How was that ride?” K asks with a smile. The passengers are already removing their helmets and gloves as they have quickly gotten hot outside of the cool Griffin atmosphere.
“What's all this goo on my butt?” Caroline asks, rubbing her bare hands on the backside of her suit.
“That's what she said,” Arnold Schwarzenegger replies.
“That goo,” Kingsley says as he gets to his feet, “is butt lubricant. Turns out a metal slide sitting in the Florida sun all day will scorch your ass pretty good. So we keep the slide lubricated, and we also have those holes in the roof of the tube to allow it to ventilate so it doesn't turn into an oven.”
