The Man Who Sold Mars (12 page)

Tot kissed him on the cheek.  “A+!”

Hemmingson grinned.  “Woooooo Hoooooo! 
Do I feel a lap dance coming on?”

“Clown suit and all.”

We laughed.

George filled us in on his progress.  “We’ve
already started compensation discussions.”

Hemmingson nodded.  “Let me know the whos
and how muches.  We’ll get it.”

George gave him a single nod.  “I will.”

Hemmingson took a playful loud sip from
his drink.  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.  So are we going to sit around like a bunch of
corpses or—“

He saw a beautiful Asian waitress
speaking with an equally gorgeous woman of European descent.   “East meets
West.  Think of the possibilities.”

In play, I tapped him on the head with a
straw.  “Earth to Hemmingson.  We’re working.”

“So am I.  Multi-tasking.  Go ahead.”

Tot filled us in on the plan.  “Since we
don’t have a space station of our own to launch our Mars mission from, we’re
going to have to launch directly from Earth.”

Gardner involuntarily went, “Wow!” and
nearly gagged on his chardonnay.

Kevin was also amazed.  “Is that even
possible?”

Gardner placed down his drink, “You’ve
seen how large Prometheus is.”

I knew we were attempting a feat on the
magnitude of the Great Pyramids, but where there’s a will.  There’s a way and I
told them.  “But we’re in a race and we don’t have time to develop a transit
craft launched from the Earth.”

Matter of fact and confident, George
said, “Launching Prometheus from the Earth will be—“

Tot, excited at the possibilities, “An
Engineering marvel.  But, attainable given our time constraints.  I’ve come up
with two plans, which work in theory.”

On paper, she sketched a wedge with rows
of cylinders below it.

“The first involves launching the Mars
vessel horizontally, cocooned in the wedge, with a nest of rockets underneath
pushing it into space”.

“Drag?” was the first issue to occur to
me.

She said, “Lots.  And heat too.  It’s
minimized somewhat, because the vessels in a wedged shaped cocoon or delivery
module to absorb it.  Once the vessel is high enough above the Earth the cocoon
falls away and Prometheus continues on to Mars.”

Kevin shook his head no.  “I don’t like
it.”

Gardner seconded him, “If one of those
rockets misfires or under fires for that matter the entire structure—“

George finished the statement.  “Can be
so stressed it’s worthless.”

Tatyana answered.  “We can compensate by
increasing or decreasing thrust as needed by nearby rockets.”

Kevin asked.  “What happens if the cocoon
doesn’t open?”

“I’m still working on that.

I moved us on, “What’s the second?”

Tot said, “A vertical launch.  It has
advantages in far less drag.  But its own difficulties.”  She grabbed a bunch
of pens and held them together with all their tips pointed up.  “We launch the
vessel in a heat shielded cocoon amidst a nest of rockets.  The cluster is
launched with an initial outer core propelling them through space, with
additional rockets firing in and spent rockets falling off until only the
delivery module remains.  The cocoon falls off.  Thrusters correct the course
and the vessels main rockets ignite driving her to Mars.

Gardner did not look pleased, “That
doesn’t sound any better.”

Kevin was not happy either.  “The crew
essentially sits in the center of high explosives.”

Selena saw difficulties too.  “If there’s
a problem, in the first option, Prometheus can be jettisoned and the crew
escapes.”

“I escape.  There will be no crew except
me.”

My friends were silent with disbelief at the
news.

That is all but one, George smiled to
himself, and Selena, the most displeased by my decision, refrained from discussing
it for a while.

I went on.  “One man instead of 12 means
less weight in food, water, life support . . . Most of the projects are
automated.  I’ll be the non-automated tech.  We go with option two.  Failure is
not an option.  The Prometheus will reach altitude and head for Mars.  We need
to make sure she suffers as little damage from liftoff as possible.  Option
two, Tot.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Instead, Prometheus is nested outside
like the US space shuttle. Granted, she will ride up on a lot more rockets.”  Tot
puzzled over something.  “What are you thinking?

“The Prometheus is a lot bigger than a
shuttle and there’s going to be a tremendous amount of stress where she and the
booster assembly are connected to at the cocoon.  That’s why I see the cocoon
surrounded by rockets.”  She made some notes.  “Where there’s a will.”

George asked, “Is it possible to have
rockets in a ring type assembly?  Like a chamber in a revolver.  Not so much that
the rockets sit in cylinders, but maybe each is held in place by two or three
rings or something.

Kevin said, “I see.  If there’s a problem
with a rocket anywhere it can be jettisoned out the nest.”

Tot started doing mental computations. 
“That empty ring will cause a lot of drag and heat.  But . . . less than the
booster it held.”

Gardner suggested, “Jettison the rings/holders
when appropriate to reduce it.”

Tot still mentally calculating said.  “It
might work.  But all this brings us back to the first option.  It’s far easier
to jettison spent and inoperative rockets from it.”

Selena stated a truth and gave us a
mandate, “It will work or something better.”

Tot glanced at her.  “So true.  We’re
just brainstorming at this point.  We’ll develop computer simulations and see
what approach has the least risk.  We may even develop an option we haven’t
considered.”

I took a sip from my drink.  “We still
have the cocoon jettisoning issue to deal with.  I want at least four options. 
First, that it’s jettisoned automatically once certain parameters are reached. 
Second, Mission Control can jettison the cocoon or override the jettisoning
parameters if need be.  Third, the crew of the Prometheus—“

“How many of them there may be.”  Selena
added while smiling at me sweetly, but meaning not.

I squeezed her hand with love and felt
Tot’s eyes on us.  “The crew of the Prometheus can trigger the separation from
within the space craft as well as by the fourth, EVA, Extra Vehicular
Activity.”

“You good people have this all under
control.”  Hemmingson sipped to death a drink and called over his fantasy
Asian.  “Yes, we’re back in business.” She arrived and he continued his “work”,
moved to another table, and she followed.

I moved us on, “Have the engineers
fortify the design of the Prometheus for the stresses of an Earth based
launch.”

Gardner dipped a chicken wing in ranch
dressing.  “Launch point?”

There was only one place for us at this
point and George and I said in unison, “The Philippines.”

I explained, “Our lunar launch was from
one of its most Southern Islands.”

George called over a waitress to wait on
us.  “From where we launched, the climate is stable, out of the typhoon paths.”

I watched Hemmingson’s “friend” grinning
call over her European “friend” and I kept us at our work.  “Because the
Philippine Islands are so much closer to the equator, we can use the higher rotational
speed of the Earth there to diminish the amount of energy we’ll need to reach
escape velocity.  And given the amount of power we’ll need, the saving in
weight from not having additional rockets is a boon.”

I could see some of my friends were
puzzled and further explained the advantages of an equatorial launch.  “OK, let
me see if I can explain this better.  If you’re in a car traveling at 100
kilometers an hour.  Everything in it is traveling at 100 kilometers too.  If
they weren’t, they would go crashing through the doors and windows because
they’re either faster or slower than the car.”

Tot, eyes ablaze, joined in, “The same
thing with the Earth.  Wherever you are, you’re moving as fast as the Earth.

“And, as the Earth rotates around the
sun, all the land is not rotating at the same rate.  Think about it.  A day is
24 hours.  No matter where we are, it’s always 24 hours.  And a day is defined
as the average length of the period during which the earth makes one rotation
on its axis.”

Tot was a born teacher and was on fire as
she taught us, so I let her run with the subject.  “So, where the Earth is
widest, it has to travel faster to make one complete rotation than where it’s
thinner.

“Any point on the Earth’s equator is
traveling at about 1670 kilometers per hour.  Land halfway between the equator
and the poles is only moving at 1180 kilometers per hour, so by launching from
the equator a spacecraft starts out with a 490 km speed advantage as compared
to halfway between the poles.

“Our goal with a land based launch is to
power our payload up with sufficient force to continue on to where we want it
to go.  For us, that speed exceeds escape velocity, which is defined as the
speed at which an object must travel to break free of a planet or moon's
gravitational force and enter orbit.

“A spacecraft leaving the surface of the Earth
needs to be traveling at over 40,000 kilometers per hour to reach escape
velocity.  Since, we’re heading on to Mars we need to be traveling much faster because
we want to push our payload to that place outside the Earth’s atmosphere where
the MTV needs to begin its transit.

“And, the less speed we have to make up
the less thrust the rockets have to provide and the less fuel and
infrastructure they’re carrying, which requires less fuel and infrastructure to
push them up, which requires less fuel and infrastructure to push them up, and
on and on and on . . . Hence our location in the Philippines on a very select
island.

We applauded her and in play she bowed.

Gardner glanced at Hemmingson “working”
away and winning and laughed, “Buy that island.  The Republic of the
Philippines is an archipelago nation with over 7,000 islands.”

Kevin seconded him, “They will not miss
one.”

Gardner continued, “And we don’t want to
develop some other nation’s space program.”

I sighed, “Again.” And saw that
Hemmingson now had the slightly angry manager of the bistro there.  Some
difficulty was arising with him monopolizing restaurant staff.  Hemmingson
glanced at us.  “Nations’.  Hold that thought.”  Hemmingson handed the manager
a “nice” gratuity and the matter was happily settled as evidenced by the
“Closed Private Party” sign the manager posted on the door before he started
pleasantly motivating the restaurants other guests to leave.

Hemmingson flagged over a waitress to
serve the two seated waitresses and temporarily rejoined us to speak.  “We
don’t want to develop other nations’ space programs.  Most of the other nations
working on the assembly of the Prometheus in their own condemnation proceedings
against us have laid claim to it and YSR assets in their nations.”

We were saddened by the news.

George fumed.  “When did this happen?”

“Just a little while ago.  But think of
it as justice in the universe.  They are so busy booby trapping the systems of
Prometheus and their part of the YSR rice bowl to prevent the other nations
from using it without their consent it may never be space worth.”

We laughed and Hemmingson returned to his
two earlier tasks.

George ate a loaded nacho and passed the
basket to Kevin who was waiting on them.  “We need a smoke screen.  If we
escalate, so will the US and the others.”

Tot gave us something else to consider,
“We’re all pretty much confined to the same launch window.  They can’t leave
substantially earlier nor can we.  If they do, because of the relative orbits
and distances of Earth the transit of the stolen Prometheus will be much
longer.

Surprising all of us, Hemmingson’s laugh and
voice came from one of the papers.  “Stolen Prometheus.  I like that.”  Tot
picked up the paper and looked it over to see where he was coming from.

He spoke again.  “Oh yeah, Tatyana.  Hold
me there.  Mmmmmmmm.  Nice cleavage.”

“She is HOTT!!”  Said a woman’s voice
from the paper.

“OH yeah.” Said a second woman’s voice, also
coming from the paper and we all looked over to see the Asian and European
waitresses both wearing a pair of Hemmingson’s signature dark glasses along
with him.

We laughed and Hemmingson and his friends
sitting with him joined us.

Then Hemmingson said.  “Once a spook. 
Always a spook.  I’m working, working, working.”

We laughed again.

“Well my other job calls.  Bye for now.” 
Hemmingson said as he returned to his charges.  With a micro camera and micro
mic and micro speakers he was free to “multi” task.

Laughing we went back to work.

Tatyana continued.  ”If they leave substantially
earlier with the Stolen Prometheus their actual transit would be longer,
they’ll have a greater distance to travel because of the relative orbits, and
they'll need more food and related life-support items, and this will increase
their weight and reduce their speed.”