by Jeff Pollard
“He's too old to get it,” K says, turning to Caroline. “I don't think he even knows how to use the Internet,” K adds. “Which reminds me, uh, Arnold, Dick, yeah, remember that you're wearing a camera on your head, so try not to embarrass yourself on the tubes.”
“Uh oh,” Arnold mutters.
“I'm sure there's a guy on the ground that cuts off the live stream feed as needed,” K says. “Probably.”
With the greetings and the tour concluded, it was time to do some work. The crew of Griffin 7 headed back to their capsule to unpack supplies from the storage containers lining the inner walls of the Griffin capsule. They formed up like a bucket brigade. Tim extracted a white package about the size and shape of a duffel bag and handed it up to Kingsley positioned just beneath the Griffin docking port. Kingsley then passed the bag up through the docking part, guiding it for a zero-g journey to Arnold in the Harmony. Arnold would catch the bag coming from beneath him, then either pass it forward to Richard in the Destiny, or hand it off to Caroline beside him if the bag was destined for the Harmony. Richard caught incoming bags in the Destiny then handed them off to Oleg, Sergey, or Michael as they decided where to send the supplies. Tim would call off the contents of the package as he extracted it and passed it to Kingsley behind him. Kingsley would call out the name as he passed the package and so on the game of telephone carried on.
A bag would arrive in Richard Branson's hands after a long pass from Arnold and Arnold would call off, “Water,” as the bag sloshed to a stop in Richard's hands. Michael took water bags to the Tranquility module which was the environmental control center of the US side of the station, where he would add the water to the station supply. Several packages contained food for the Griffin crew which were new SpacEx prototypes. Space food typically comes in a dried form in a pouch and is prepared in space by adding hot water. Food bags were sent to the Unity. Several bags contained fresh fruit; peaches, apples, pears, bananas etc, and it's ISS tradition that everyone aboard shares any fresh foods that arrive on station no matter the source, and every time Arnold sent a package through the hatch and called out that it contained fresh fruit it was music to the ears of the Expedition 38 crew.
Each passenger on Griffin 7 was allowed a single bag two feet long and about a foot across weighing no more than 40 pounds for personal items. Arnold handed off personal bags to Caroline for her to stow away as the Harmony module contains the sleeping quarters for astronauts on the US side. There were four sleeping quarters in the Harmony, each a little bigger than a telephone booth. The sleeping quarters were sound-proof and ventilated because a sleeping astronaut can actually find themselves in a bubble of their own exhaled carbon dioxide; luckily you will probably wake up choking before you actually suffocate. The quarters also provide a desktop big enough for a laptop, with bungees and Velcro to secure items, a light, as well as mesh netting to hold items against the walls. They of course also contained a sleeping bag to keep a sleeping astronaut secured, and padded walls for safety.
The Russian side also contained two sleeping areas in the Zvezda. The Russian sleep stations had the luxury of windows, but were not nearly as sound proof nor as well ventilated. Whenever the crew exceeded six, visitors would simply attach a sleeping bag to any available wall space somewhere in the station and sleep without much trouble. Since Oleg and Sergey were already at home in the Russian quarters, the only spaces available were in the Harmony module where Michael was only occupying one of the four. That meant the five person crew of Griffin 7 had three sleeping quarters to fight over. However the fight was short-lived as Tim and Kingsley volunteered to allow their passengers, some of whom were paying customers, to take the quarters while Kingsley and Tim would simply shack up their sleeping bags to an available wall space. An astronaut could of course sleep floating freely, though they might bump into something and either damage equipment or themselves.
After unloading, the eight person crew of the joint Expedition 38/Griffin 7 mission gathered in the Unity module for dinner. It was a boisterous and jubilant environment. The thrill of weightlessness combined with the thrill of not dying horribly create a kind of euphoria and comradeship in space. For Kingsley, it was an amazing achievement; going into space on a rocket he designed and visiting the ISS in a spacecraft he designed. It was all coming together. For most people, going into space is a memorable event, something to cherish. But for K, this marked a major milestone in his life. The culmination of more than a decade of work and a sign that it wasn't all for nothing. Even if his space program went under tomorrow, at least he will have come this far. But here it was, the event that showed that he was truly on track for a retirement on Mars and the achievement of his life's goal. . . And yet something was missing. Caroline knew it, but the others probably couldn't tell.
After a late dinner it was time to sleep. Tim went to the Griffin where he would sleep in a sleeping bag strapped into the pilot's seat. “A pilot stays with the ship,” Tim would say. Richard, Arnold, and Caroline packed away into their rather roomy sleeping quarters. Oleg and Sergey retreated to the Russian side. Kingsley however was left with freedom to choose where to sleep. He took his sleeping bag and went in search of a nice quiet place to set his anchors away and try to sleep. K floated his way into the Cupola, and despite it being late at night for the crew of the station, the brightly lit Earth below didn't care. K attached his sleeping bag to the side of the cupola and put his arms inside, he floated effortlessly in the bubble of the cupola with his eyes fixated on the Earth moving past silently.
K tried to stay awake and enjoy the view, but before long, his space hangover and busy morning caught up with him.
The next morning the crew was awoken, as per NASA tradition, by music played through the spacecraft. Of course space-related songs were a favorite but those quickly ran out and they switched to mostly songs that have special meaning to the crew or relates to the mission at hand. Each member of Griffin 7 was asked for three songs more than a month before launch. Their choices were kept a secret from each other, providing a small surprise for the crew each morning. For day two of Griffin 7, the crew awoke to “The Gloaming” by Radiohead. “The Gloaming” was a song Caroline picked weeks earlier when she and Kingsley were still together. She chose it because the two of them met at a Radiohead concert at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where they had their first fleeting intimate moment together, sharing a cigarette and listening to “The Gloaming.”
Caroline had forgotten about her song selection and so it didn't occur to her to correct the mistake. So it was on the second day of the mission that Kingsley and Caroline were both awoken by a reminder of what they once had. For Caroline, it was bittersweet, but she tried to forget it and go about her business without letting it affect her. It had quite a different effect on Kingsley, putting him into a bad mood that would persist for the rest of the day. Even in the moments when he had forgotten about the reminder, the bad mood would pervade his psyche.
It started with the post-launch debriefing at 9. The main topic was the failure of engine 4 during the first stage, which resulted in the engine partially disintegrating. Footage from ground-based tracking cameras had played live across the world, looking up at the nine engines when suddenly engine 4 seemed to explode. In reality, it didn't explode, it was shut down by the flight computer.
“And when the engine suddenly stopped producing thrust,” the First Stage Control officer says, “then the thrust structure above it, including the aerodynamic sheath jutting out from the base of the rocket, went from being under a lot of compressive force, to suddenly having no thrust. Which means it went instantly from compression to tension as that section became dead weight. We believe that rapid change from compressive to tensile forces compromised the structure of the engine mount. And that in the face of super-sonic winds, this caused a visible shock wave that looked like an explosion.”
“So it didn't actually explode, it just looked bad on TV?” K asks.
“Right.”
&
nbsp; “Do we know why?” K asks.
“Well, the flight computer shut it down due to off-nominal chamber pressure readings, but we haven't yet determined the origin of that. We're going to inspect the stage in an hour, give us a day and we'll get back to you.”
“Alright,” K says. “What about FSR (first stage return), how was the splashdown? Are we gonna get a good look at the first stage or was it damaged?” K asks, knowing full well that the splashdown went fine and that against orders, Josh Yerino had attempted a powered descent rather than relying on the parachutes.
“Splashdown was excellent,” Josh says.
“Good chutes?”
“Great chutes,” Josh replies. K's eyes dart to Tim at his left.
“What was splashdown velocity?” K asks.
“Umm, I don't have the figure handy,” Josh says, looking through paperwork.
“Josh,” K says.
“Yeah boss?”
“I know you did a powered descent.”
“Oh,” Josh says simply.
“Yeah, I know the splashdown velocity. I know the chutes weren't used. Stop lying to me.”
“Sorry, K.”
“That's Mr. Pretorius to you,” K replies.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did I, or did I not order you to call off powered descent?”
“You did,” Josh says, scared now.
“So why did you do it?”
“I was confident that the powered descent would work, and if it didn't, I had my finger hovering over the abort button to deploy the chutes. I was going to be extra careful and quick on the trigger if it didn't look right, but it went perfectly.”
“That's not an answer,” K says sternly.
“I'm sorry?”
“Why did you disobey a direct order?” K asks.
“Well...umm,” Josh looks around the room for an excuse. “Well it worked didn't it? I mean, no harm no foul?” Josh immediately regrets saying that.
“Tell me why you disobeyed a direct order,” K commands. Josh, panicked, looks for an answer in the faces of his co-workers, none of whom jump to his defense.
“K,” Tim says simply from beside Kingsley, telling him to go easy.
“Tell me why you disobeyed my direct order, or you're fired,” K says.
“Well, umm,” the panicked 26 year old feels like he's twelve again, being scolded by a teacher.
“Kingsley,” Caroline says from two seats over. She had seen the friendship K had with Josh, and now this?
“I umm, well you were in a stressful situation. I knew that you weren't exactly yourself because of the night before, the rush, and then the fact that you were serving as Flight Engineer and you knew the world was watching. I know you're paranoid about what the press thinks about you, about how you say you're the chief designer and you don't want people to think you're just a credit hog or it's vanity. So with all that going on, to lose an engine on your watch as flight engineer probably made you even more paranoid and unwilling to take risks. You were scared that you'd make the wrong call on TV and that would reflect poorly on you, especially given the night before and that morning. . . so you made the safe choice, because you can't be faulted for being cautious, but if you take a risk and lose then it becomes a story. So I figured that if you were on the ground, if you were in my shoes, you would have attempted powered descent anyway.”
“So you think I was being selfish?” K asks.
“I didn't say selfish,” Josh replies quietly.
“Paranoid and selfish, covering my ass, that's why I made that call? That's it, you're fired. I can't run a company if my subordinates think they can disobey me because they think they're my psychologist.”
“But...I mean, it worked. Seriously, you would have done that.”
“I would have, in fact, I did order that powered descent be called off because I didn't want to risk losing the stage when we had an engine failure. We have to figure out what happened to engine 4, or else we risk losing future rockets. So if you think I called it off because I didn't want the press sniffing around why I was late to the launch, then you need to shut the hell up. I called it off because I don't want the world to watch Justin Timberlake and Robert Downey Jr. blow up on TV inside a rocket I designed. Now get the hell out of my building. You're fired!”
The rest of the debriefing was rather uneventful and subdued, perhaps because the ground controllers witnessed a colleague being fired and they weren't exactly in the mood for more than simple, laconic responses. After the debrief, Brittany Hammersmith came on to talk to Kingsley.
“There's a problem with Tezla,” Brittany says. “There was legislation introduced in five state houses yesterday.” Hammersmith lets this news sink in for a moment before saying more.
“Go on,” K says testily.
“It's just like North Carolina, it makes it illegal to sell new cars outside the dealership system. All the legislation is essentially verbatim, it was probably written by a lobbyist.”
“God dammit,” K says simply. “Which states?”
“South Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Oklahoma, and Utah.”
“Why did you yanks fight so hard to keep the South? Seriously, it's just as backwards now,” K says, turning to Tim.
“What's this about?” Commander Bowe asks.
“They're attacking Tezla,” K replies. “The whole idea of a car dealership is that it lets people see the cars, test-drive them, it's advertising. But now we live in the future, where people can read reviews, they can see every square centimeter of a car online before they ever go to a dealership. And Tezla cars have a hell of a reputation, so we don't need the advertising, we don't need some middleman taking a cut of our profits, and besides, we just don't deal in enough volume yet for it to make any sense for us to open up hundreds of dealerships. So we deal cars totally online, no middleman.
In North Carolina about two years ago, the car dealer lobby, and yes, they have a lobby, paid off enough politicians to pass a law saying you can't sell a new car unless it's through a dealership. So basically the dealerships are using corrupt politicians to protect their businesses and screw me over. So now, a predictable list of states are joining in. Oklahoma and South Carolina are home to some big oil companies. Utah is home to the company that makes the solid rocket boosters for the shuttle and now for the SLS. Alabama is where the external fuel tank is made. Orbital Sciences is based in Virginia. I mean, with a list like this, you might think Texas and Florida would be joining in, but we're in talks with Texas to build a new launch facility, and of course we have a lot of business in Florida, so those states don't want to mess with me. I mean, these are the same people that yell and scream about the wonders of the free-market, while at the same time they're behind the scenes rigging it in their favor. It's the status-quo. The status-quo will always have political power because they have the money. If they can't beat you in the free-market, they'll make your business illegal.”
“Right,” Hammersmith says. “The Tezla lawyers are saying they can try to challenge the law, but they aren't optimistic that they can get it overturned.”
“Call them off,” K says. “I don't want to throw away millions trying to challenge some bullshit law and losing. Call them off. We'll beat them some other way.”
For the next few hours, K quietly stewed, trying to think of a way to get back at those states trying to ban the sale of Tezla cars. And then the idea hit him.
“I've got it,” K says, interrupting a boisterous conversation at lunch.
“Got what?” Tim asks.
“I make a response video of me in space telling the people of those states that they've elected corrupt idiots,” K replies.
“I can channel Brittany and tell you that you probably shouldn't go attacking politicians in five states,” Tim replies.
“They won't be in power much longer if the people in their states knew how corrupt they were, and what better way to get your message out than a video from space?” K asks. There's no response from
the gallery. “Alright then it's settled. Tim, go tell Michael to push up EVA suit retrieval.”
“Yes sir,” Tim says, following orders. One of the missions of Griffin 7 was to test out the new SpacEx EVA spacesuit. The company had developed its own spacesuit based on advances studied by NASA in recent years but not yet implemented. Since this was technology untested in space, the Griffin 7 mission was to perform simple tests on two space suits of slightly different design. The suits were carried to orbit in the Griffin Trunk, tucked away in the aft cargo compartment. To retrieve cargo from the trunk, they would use one of the station's robotic arms to pluck the cargo from the trunk and deliver it into an airlock where it could be brought on board. There was more cargo aside from the spacesuits, such as four cargo blocks with breathing oxygen and a container of Ammonia that would be used to replenish the ISS's radiative cooling apparatus which had a history of leaking precious Ammonia off into space.
“So guys, help me with this video. I'm thinking you film me from the Cupola as I float by outside, and say something clever. I mean, it's a video beamed down from space, of a spacewalking billionaire with his own space program, who's trying to let you buy electric cars. It's the fucking future. That's cool. So what should I say?”
Richard, Caroline, and Arnold look at each other, having no idea what to tell Kingsley.
Tim returns with Michael Hopkins in tow.
“Michael, what do you think about this? I float by the Cupola, and from my space suit I say. . . Citizens of the Carolinas, Utah, Alabama, Virginia, and. . . line?”
“Oklahoma,” Tim says.
“Oklahoma! Citizens of those awful places. Your state governments are trying to make it illegal for you to buy an awesome new electric Tezla car. So in a few years, when the rest of the country are driving awesome electric cars, you'll still be stuck with your shitty Fords. Maybe you should think about why you elected corrupt dickhole politicians in the first place. Hope you like smog! ”
