Moon For Sale

by Jeff Pollard

  “I used to imagine teaching my sixteen year old daughter to drive. Guess that's not going to happen, huh?” Caroline muses.

  “Not every car is self-driving,” K says.

  “Right,” Caroline replies.

  “That's not really what she was saying,” Hannah adds from the back seat, alongside Griffin.

  “You don't need to help him,” Caroline says, looking back out the window, at the matrix of electric cars, some Tezla, but most of them Fords and Hondas and traditional brands, all now looking like Kingsley had a hand in their designs. The car politely excuses itself from the convoy and finds an exit ramp. They head through a neighborhood, every house seems to have a roof covered in solar panels, many of them on rent or purchased outright from a company Kingsley founded. The car reaches its destination thanklessly, and the party exits the Tezla. They walk through the house and into the backyard, arriving at a BBQ thrown by Tim and Makayla Bowe.

  The Bowes have two daughters, both younger than Griffin. Caroline sits with Makayla, who she has become good friends with, sipping tea, and watching Griffin make every attempt to avoid interacting with the girls. Hannah takes away his Oculus headset and forces him to socialize to his chagrin.

  “He'd never talk to another person if he could help it,” Hannah says, exasperated, sitting back down at the ladies' table. The men all huddle around the meat and the fire pit.

  “You ever talk to...umm, I forgot her name,” K says.

  “Gonna need a little more of a hint than that,” Tim says as he throws the steaks on.

  “Travis's, not widow, but, almost widow.”

  “She kept up with Makayla for a while. I think she moved back to Vancouver about a year or two ago. She gave us the meteorite rings that Travis got for them. Said she didn't want them anymore. I've got 'em in a box upstairs.”

  “What a thing that was,” K adds.

  “Yeah,” Tim says laconically. “How's Griffin doing?” He asks, changing the subject.

  “He's training for a Mars landing,” K says. “He wants to be the Doogie Howser of astronauts. And he could do it too.”

  “You and Caroline still trying?” Tim asks. K looks over his shoulder and then just shakes his head. Tim drinks his beer and wishes he hadn't brought it up.

  “So what's the big occasion?” Makayla Bowe asks as the party settles in to eat.

  “I had a meeting in Houston yesterday,” K says cryptically.

  “And?” Tim asks.

  “They're all in a huffle about China,” K says, then takes a bite.

  “And?” Everybody asks.

  “We're accelerating the time-table,” K says.

  “How much?” Tim asks.

  “Chinese said they're gonna land in October. So the way I see it … August.”

  “August,” Tim says.

  “Figure ULA is trying to do it by September, so I want to beat them,” K says, then takes a bite of grilled asparagus.

  “So there's no backup lander, and no lunar station,” Tim surmises.

  “Not on the first mission, no,” K replies. “So what do you say, you still up for it?”

  “Of course,” Tim replies.

  “How about you?” K asks Caroline. They'd been planning the first SpacEx lunar landing for several years now. The announced crew was Tim as pilot, Kingsley as flight engineer, and Caroline as their passenger. She'd been all over the talk-show circuit both talking about space tourism and promoting her children's books. Kingsley had been worried that the general billionaire public would think of voyages to the Moon as too tough to be a vacation, and so he wanted to take along a delicate flower to show it wasn't a hardship. It didn't hurt that she was also a duchess and would generate instant free publicity. But when Caroline agreed to it, the mission profile included a lunar station complete with backup lander and Griffin, providing redundancies for every segment of the flight plan. But now with China...

  “I'm in,” Caroline replies quickly.

  “Don't even want to think about it?” K asks.

  “Nope,” Caroline says. “I'm in.”

  “I think we've talked enough business,” Makayla says anxiously.

  “You're really okay about going?” Makayla asks Caroline as they drink wine and sit near the fire pit, keeping warm while the Sun sets.

  “Yeah,” Caroline says like it's nothing.

  “I'm terrified of Tim going. I thought you'd be with me on this. Why these men feel the need to do these things. I don't get it. Why can't we just be happy living on Earth?” Makayla says. “You're really just fine with the trip, you're not anxious about it at all?”

  “Why should I be?” Caroline asks.

  “Because it's dangerous.”

  “What have I got to lose?” Caroline says.

  “Right,” Makayla says quietly. “Say, have you ever thought about. . . using a surrogate? Maybe Hannah would do it, you know, she kinda did that once already.”

  “Can we talk about something else,” Caroline says. She pulls a silver cigarette case from her purse and quickly lights up.

  Chapter 22

  February

  The first fully realized Griffin 3.0 sits atop an Eagle 9 at the SpacEx launch center in Texas, less than a mile from the Gulf of Mexico. The 3.0 is designed for operation beyond low Earth orbit. It's taller and wider than previous Griffins and lacks the trunk for carrying cargo. The Griffin 3.0 carries large tanks internally, in the wider, flared base of the capsule. With these internal tanks of methane and oxygen, the Griffin 3.0 features about 2.5 km/s of delta-v capability.

  The maneuver of slowing into lunar orbit and the symmetrical maneuver of leaving lunar orbit and returning to Earth each require about 700 m/s of delta-v, leaving the Griffin 3.0 with fuel to spare for plane changes or to leave behind at a lunar fuel depot. The Griffin 3.0 features a heat-shield capable of returning the craft from Mars, four of the new mini-Raptor engines which burn methane and are sized for being able to lift the Griffin 3.0 off from the surface of Mars.

  While the Griffin 3.0 ostensibly fills the role of the Apollo Command Module, ferrying crews to and from lunar orbit and not landing, unlike Apollo the Griffin could actually land on the Moon. It is equipped with deployable landing gear which are primarily to be used for powered landing on Earth. A Griffin 3.0 at the end of its life can be sent on a one-way mission to the lunar surface (but lacks the fuel capacity to take back off). At Mars, it can land people or cargo, then be refilled with fuel and be fitted with atwenty-tonne tank of methane and oxygen beneath the capsule's heat-shield. The Griffin's engine are capable of overcoming Mars gravity to lift the 40 tonne vehicle. Once in Mars orbit, the fuel tank is discarded and the Griffin 3.0 can then return itself to Earth with its 2.7 km/s of delta-v. Thus, the Griffin 3.0 is designed to be the first ferry to take humans to Mars, and the ferry will then return to Earth empty. To bring people home, they would need a far larger and more robust spacecraft than just this small Griffin, not to mention supplies to sustain them over a period of up to eight months.

  This, the first Griffin 3.0 to fly, is going unmanned. The capsule is filled to the brim with cargo destined for Excalibur. With its full complement of internal fuel, the Griffin 3.0 weighs 17 tonnes and was sized to be at the high-end of the Eagle 9's payload capacity.

  Kingsley watches the feed from the mission control room at SpacEx headquarters in California as the Eagle 9 lifts off in Texas and the first of the really capable Griffins takes to the sky. Two minutes into the flight, the first stage shuts down. The newer upper stage that burns methane instead of kerosene, producing a better specific impulse, ignites and the Griffin speeds away from the first stage. A few seconds later, the first stage re-lights for a very short burn downrange. This Eagle 9 is not returning to its launch site, rather, it is landing at a new SpacEx facility in Florida. It requires almost no fuel to direct the first stage toward the landing site that was built down-range from the Texas launch site specifically for this purpose
.

  As the second stage powers the Griffin 3 up to orbital speed over the Atlantic, the first stage is making a suicide burn and a successful landing at pad in Florida. Within a few hours, after venting the tanks, a moving crane takes the Eagle 9 and places it on a barge. The barge has a sliding roof which then covers its precious cargo before the barge heads back to Texas. The Eagle 9 will be back in the servicing building in Texas in less than 24 hours. However it can't simply be refilled and reflown. Each of the nine engines must be completely inspected. There are computer diagnostics, x-rays and other scans to detect internal cracks, and the sharp eyes of mechanics. Once all the engines and fuel tanks have been fully checked out, the Eagle 9 is taken to a static test site where the tanks are pressurized and the engines turned on for a thirty second burn. Anomalies are often found in chamber pressures or turbo-pump performance. Any engine found to have a problem is removed from the stage.

  Once a stage has been certified to be flight ready again, it has usually been about two months since it last flew. The procedures are improving every day. So far, reused stages have only been used on unmanned and low-priority missions.

  The SpacEx business has been split in half. High-priority missions like manned flights to the ISS or Excalibur and launches for NASA or the Air Force are given brand new rockets. The price for a new Eagle 9 is just over 60 million dollars. Once a rocket performs an important mission, it is then transferred to the other half of SpacEx for refitting and reuse. The reusable branch of SpacEx has a completely different customer base and a much lower price. NASA, the DoD, and manned launches will not be risked on a reused rocket, nor would they be worth the insurance it would require. Some of these Air Force launches (in this context, Air Force is a euphemism for National Reconnaissance Office) are carrying spy satellites that cost far more than the rocket.

  However, there are plenty of less well-funded customers with cheap payloads that are willing to risk their cargo. A single Eagle 9 payload can loft many small satellites. Microsatellites can be as small as a few kilograms. This low-cost launch option has been a boon for scientific missions.

  The reusability branch of launch operations works with a completely different mindset. The expendable branch has payloads that cost more than their rockets, and they treat their launches like monumental events, checking everything hundreds of times, delaying the launch for any slight problem. They are like Lamborghini manufacturers. They are trying to attain perfection. The reusability branch is completely different. Their goal is to fly their rockets as often as possible. Reusability came online in 2018, and in the two years they've been running, they've done fifty-four launches with just 24 rockets. Three of the 54 launches have failed for various reasons. Several of the flights have lost a single engine, but been able to still complete their missions. After four completed flights, the Eagle 9 stage is taken out of service to be studied for flaws, imperfections, and to improve design and use. They have designed the stages and engines to be able to withstand at least 25 launches, but they are starting cautiously.

  Fourteen of those rockets flew three times for the reusability branch (four total) and were retired. Those rockets are in various stages of disassembly, study, storage. Once they learn all they can learn, the rocket stages are handed off to SpacEx's marketing department. There are three Eagle 9 first stages standing upright in front of SpacEx headquarters on their landing gear, showing essentially an Eagle Heavy. Both LCFs in Florida and Texas have a museum piece out front. Kingsley's favorite display piece is an Eagle 9 first stage which he had planted on the very edge of his property. The rocket stage is less than fifty yards away from the Travolta household, the closest Kingsley could possibly place it, thus at least somewhat fulfilling his threat of landing a rocket on Travolta's house.

  This leaves seven Eagle 9 first stages in the inventory of the Reusability Branch, and number eight is headed their way on a barge from Florida. The limiting factor for them is not the first stages but the second stages. The upper stage reaches Earth orbit before performing a slight burn to de-orbit itself. The top of the second stage is covered in PICA-EX material that protects it during re-entry. The second stage then lands back at SpacEx headquarters in Hawthorne, on one of a series of pads that had been originally used for Grasshopper tests, and now serve as the final destination for both upper stages and Griffins returning from orbit.

  Second stages are serviced at headquarters and then shipped to Texas. Servicing of the second stage is a more delicate process. Losing an engine on an Eagle 9 is not a mission-killer. But losing the only second stage engine is a mission-killer, and thus, the second stage engines need a higher degree of scrutiny. Not only are they more important, they also go through a much more demanding mission than the first stage engines. Eventually they hope to return second stages to Texas and do the servicing there, but for now, they are being handled in Hawthorne. This more intense procedure is the choke-point in the reusable Eagle 9 supply line, and that's why they have seven first stages on hand in Texas but only one second stage.

  The second stage delivers the first Griffin 3.0 to a 153 by 234 kilometer orbit. The second stage waits about thirty minutes, till it reaches its apogee of 234 kilometers, then it burn to lower its perigee. Less than two hours after launch, the second stage is re-entering over the Pacific ocean.

  Kingsley watches from his office as the second stage lands just over a mile away. Meanwhile, the Griffin 3.0 is on its way to Excalibur. The space station now features five BA-330 inflatable modules that provide 1650 cubic meters of habitable space. Four of the five modules are docked to a hub, the fifth module is docked to the other end of another BA-330, forming a large cross. Each BA-330 has its own set of solar panels. There's also a prototype orbital fuel depot docked to the end of one of the BA330s, basically just a set of propellant tanks, and a docking mechanism that can transfer the fuel in either direction, and the whole assembly is coated in gold-colored Mylar that keeps it quite cool, absorbing very little heat from the sunlight it reflects.

  There are three Griffins already docked to the station, one for cargo, and two manned Griffins. The Griffin 3.0 docks and is unloaded by the crew of 7 which consists of two SpacEx personnel and five space tourists. Sergei Kuznetzov returned to Earth after three years in space, easily setting the manned endurance record. Once the cargo, mostly food, is unpacked, the hatch is replaced and the Griffin 3.0 is released.

  Twelve hours after launch, the spacecraft is ready to ignite its methane mini-Raptor engines. With no crew, no cargo, the spacecraft is lighter than it normally would be. With a full fuel load and this lower dry mass, the Griffin 3.0 has 3 km/s of delta-v.

  Kingsley watches from Mission Control in Hawthorne at two in the morning. The flight director on this mission is Josh Yerino. He is the one that gives the “go” for the Griffin to ignite her engines. It takes 4.1 km/s of delta-v to get from LEO to a lunar-transfer-orbit. The Griffin doesn't have that much delta-v, but with this burn, it will leave Earth and send itself some 150,000 miles away from Earth before coming back for a high-speed re-entry at near lunar-return velocity.

  Two days later, the Griffin 3.0 hits the Earth's atmosphere at speed of about 23,000 mph. It creates a fiery streak in the sky over the Pacific ocean as it dives into the atmosphere, then rolls, pulling back up, rising briefly, before diving back down toward its final destination at a landing pad in Hawthorne. The first step after landing is to vent the toxic reaction-control propellant from the tanks. The fuel used in the primary propulsion system is safe however and presents no danger.

  Kingsley is there, driving an electric cart toward the landed Griffin as soon as the Griffin is finished venting, arriving on the pad only five minutes after the Griffin landed. He's joined by two more electric carts full of engineers and technicians.

  K stops the cart and gets down on his knees to inspect the heat shield underneath the capsule. As velocity goes up, kinetic energy goes up exponentially (Kinetic energy = mass times velocity squared), thu
s an increase in re-entry velocity of just 40% can effectively double the amount of kinetic energy that needs to be dissipated. This is the first Griffin to leave low-Earth-orbit, and thus Kingsley is very interested in seeing how the PICA-EX heat-shield has handled the faster re-entry.

  An engineer follows K with a Dremel tool. The engineer cuts out a section of the heat-shield. “That's charred through only about 20% of the heat-shield,” the engineer says. The PICA-EX is supposed to be able to handle up to ten re-entries from Earth orbit, and up to five re-entries from lunar or martian return.

  “That sounds about right,” K says.

  “Yeah, she shouldn't have any trouble with three high-energy re-entries. But four or five might be pushing it.”

  “Well, let's get her back inside,” K says. The team gets to work preparing the Griffin for transport as a large truck approaches, ready to lug the Griffin inside. One technician climbs aboard the Griffin.

  “Branson on the line for you,” Hannah says from the passenger seat of K's electric cart.

  “I thought I said-”

  “He called your personal line,” Hannah anticipates Kingsley's thought.

  “What the hell does he want?” K asks as he sits down.

  “Why don't you ask him yourself?” Hannah says, handing the phone over.

  “Hey Dick,” K says.

  “Kingsley, come to Vegas, I'm arranging a little poker game you should be in.”

  “What's your angle?” K asks.

  “No angle, just come to Vegas, game starts at midnight. You know where.”

  “There you are!” Brittany Hammersmith says as she exits the elevator and walks out onto the roof of the SpacEx HQ. “Bad news, NASA just-” she stops in her tracks as she sees Kingsley wearing some strange girdle or harness of some kind. “What are you wearing?”