“THERE ARE NO issues with her physique or sensory organs. Personality wise, she’s very warm and takes instruction well, and has a great sense of responsibility. She is quite intelligent to boot and can focus under stress. She’s also stronger than I expected. The only problem is her lack of any high-G resilience.” Satsuki Asahikawa was giving her report at the director’s meeting the following day.
“So she can’t take the gravity? Is that an automatic fail?” Nasuda asked, getting right to the point.
“She passed out the moment I took her up to four. With that low a resilience, she couldn’t even ride a roller coaster.”
“What? Only 4 G?”
“Too bad. Her scholastic ability is off the charts,” Kinoshita said, relating his impressions from the interview. “Actually, rather than scholastic ability I should say her general comprehension. I presented her with several trick questions and she was very good at cutting through the chaff and getting right to the point. She’s able to see the true nature of the problem at hand, understand it, and act on it.”
“Yes, but 4 G?” Satsuki raised her hands. “Our astronauts are subjected to at least 8 G during liftoff and reentry. If she’s fainting at a mere four, she simply won’t be able to perform her duties as a member of the flight crew.”
“Can’t something be done about that in training?”
Satsuki shook her head. “It’s not just that she has to stay conscious at 8 G. She has to be able to assess her situation, make split-second decisions, and take action at 8 G. If we are only talking about a consciousness threshold, I’d want her to stay awake up to at least 10 G.”
Nasuda groaned. “Let me just confirm, you’re saying there is zero probability that she would be able to perform in a real-life situation?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say zero,” Satsuki admitted with a frown.
“Yukari has told us several times, and we know this ourselves, that they need a division of labor while in orbit. Our lack of that is one big reason we haven’t been able to get the thumbs-up from NASA. And there’s something else.” Nasuda reached into his briefcase and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He showed it to everyone at the table.
It was a printout of a photograph showing five girls, blondes and brunettes, standing in a row, smiling.
“This was up on the CNES homepage as of yesterday. Turns out a subsidiary of Arianespace in France has started a project called the ‘Ariane Courier.’ They’re not ready for commercial flights, but the plan is for them to put small astronauts in a small orbiter and provide services like satellite repair.”
“They’re totally copying us!” Mukai said, aghast.
“We knew we’d have some competition. I just didn’t imagine they would pop up so quickly. They’re going to be using an Ariane 4 rocket modified to carry people.”
“What about space suits? Do they have skintight suits yet?”
“We don’t think so. I’m guessing what they’re wearing in that picture are just leotards. They’re attractive though, aren’t they, Kinoshita.”
“Sadly, yes. Though our own girls are nothing to sneeze at.”
Kinoshita was a man of encyclopedic knowledge in many fields, one of them being the media market for attractive girls. And this, of course, was a cornerstone of the SSA’s business strategy.
While previous astronauts had served as flag carriers for their nation’s pride, they were now often used as PR tools for getting taxpayers behind a project. An operation like the SSA depended heavily on goodwill toward Yukari and Matsuri for their continued funding. Their appeal to the folks back home was the only thing between the SSA and a firestorm over the massive amounts of taxpayer money disappearing into their project.
“However, going up against five girls in the prime of their youth—that’s tough competition.”
“Absolutely. Looks aside, the biggest problem here is that there are already five of them,” Nasuda said. “Really, we should have a main team and a backup team by now. If we’re running with a two-person orbiter, we need at least four astronauts. If we’ve got a three-seater, I’d want at least six. And all we have is two. No wonder NASA doesn’t trust us. If one of our astronauts caught a cold, our launch would be delayed.”
“So you want numbers over quality, is that it?” Satsuki asked.
“Honestly, yes. I mean, even in the worst-case scenario, if Akane did pass out, one of the others could wake her up, couldn’t they?”
“Well I’m against it! Even if we do have a three-seat orbiter, the majority of our launches will be with only two astronauts. If we’re forced to rely on a sole astronaut during the most critical moments of takeoff and reentry because the other one is out cold, NASA will never trust us.”
“Not if they don’t know about it.”
“Director!”
“Now now, Doctor—”
“Even if we disregard the issue of trust, we’re talking about safety!” Satsuki slammed the table with her fists. “Imagine what would happen if those girls died? That is what I’m talking about when I say ‘safety,’ sir!”
The room was silent. After a few moments passed, Mukai spoke. “Satsuki, I think that goes without saying—”
“Apparently it doesn’t.”
“No. Everyone here knows that lives are on the line. But if we were to require one hundred percent safety before a launch, we’d never get off the ground. What we’re all trying our very hardest to do here is to find an appropriate compromise between safety on one hand and the economic realities of the space industry on the other.”
Satsuki turned to Mukai. “So you think that it’s all right if one of them faints during liftoff?”
“I’m not saying that. But there are over two thousand sensors and a multitasking computer checking for abnormalities every millisecond of takeoff, as well as a fully automatic mechanism to separate the orbiter from the rest of the rocket. We can also remotely control much of the rocket from ground-based systems. Only when all of this fails is pilot action required.”
“And yet it seems that every time we launch, our astronauts are surviving only by the skin of their teeth.”
“Let me put it another way. If something truly catastrophic were to happen, like if the booster were to explode, then no number of safety measures and no amount of pilot skill would help them one bit. If we’re going to let worry about that paralyze us, we need to scrap the program entirely. As an engineer, the only way I can sleep at night is because I know that we are doing everything we can here, on the ground, to prevent a worst-case scenario. We’ve had small difficulties with every launch, it’s true, but no big accidents as of yet, right?”
Satsuki pondered the young technician’s words.
“All right. I’m sorry for bringing up death. It just seemed like the elephant in the room. I understand what you’re saying, but as the person ultimately responsible for the human factor in this equation, I cannot condone hiring Akane. My decision is final.”
“What if we thought about it like this,” Kinoshita offered. “It’s true that the greatest risk on a flight comes with the launch and the reentry, but this only accounts for two percent of total flight time. And there’s plenty of danger while in orbit.”
“Your point?”
“Well, when I think about our easily excitable Yukari and our utterly unpredictable Matsuri, I can’t help but think that a girl like Akane is the perfect complement to them. I think we could safely say that having her on board would dramatically improve safety for at least ninety-eight percent of the mission.”
“So you want to hire her too?”
Kinoshita chuckled wryly. “This is outside my area of expertise as a physicist, but it’s my impression that this girl makes up for in intellect what she lacks in physical strength. Here’s my suggestion: we let her do a make-up test, except this time, we test her overall aptitude. Then we decide. How about it?”
“What exactly do you mean by an overall aptitude test?”
“Well…”
Kinoshita briefly explained what he was thinking.
“You’re going to do that to her?” Satsuki was aghast.
“Yes. Completely solo. No support.”
“She won’t make it. Yukari was in pretty good shape, but who knows what would have happened to her if she hadn’t run into Matsuri?”
“Well, we won’t know that until we try, will we? If she passes, will you give her the okay, Satsuki?”
“I suppose I could take it under consideration.”
“How about you, Director?”
“I suppose we could give it a shot.” Then, Nasuda added, “Of course, it’s going to be tricky to ensure she’s completely without support.”