by Jeff Pollard
“Oh yeah, what's my charity do?”
“It raises money. . .to help people,” K replies, running a hand down her thigh, trying again to begin the seduction.
“Abort, abort,” Caroline says, brushing his hand off of her.
“That's right isn't it?” K asks defensively.
“Name one charity that doesn't raise money for the generic goal of helping people,” Caroline says indignantly.
“NAMBLA?” K asks, referring to the North American Man Boy Love Association, which, yes, is a real thing.
“I don't think NAMBLA is a charity. Come on, you can do it,” Caroline beckons. K kisses her neck again. “Not that,” she shrugs him off. “If you can't tell me what my charity does, then no sex for you tonight.”
“It's a charity for helping,” K buys time, “women,” he watches her response, looking for any possible hint, “with women's things.”
Caroline rolls over, giving K the cold shoulder. “I hope you have some kind of launch abort system for that thing.”
“I do, it's called Operation Friction Stir Welding,” K replies. “But I can't go to the thing tomorrow.”
“Why not?”
“I'm going to Vegas,” K replies.
“What for? Visiting the old penthouse? Seeing how many strippers you can bang in one night for old time's sake?”
“I'm meeting with Bigelow.”
“You're meeting your gigolo?” Caroline asks.
“Bigelow, as in Bigelow Aerospace, as in, the Budget Suites of America guy. We're launching their inflatable habitat module on the first Eagle Heavy in a few months.”
“You're not coming to my thing?” Caroline asks, rolling back over to face K and show him her pouty face.
“You might be able to convince me to push back the meeting,” K says seductively.
“That was the least sexy thing you've ever said,” Caroline replies. “What do you call it in your head when you come up with a plan to try to seduce me?”
“Operation Specific Impulse,” K replies instantly.
“I can't tell if you're just quick on your feet or if that's really what you call it.”
“That's what I called it tonight.”
“What was it last night?”
“Operation Moon Spank.”
“Here's our mockup of the Bigelow Space Hotel,” Bob Bigelow says pensively as he leads Kingsley into a brightly lit warehouse with three large inflated mockups docked together around a central node. Bob was born in 1945, grew up in Vegas, and looks like the actor Tom Skerritt, with flowing steel gray hair. The complex consists of two Sundancer modules, and a larger and more imaginatively named BA330 module. The modules are white with thin yellow striping, and each module has a few small windows which are recessed slightly into the inflated exterior.
So far Bigelow has two inflatable habitat modules in orbit, but both of those modules are smaller versions used for unmanned tests. Genesis I and Genesis II both weighed about 3,000 pounds, and when inflated provided about 11 cubic meters of volume or about 400 cubic feet. By comparison, that's roughly double the internal volume of an Apollo capsule. However, neither Genesis I or II were ever meant to be manned, and both have already stopped functioning since being launched in 2006 and 2007 respectively. From there, Bigelow planned a follow-up called Sundancer that would provide 180 cubic meters of space (6357 cubic feet) when inflated and would provide all that space with a liftoff mass of only eight and a half tonnes, and thus would have easily fit within the payload of a single Eagle 9 launch. By comparison, the entire International Space Station has a usable volume of 837 cubic meters. In other words, with just five launches on Eagle 9s, five Sundancers would provide more internal volume than the entire ISS for a tiny fraction of the price.
However Bigelow had canceled the Sundancer module years earlier, opting instead to develop the BA330, which stands for Bigelow Aerospace - 330 cubic meters.
“Wanna look inside,” Bob asks without waiting for an answer and walking up a rolling set of stairs that leads into a cut-away in the side of the habitat.
“I really need to get back to LA pretty soon,” K replies, not following.
“Come on, I'll show you around,” Bob's voice trails down the stairs behind him. K reluctantly follows.
“Why don't we go look at the real thing?” K asks as he steps inside. Bob climbs a ladder and slides into a phone-booth sized sleeping station at the top of the module.
“They won't let you climb in the real one,” Bob says.
The first Eagle Heavy launch is slated to launch a 20 tonne BA330 in five months, destined to be the last addition to the International Space Station, where it will be tested in space. NASA plans for missions beyond low-earth-orbit such as to near-Earth-asteroids, lunar orbit, Lagrange points, and even to Mars, to consist of Orion capsules to carry the crew during launch and re-entry, and lightweight inflatable modules to provide ample space for the crew to live in during the long duration mission. NASA needs to demonstrate that they can depend on an inflatable module before they send people on several month long trips where a failure of the habitat would mean cloistering the crew in the barely-bigger-than-Apollo Orion capsule, which would be especially troublesome if there was a crew of six aboard.
“The BA330 that's going up on the Heavy. Do you have a name for that other than BA330?”
“Nope,” Bob says.
“Why'd you stop naming things?” K asks, looking around inside the large module. It's far more roomy than the modules on the ISS.
“Hard to keep track of all the different versions,” Bob Bigelow replies. “We'd be in a meeting and talking about the Galaxy, and then somebody would ask, 'which one's the Galaxy?' Is that the 16 cubic meter or the 12 cubic meter? So we just started calling them by the numbers.”
“That's too bad, I loved the name Genesis Two,” K says as he looks out of a small window. “You could have had a whole series: Genesis-nine, Genesis-forty-six.”
“We've got a name for the next one,” Bob says. “The BA2100. Almost triple the size of the ISS. She would have been 70 tonnes. I called her Olympus.”
“Would have been?” K asks.
“That's why I wanted to meet with you in person,” Bob says, facing the ceiling, perhaps pretending to be sleeping in an orbital hotel. “NASA pulled the plug on the BA330.”
“You mean the 2100, the Olympus,” K corrects.
“Nope. The 330. Pulled the plug,” Bob says quietly.
“We're launching it in five months! You're paying me 150 million dollars to launch it. Are you telling me you're pulling out of the contract five months before launch!? We're supposed to start payload mating in six weeks! I can't find a new payload that fast.”
“I'm sorry, but Congress killed the funding,” Bob says with a sigh, looking around at a broken dream of a space hotel that wasn't to be.
“You can still launch the thing. Screw NASA.”
“Without the NASA money, we don't have the money to pay for the rocket. We were counting on that contract. We've already got five more BA330s on the assembly line.”
“Well...” K sighs, looking around the module. “I've got space tourists but nowhere to send them. How about I launch it for half-price?”
“Without that NASA money, we're bankrupt in eight months.”
“What if I launch it for free?” K says.
“Afraid it won't help,” Bob says. “The last thing I wanted to happen was to go under and put all these people out of work. I did everything right. We started small. We didn't run too fast too soon. We proved the design in miniature, we scaled up slowly. We didn't even have direct competition. Nobody else is making these, and there's a need for low-weight high-volume space habitats. We were poised to have people in space in one of our module in a few months. And from there, it would have been smooth sailing. And then the whole thing comes crashing down because of congress. God damn penny-pinching assholes. Those dicks who keep talking about big government this,
big government that, and then they slash the budget to NASA and just like that they've put me out of business and sending six hundred people to the unemployment line.”
“Voodoo economics,” Kingsley says quietly. “This government is the lackey for big corporations. Until you get an army of lobbyists, you're at the mercy of these people. It amazes me how few Americans can see just how much their government is an agent of big corporations. I guess if you grow up with it, it's hard to see the trees for the forest.”
“I just wish there was something I could do to keep these people working. I might not be the nicest boss in the world, but I don't like throwing people out on the street.”
“I can't buy you out,” K replies.
“Why not? It's not like you don't have the capital.”
“I don't have the capital. I'm barely above water right now. I've got investors trying to kick me out of my own company. I'm pouring billions into making these things reusable, but it'll be years before we have anything to show for it. I've got tourists interested, but no place to send them. I was counting on you to make the destination. I'm making the rocket and the spaceship, can't you make the hotel?” K walks out of the module and back onto the smooth concrete floor of the warehouse. At a table nearby there are models of the different modules, as well as a model of the CSS Skywalker, the planned hotel with numerous inflatable modules and several spacecraft docked including a Griffin, a Dream Chaser, a CST-100, and what looks like a hypothetical SpaceShipThree.
Bob exits the hab and finds K holding the model.
“What if I practically give away the company?” Bob asks quietly.
“I can't take on your overhead. Besides, I'd need permission from my board and the Kokes would never go along with it.”
“Can't we work something out?”
“I don't know anybody that wants to buy a stake in a dying company, do you?” K asks.
“Fraid not.”
“We are in Vegas. You could put it all on black,” K says, looking at this model of a space hotel. “What were we even thinking? Of course NASA would change their mind. Of course Congress would slash budgets and cancel things. They had three more Apollo missions ready to go, they had the Saturn Vs, the command modules, the lunar landers. All that money on development. All those billions on those rockets, and they canceled three more lunar landings to save pennies on the cost of just launching the things. Of course they'd change their minds and screw us over. Why did we ever think things would be different?”
“People are ready for a space hotel,” Bob says.
Kingsley winds up and throws the little model against the wall. Plastic inflatable habs and spacecraft break apart, scattering across the floor. A piece of the model bounces off the wall and flies back at Kingsley, hitting his shoe.
“What really irks my ass,” Bob says as he sits down on the steps leading out of the mockup habitat, “is that some asshole Republican from Colorado who I've never heard of, went out on the floor of the House and made this speech about wasteful spending and how NASA spends millions developing space pens while the Russians just used a pencil-”
“Which is an apocryphal story,” Kingsley adds.
“Right, and then he cited Bigelow as another wasteful project, saying that apparently NASA's rocket scientists can't figure out that a balloon in space would be a bad idea. And he got a laugh! From Congressmen! They thought it was hilarious. Like, look at these idiots who want to go into space in a balloon that's ready to pop. But that's just ridiculous. That's why these things are so amazing. Those tin cans we use to build the space station are less safe. This thing has 36 layers of Vectran and liquid-crystal polymer fibers, interspersed with Kevlar and Nextel. The walls are 46 centimeters thick. We've fired steel BBs at these things at 20,000 mph, and they barely put a dent in them. These have more ballistic, thermal, and radiation protection than those tin cans, and they do it with a much higher volume-to-weight ratio. And in the vacuum of space, these things are harder than concrete. But apparently none of that matters to Congressmen who are too stupid to understand any of that.”
“I used to think politicians were dumb, I mean many of them are, but they're not motivated by ignorance. This Congressman, from Colorado you say? That's where ULA is headquartered. I'm guessing this isn't just a coincidence.”
“I really thought we were close,” Bob says.
K bends down and picks up the piece of the hypothetical hotel that bounced back at him. This piece is just a Griffin spacecraft and a single BA330 inflatable habitat.
“What'll it take to get her ready for the Eagle Heavy flight?” K asks.
“What? The BA330? She's 95% done.”
“I want to see her,” K says.
“Well, there she is,” Bob says unceremoniously as they walk into the final assembly area. It's vacant, the workers have gone home already. “We don't have the money to pay for the rocket, and even if we did, we'd be bankrupt in a few months anyway without someone buying the thing from us.”
“How about I buy it,” K offers. “I'll buy it from you, eat the cost of the launch, and then I'll have the beginnings of my own space station.”
“I mean, I'd love to do it. I'd love to see her in orbit, but unless you're ready to pay a hefty price, we'll be out of business soon. I'm thinking about taking the money we have to make that last six months of payroll and just laying everyone off now and giving them that money as severance now. Maybe then I won't feel so bad about failing.”
“What if I buy all five of them?” K asks.
“I'd need at least 150 million dollars to keep the company running. We were counting on getting 300 million from NASA for delivery of the 330 to the ISS, 150 of that was going to you for the rocket, and that left us with 150 million to keep us running.”
K looks back down at the BA330-Griffin model in his hand. “I can pay you thirty million a piece for each of the five of them. But I can't pay for them all right now. In fact, I can't pay you for any of them right now.”
“If we don't get money soon, I can't keep the company open.”
“How soon?”
“Look, you don't need to do this. I'm not a charity. You don't have the money to do this. You said yourself you're losing money hand over fist while you pay for all the new reusable rocket technology until it actually goes operational. That's the most important thing right now. Until launch costs go down, all the Bigelows and Sierra Nevadas will be at the whim of NASA and Congress. You need to do this. Don't throw it away trying to save me.”
“If I was in charge, I'd buy you out and keep this place open. But I can't authorize that kind of financial maneuver. On the other hand, I can still buy any spacecraft or rocket component I wish. That's in my power. I don't have the money right now, but give me a week. Keep this place open, keep working on that thing, which really needs a name by the way, I'm not going to keep calling it the BA330. I want it ready to fly when the Heavy is ready. I'll get you the money, 30 million each, spread out every four months. If I can swing that, can you keep open?”
“If you can find the money.”
“I guess I just bought a space station,” K says unceremoniously, almost wincing in pain, as if buyer's remorse had already set in.
“Rethinking it already?” Bob asks.
“No, just readying my body for tomorrow,” K says.
Brittany Hammersmith walks down a hallway toward Kingsley's office, but is startled when a man grabs her by the arm, yanks her into a closet, and shuts the door behind them. She pulls away, reaching for the door handle, only to be restrained by hands grabbing her wrists.
“It's me!” the man says.
“Me who?” Brittany demands, feeling the wall for a light switch.
“K.”
“Kingsley, what on Earth-” Brittany is interrupted as K puts a hand over her mouth.
“Shh, I need to ask you something, but not in my office.”
“But you can ask me in this closet? Where the
hell are we by the way? I didn't know we had a closet.”
“It's a janitor's closet or something,” K replies.
“You're not going to sexually harass me are you? Because you're about halfway there.”
“No, your wildest dreams aren't coming true today,” K quips. “I need to get my hands on about a hundred and fifty million dollars.”
“For what?”
“Bigelow inflatables.”
“Is that a kind of condom?” Brittany asks.
“You know what it is.”
“Why are we talking about this in a closet?”
“I don't want the Kokes to know about it. Bigelow is going under, I promised Bob I would buy all five modules from him, and oh by the way, they can't pay for the Heavy launch. I need to find the money to buy those modules to keep him in business and in return we get our own space station.”
“You think the Kokes bugged your office?”
“They might have a spy,” K whispers.
“You've gone mad.”
“I'm not paranoid,” K insists. “I'm not sure they bugged me, they might have, but I'm talking about maybe fudging the books a little, and that's not something I want to talk about with people around.”
“So you're fudging books now?”
“Sarcasm is not helpful,” K replies.
“Can I turn the light on at least?”
“I don't want anybody curious as to why there's a light coming from the closet.”
“I've never even noticed this closet. I can't imagine walking down the hall and saying, oh hey, the light is on in that janitorial closet, let's see who's whispering in there.”
“I need the money. Not all right now, but I need thirty million by the end of the week.”
“Can't have it,” Brittany replies.
“Please?”
“No, you idiot, you literally cannot have that much money. We're barely covering our own asses as it is, and you're telling me we aren't getting paid for this Eagle Heavy flight? Of course you can't have it. No amount of fudging will create thirty million dollars, unless that's some kind of slang I don't understand, or you're planning on opening Kingsley's solar powered chocolate factory.”
