Orbit

by John J. Nance

  So now it begins, she thinks. She had dreamed of being an astronaut and always thought she had ice water in her veins. Now she’s going to be tested.

  “This is Diana Ross, ASA’s PR director,” she announces sweetly, as if it was a routine day in the office. Suddenly she’s working hard to dredge up any information from her memory on this particular reporter.

  DiFazio has emerged from Mission Control down the corridor and is walking toward her with a grave expression, and she waves him to be quiet. He joins her silently, listening to her end of the conversation as she tries to convince the reporter in the calmest of tones that nothing in ASA’s world is amiss other than a nasty communications glitch.

  “Really?” is the skeptical reply from the Beltway. “Then why am I looking at a live picture of your Mission Control and seeing absolutely no data streaming down from the spacecraft on any screen?”

  “That’s what a communications glitch sometimes entails. We’re working on it.”

  “I have a source who tells me it’s far more serious than that.”

  “Really? Could your source call us? We’d sure like to know what he knows, because we’re not aware that the problem is any more serious than any other problem in spaceflight.”

  The reporter is sighing, well aware she’s sparring with a pro. “Okay, look. I understand you’re in damage control mode and probably you don’t know yourselves what’s happening, but let me at least get some vitals on who’s up there.”

  “I’m just getting to work and I need some coffee,” Diana says. “Give me your number and twenty minutes and I’ll get back to you.” The agreement is reluctant, but she ends the call and looks at Richard, taking in for the first time the depth of worry on his face, the hopelessness in his eyes.

  “Richard?”

  “Yeah,” he sighs, nodding slowly, his eyes on the floor as he chews his lip.

  “Lord, how bad is it?”

  “We don’t know anything new yet, but we’re praying that Bill is okay and getting ready to retrofire in a few minutes. We’re coming up on the end of the second orbit.”

  “But we can’t talk to him?”

  Richard launches into a quick and tense briefing that ends as they reach the entrance to Mission Control. He moves back inside with her in trail and Diana can feel the tension thick as summer humidity in Houston. The risks of making a business out of spaceflight she’s long understood. At least intellectually. She can talk about it for hours, marshaling details and numbers and even orbital mechanics. She knows Intrepid and its grounded sister ship are tiny bubbles barely sustaining human life after being shot to impossible speeds and altitudes and brought back against incredible forces. But they’ve been doing it almost a year now, week after week, without fail. The thought may be silly, but it’s echoing through her head: Since we know how to do this perfectly, it simply can’t end badly.

  A sudden burst of activity flutters into view at the flight director’s console and she sees a receiver pulled to Arleigh Kerr’s ear. He speaks quickly and turns toward the rear, spotting Richard and Diana and motioning to the boss with a staccato movement. There is no smile on Kerr’s face, no deliverance in his expression, and Diana follows, feeling ill.

  “What, Arleigh?”

  He lowers the receiver as he searches for the right phrase.

  “What, Arleigh?” Richard snaps.

  “Okay, Richard. NASA is pulling in a live long lens picture, and it shows Intrepid is tumbling.” He sees the question in Diana’s eyes. “Rotating around its center of gravity in all three axes.”

  “I understand what tumbling means,” she says.

  “Which indicates to you, what?” Richard prompts.

  “He may be out of control.”

  “Jesus.”

  They all know the rest of the equation. A tumbling spacecraft can’t fire its rocket motor and drop out of orbit.

  “How long to the retrofire window?”

  “One minute. They’re watching.” Arleigh raises the receiver back to his ear and turns away, as if expecting his monitor to burst to life with good data streams from Intrepid. Every technician in the room somehow seems to know what he knows, and there is a collective quiet as the seconds tick away and more and more eyes turn to the flight director. He holds the receiver with one hand and rubs his eyes with the other, willing the nightmare to go away.

  Chapter 11

  ABOARD INTREPID, MAY 17, 10:56 A.M. PACIFIC

  The centrifugal forces have begun to pull Kip in opposite directions, but they aren’t half as bad as the increasing frequency of alternating light and dark pulsing through the main windscreen.

  He wills his hand off the joystick and realizes he’s been clutching it with a death grip. He reaches over with his left hand and pries his right fingers open, working them back and forth until they feel almost flexible again. There was something one of the astronauts told him in the simulator a week ago. Something that had to do with control sticks. What the hell was it?

  For the first time in minutes the rate of tumbling isn’t increasing, and he realizes that it’s because he isn’t jamming the joystick back and forth in panic. The tumbling is remaining constant, and he’s feeling increasingly dizzy and ill, his upper torso and head being pulled toward the ceiling while below the waist he’s being pulled downward.

  Fingertips! That was it. He said that instructors could calm down pilots having trouble with formation flight by teaching them to fly with their fingertips to avoid overcontrol.

  Kip moves his hand back toward the joystick, this time placing only the ends of his fingers on the top of it and moving them in concert backward to fire the control jets in just one axis against the tumbling. He hears the jets hiss and feels the reaction, and for the first time the gyrations begin to slow. He does it again, tentatively, letting as much as a minute elapse between each burst, and finally daring to hope he might actually succeed.

  He glances at the clock, hoping for a few more minutes before retrofire, but realizes it’s already too late. Firing the rocket now—even if he was in position and ready, which he isn’t—would bring him down somewhere far to the east of Mojave, and maybe way across the continent. No, he decides, he’s stuck for at least another orbit, another ninety minutes.

  And with that realization, some of his panic leaks away.

  Tentatively, he tries a small burst to the left to stop the right-hand roll, and the frequency of the Earth’s appearance in the side windows begins to slow. But he can’t twist the control and affect the yaw with fingertips, and he tries gripping the joystick with only thumb and forefinger and finds it works. A few short bursts in that direction and the sideways turning slows, too.

  One axis at a time he works at it, trying hard to keep the bursts very, very brief, letting minutes elapse between each attempt, and watching the Earth’s movement relative to the spacecraft slow burst by burst, until after many very long minutes he realizes he’s finally in the right attitude, flying right side up, tail first, and steady.

  Kip punches at the computer screen to try to reengage the automatic attitude controller, not believing it at first when the small box on the screen suddenly glows green. But the reaction jets are hissing quietly and he feels the craft steady itself, the coordinate readings all within a few degrees of what he’s supposed to have for retrofire.

  Damn, I did it!

  He’s covered with perspiration, still breathing hard, and his right hand is aching, but he’s in the right position and only that matters. A surge of confidence returns and he smiles the smile of a football player spiking the ball in the end zone.

  He checks the time like a veteran. A little more than an hour to the next window, and this time he’ll be ready. He’s already ready, though drained and still shaking. He takes the barf bag he’s been issued out of his breast pocket and restows it in the zippered one by his right ankle, proud that he hasn’t needed it.

  Once again he finds himself looking at the transmit button connected to his headset,
wishing he could tell someone below of his success. He was spinning into oblivion, but he kept his cool, remembered the training, brief as it was, and he did it!

  ASA MISSION CONTROL, MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA, 11:01 A.M. PACIFIC

  Arleigh suddenly raises the phone handset over his head like a trophy, his voice booming through the control room.

  “Yes!”

  All eyes not already on him snap to as he shakes his head and exhales before explaining.

  “He’s stabilized! The craft is no longer gyrating and is apparently in position for retrofire. He’s missed this window, but he’s under control and alive!”

  There are shouts and applause as a wide variety of body English transmits the relief in the room. The monitors and the radios, however, are still vacant of contact and information, and the mood returns to watchful waiting, though with an improvement in hope.

  “No cigars yet, people,” Arleigh is saying into his headset. “But Bill’s obviously on duty up there, so let’s prepare for a deorbit in eighty minutes.”

  It takes a few minutes for Diana to remind the flight director and the CEO that the story is already leaking and she needs direction. Arleigh reluctantly leaves his console and follows the two of them into the glassed-in conference room.

  “This will sound very cold, but it’s my job,” she says. “We have an incredible opportunity here.”

  “For what?” Arleigh asks, indignant. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Richard has his hand out for silence, his trust of Diana’s judgment all but total.

  “What it means, Arleigh…Richard…is that our future as a company depends on how we handle whatever occurs next. Good or bad. If we show strength, authority, perfect honesty, and a vision beyond the moment regardless of the depth of this disaster, we will build an invaluable trust in the public mind. If we show fright, hide any fact however small, sidestep questions, or appear confused…”

  “Any appearance of weakness, in other words,” DiFazio adds, nodding slowly, knowing she’s right but disliking the need of it.

  “Exactly,” she continues. “Vulnerability breeds lasting distrust and even contempt.”

  “I’m not a damned actor, Diana,” Arleigh snaps.

  “No, you’re not,” she interjects before he can continue. “You’re a steel-willed professional who knows private spaceflight will remain and succeed and lead. All I’m saying is, be careful to show that true face to whoever’s watching. And they’ll be watching every moment from here on.”

  JOHNSON SPACEFLIGHT CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS,

  11:20 A.M. PACIFIC/1:20 CDT

  “Talk to me.”

  In John Kent’s perfect world, there is no need for verbal niceties when there’s an urgent mission to accomplish. “Hello’s” and “How’s the weather’s” are time wasters in a crisis. Nailing the point as he walks through the door of the teleconferencing suite is greeting enough for his old friend and senior manager at Kennedy Space Center, Griggs Hopewell.

  “Good to see you, too, John. Okay, let’s get to it. We can make it happen, but we’ll need twenty-six hours a day for four days and a blowtorch to everyone’s behind.”

  “Endeavor is ready, then? Enough to roll out to the pad from vehicle assembly?”

  “Not as ready as I’d like, but yes. So who’s going to fly, if this impossible mission comes about?”

  “Paradies, White, and Malone. Tell me what you need to pull this off, Griggs.”

  “How about authorization for starters. You’re talking tens of millions in prep expense. Shear is dead set against it and we’re essentially in a mutiny here even talking about it on company time.”

  “Look, I don’t have a green light yet, but I’ll get it.”

  “From Shear? What, are the Houston refinery fumes affecting you? John, I love ya, man, and I owe you for a lot of things, but you don’t run this organization.”

  “Neither does he.”

  “Jeez, John. We’re talking the administrator. We’re also talking about a guy who has an industrial-strength hatred for DiFazio. John, he wants DiFazio and anyone dumb enough to fly with him to bite it.”

  “All true, but he doesn’t make policy. The White House does.”

  “And they’re suddenly going to go across town and politically bitch-slap their boy? I don’t frigging think so.”

  “Griggs, ten minutes ago ASA’s craft stabilized and aligned for retrofire. He may get down on his own. This is just a feasibility exercise.”

  There is silence from the Cape. “And if he can’t?”

  “He just proved someone’s breathing up there and capable of controlling the spacecraft.”

  “John, Bill’s a friend of mine, too. I also want him back safe.”

  “Not the point. He comes down on his own or we go up to get him. Shear will be shamed into doing it by public pressure if nothing else. But this is just a contingency exercise until we know whether we need to go up.”

  “Okay, a word of warning. I know what you’re thinking, and who you’re thinking of calling. But keep in mind that, despite nice handshakes and smiles when you’ve visited, there are people around the President who don’t necessarily like you, John, and they were never Boy Scouts like us. Approach them with reason and logic and compassion and they’ll jam it all back up your tailpipe and leave you seriously retired.”

  “Duly noted. Keep your fingers crossed and get a playbook together for me, Griggs. Please.”

  “Whoa, did I hear John Kent say please?”

  “Kind of.”

  “My God, that’s a first. Okay, I’ll slam a plan together, but if Shear gets wind of this, neither of us will be holding NASA IDs past tomorrow morning.”

  “Who’s gonna tell him?”

  “John, I’ve got a Cape full of irritated, overworked employees with more dedication to spying and informing than Stalin’s KGB.”

  Chapter 12

  ABOARD INTREPID, END OF ORBIT 3, MAY 17, 12:30 P.M. PACIFIC

  The countdown ends in silence.

  The only roaring is in Kip’s head, along with the soft hissing of the air cycle fans that are no match for the pounding blood in his temples. Kip’s eyes dart around the checklist and back to the screen as he sits in disbelief, the enormity of the silence settling over him like a heavy shroud. He’s been prepared for retrofire for over an hour and never considered that the engine might have other ideas.

  He’s heard the engine fire before. He knows what it sounds like, feels like. When Intrepid was dropped by the mothership so many hours ago, the rocket engine roared and shook. But whatever he’s hearing and feeling now, it’s not the engine.

  Kip punches the manual firing button again, just to make sure he hasn’t been too timid. It clicks.

  Nothing changes.

  Only seconds have elapsed since the exact programmed firing point. There’s still time to fire, he thinks.

  There must be a safety. Something else I need to throw! Obviously he’s done something wrong, something that can be fixed.

  The checklist items begin to blur, but he forces his eyes to take them in item by item, his finger still stabbing at the ignition button. He checks the screen, the fault annunciator display, the switch panel to each side, expecting an “Aha” moment of recognition, the easy answer. So he’s a bit late. So he comes down in Las Vegas instead of Mojave. What the hell. Just get the damn thing to fire!

  But still the engine remains silent, and even though it’s only the end of Orbit 3, Kip feels himself losing control. He balls his fist and crashes it into the central liquid crystal screen, changing nothing. He begins flipping switches at random, snarling at the display and flailing, each wild action propelling him left or right in the zero gravity, restrained only by the seat belt.

  No! Goddammit, no!

  With one final burst of frustration he hurls the checklist behind him, sickeningly aware of what it’s hit as it thuds into the dead astronaut’s body, bouncing back to slap the windscreen, and ends up hitting him in the fac
e.

  “Shit!” he yells, the sound of his agonized voice encouraging another yell, eyes closed, fists pounding the armrests of the command chair.

  But he’s hurtling away from the retrofire point at the speed of twenty-five thousand five hundred feet per second, and the engine is still quiet as a tomb.

  His anger subsides and in its place flows a cold and heavy fear, worse than anything he’s experienced. Terror would barely describe it. No brakes, no parachute, no skyhook, no lifeline. No rescue of any sort if the engine won’t fire.

  Until a few minutes ago, his major concern was to find a way to pilot an unpowered gliding spacecraft with stubby wings to a safe landing somewhere flat and hard. Now even a crash landing sounds okay, as long as it involves getting out of orbit.

  Kip looks over his left shoulder, as if a living relief pilot might be sitting quietly back there. He feels the bile rising in his stomach, his head spinning. The view of the Earth turning below suddenly seems an exquisite form of torture—home being dangled in front of him, but out of reach.

  No! Oh my God, he thinks, swallowing hard. What the hell am I going to do now? I can’t just sit here and wait to die.

  He yanks the barf bag from his ankle pocket just in time, and when the release is complete, he cleans his face and disposes of the thing in a sidemounted trash receptacle, glad for something rote to do, his mind still reeling with the thought that he’s missed something. He opens the relief port then—a small funnel-shaped urinal dumping to the vacuum of space—and drains his bladder, before retightening the straps connecting him to the command chair.

  This can’t be it. I can’t be stranded. There has to be a solution I haven’t thought of. Calm down! This is just a machine. Machines can be made to work!

  He remembers the spacecraft simulator back in Mojave. The door in and out is on the rear cabin wall of the simulator and he remembers how comforting it was to know that at any time they could just turn the doorknob and walk out of the box into the hangar to safety. Just like that. Just open a door and leave the nightmare.