BACK IN THE control center at the SSA, Nasuda listened attentively to Captain Berkheimer talk. When he was finished, Nasuda practically howled with delight. “She might have fainted, but Akane’s got what it takes! Have our communications group send Houston whatever information they need. Kinoshita, you divide up everything else that needs to be done.”
Kinoshita wasted no time. “I want the navigational team calculating an orbit. Go from the moment Mangosteen separates from the shuttle and try to predict as many variables as you can.
“I want the orbiter systems team figuring out how we can mount Mangosteen inside the shuttle. Whatever it is, it will have to be able to withstand three hundred kilograms at 0.1 G acceleration. Work up a chart of anchor points on our orbiter and any anchoring materials we might have and send it on to Houston. They’re calling the shots on this one, so whatever they need, they get.
“Medical team, I want you to do some modeling on Yukari and Akane’s life support systems. Remember they’ll be going to three thousand kilometers.
“One last thing, and this goes for all of you. We’re working in lockstep with Houston on this. I want you to share data and any ideas, no matter how far-fetched they might seem. Communication, work on setting up contact people from each team to facilitate this.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The relationship between an orbiter and ground control is a bit like the relationship between the bridge and the deck on an old large-scale sea vessel. The lower deck was where all the crew worked, and the bridge backed them up. On the water, both were in the same boat, but as space on orbiters was limited, astronauts left the bridge back home. Though space jockeys didn’t like to acknowledge it, the real captain of a spaceflight was on the ground. Either way, constant contact and communication between the two was vital, especially during crises.
The response at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, was little different from that of Solomon Mission Control.
“That little girl up there is upping the ante in a big way on us,” mission director George Grant muttered. What got him most was not that it was a bad idea, but that the situation forced him to take it very seriously.
Once they acknowledged the possibility, however slim, that it might work, they couldn’t afford to not take it seriously. Grant himself was ready to do whatever was required to get Orpheus back under control.
The biggest hurdle they had to pass was safety regulations. Everything about this plan was going to push both crew and equipment to their theoretical limits. Just getting the shuttle by itself up to an altitude near two thousand kilometers would require using most of its remaining fuel. And then they had to factor in the strange, tropical cargo it would be carrying.
In order to calculate the amount of fuel required for the shuttle’s return, they would have to assume a worst-case scenario in which they were still carrying Mangosteen after a launch failure. Was saving an unmanned exploratory probe worth this kind of risk?
George’s mind went back to the Apollo 13 disaster.
It was already thirty years ago when it happened: the oxygen tank on a spacecraft bound for the moon exploded, and though they were short on fuel, electricity, and air, somehow they managed to get the astronauts back home safely.
At the time, George had been a twenty-year-old recent hire at NASA, but he still remembered going for sleepless days and nights hunched over his IBM 360 making and remaking orbital calculations. No one could’ve predicted what happened, but they had made it through by using what they had on hand to make the impossible possible.
George was proud to have been part of the effort to bring the Apollo 13 crew back home. That pride had kept him at NASA all these long years.
Well, let’s do what we can do.
As a senior engineer, George was quite adept at making rough calculations in his head.
Orpheus has an orbital frequency of one hour fifty-nine minutes.
Atlantis has an orbit of one hour thirty minutes.
It was roughly a ratio of 4:3. Once Atlantis had gone around four times and Orpheus three times, the two would meet. If somehow before that moment they could accelerate Mangosteen to 640 meters a second, they would be able to rendezvous with Orpheus. The acceleration would have to happen in two steps, with the separation of the orbiter from the shuttle between them. They couldn’t leave this one entirely to the nav computers; it was too complex.
Already an hour had passed since the accidental engine burn.
So, what, I only have five hours left to make this happen?
George picked up the phone and dialed the person in charge of mock-ups down at the training center. Previously, they had constructed life-sized models of Atlantis and Orpheus for use in prelaunch training.
“I need you guys to work on something right away. I’m going to be accelerating Atlantis with the SSA’s Mangosteen orbiter in her payload bay. You should be receiving specs on Mangosteen any moment now. The bad news is, you only have five hours—no, make that four and a half.”
“We’re on it.” The engineer on the other side of the line thought for a moment. “Might be able to use the platform we put in there for Orpheus.”
No waffling, no extraneous questions. I love working with professionals, George thought. For the first time in a long while, he felt genuine excitement stirring in his chest.
✦ ✦ ✦
TWO HOURS LATER there was a general assembly of the crew on the middeck of Atlantis.
They had all clipped on intercom mics, getting ready for the next communication with ground control—the communication that would determine whether or not they were going to try to save Orpheus.
Norman and Gordon had already changed into their space suits and were pre-breathing to get ready for the next round of extravehicular operations if it came to that.
“Solomon and Houston have an early report for us,” the captain told them. “If we like the sound of what they’re saying, then we’ll go ahead with Akane’s plan. Let’s hear what Houston has to say first.”
“This is George Grant speaking,” the voice said over the intercom. “Mission director at Houston. I’d like to share our results with you. Though our flight safety committee expressed considerable concern, they concluded that we should go ahead with the operation. Speaking only of the shuttle’s safety, we predict no critical danger. They had one condition, however. They want the SSA astronauts to perform Mangosteen’s separation.”
Yukari responded immediately. “That was our intention from the start.”
“Thank you, Yukari. We’ll share what details we were able to work out by fax. Over and out.”
This was a surprising decision coming from the usually very conservative NASA. Yukari wasn’t sure what dealings had gone on behind the scenes, but it was clear that damage control was part of the equation. So far, the SSA had been showing NASA up, and they didn’t want to lose even more credibility by failing to reclaim their errant probe.
Yukari looked around at the faces of the shuttle crew. They looked determined, ready to do whatever they had to.
“Atlantis? This is Solomon.” It was Matsuri. “We looked into Akane’s plan as well.”
“Go ahead, Solomon.”
“Well, we don’t think it will be impossible to properly stage Mangosteen inside the shuttle and rendezvous with Orpheus. Your splashdown point will be off the coast of Chile. Our recovery team won’t be able to make it there in time, but the U.S. Navy have a cruiser nearby, and they’ve agreed to help. There’s just one problem.”
“What is it, Matsuri?” Yukari asked.
“Hoi, I’ll have our flight surgeon explain.”
Satsuki Asahikawa came on the intercom. “Listen up, you two. The problem is with radiation exposure. If you take Mangosteen up to Orpheus’s current orbit, you’ll be passing through the Van Allen belt close to the equator. There’s a lot of radiation focused there.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“It’s not fatal, but it’s a lot more radiation than any X-ray technician would ever dream of subjecting you to. Compounding the problem is the fact that both you and Akane are of childbearing age.”
“So what’s the bottom line?”
“As your physician, I can’t allow you to stay up there for more than a single orbit.”
“So you mean we have to do the rendezvous and all our work on the orbiter and reentry in the space of two hours?”
“That’s right. If you can’t pull that off, I’m afraid we have to cancel the mission. The radiation is highest at just around three thousand kilometers. You’ll hit that halfway through your first orbit, so you’ll need to finish all your work outside the ship by then. Though the protection won’t be complete, you’ll be a lot better off inside the orbiter than outside.”
Yukari was silent.
“Personally, I wouldn’t recommend even doing a single full orbit. Discretion is definitely the better part of valor here. A brave astronaut is a dead astronaut. I’d like you both to consider what this risk means for you personally before deciding to go ahead with this.”
“Thanks, Solomon. Over and out.”