Comet! Read online

  “All right.” Daster broke the connection, head whirling. He turned, “Hey Em?”

  Ell walked back over to Emma and Roger, “OK, tell me what you’re thinking?”

  Emma said, “You’re right, we should be able to bump it using weighted rockets as long as we don’t blow it apart. But remember, there ain’t no free lunch. Accelerating a 25 kilo rocket up to 150 kps so that it has 134 of TNT energy will take at least that much energy put into the rocket to accelerate it. I’m figuring a minimum of 6500 liters of RP-1 rocket fuel and corresponding amounts of oxygen.”

  “Oh yeah. We’ll have to have delivery trucks coming out here all the time huh?”

  “Well,” Emma grinned at her, “I suggest using natural gas instead of RP-1. It isn’t quite as good a rocket fuel but it’s good enough when you’re using ports. Even though PHMSA won’t let us install a port at the distributor we already have a real pipe for natural gas here. And the United States has lots of natural gas. Then we’d only need to have LOX trucked in here.”

  Ell said, “I wonder if we could just use compressed air. We’ve been thinking of LOX for our oxidizer because that’s what rockets use. But they use it because they don’t want to transport the weight of the nitrogen that’s in air. We don’t care, the nitrogen actually adds to the impulse of the rocket like the extra air a turbofan jet throws out the back.”

  Emma’s eyes widened, “Yeah! You’re right. We might not get quite as much impulse out of our rocket but we can just back it up some to let it accelerate longer if we have to.”

  Ell had been staring off into space, “Hmm, we’re limited by the 22 meters per second velocity that fuel can flow through a port. It’ll take… over 50 hours to put enough natural gas and air through a seven centimeter port to the rocket on the pusher to get a five kilogram rocket up to 150kps. If we use liquid natural gas and LOX we can fly it pretty much as fast as we want. Five gravities of acceleration would be pretty easy and would get the impactor up to 150kps in 51 minutes.

  “Ouch, 50 hours would mean we wouldn’t be able to launch many missions per day.”

  Ell shrugged, “OK, Allan, ask Braun if there is a problem using liquid natural gas and LOX for our rockets that we’re not aware of? And for that matter plain natural gas and air, which we could still use for low acceleration missions. If not, ask Sheila to arrange with the distributor to provide us with bigger LNG and LOX tanks. We’re going to need several thousand liters of each per impactor rocket.” She stared off into space again, “Wow we can only fly about 5 impactors with an entire tanker truck of LOX!”

  Emma said, “That’s a problem. First of all, a tanker of LOX is over $20,000 and even if Quantum Research can afford it, our supplier has been having trouble providing us with as much LOX as we’ve been using. I think they’ll just say they can’t do it if we ask for that much.”

  Ell grinned, “OK, back to ‘Plan A.’ We’ll just fly them with natural gas and air and do it from as far away as it takes to get them up to speed. It isn’t as if we don’t have time to move the comet with about two impactors per day.” Ell turned to Emma, “Let’s toss this five kilogram rocket through the port to the comet and see what the comet does when we hit it.”

  Roger said, “Wait a minute, why aren’t we just landing a rocket nozzle on the comet and pushing it directly?”

  Ell frowned, “Several reasons. One, it’s rotating at about one revolution every 5 and a half hours. So, either we’d have to stop the rotation first or our rocket would be pointing the wrong direction most of the time. We could of course land a lot of rocket motors on it and fire each one when it’s pointing the correct direction. But, two, it’s probably to some extent a slushy snowball and we might have a hard time getting a good foundation for the rockets to push on. Instead they’ll sink into the slush until they hit one of the big fragments in the middle. Three, it’s a jumble of big fragments that might shift when our rocket started pushing on one of them, then the rocket would be pointing the wrong way and have to be moved. It could even get buried. Four, if we hit the comet hard and blow small fragments away from it at high enough velocities that they escape, the comet’s mass’ll be getting smaller and it’ll be easier to push.

  “But you may be right and it might be better to push it constantly with a series of motors instead of hitting it hard every so often. I think we need to find out through some trial and error. If we whack it with this five kilo rocket we’ll be able to more accurately judge its mass by measuring how much it deflects from its current orbit. If it looks like the nucleus is unstable from a small whack like this we may have to work on plan B.”

  Emma’s eyes had narrowed as she considered. “OK,” she said, picking up the rocket. “Let’s launch this bad boy.”

  Ell said, “Allan, which direction is the comet currently most likely to miss the Earth?”

  In her ear she heard him say, “The center of its currently projected course ‘leads’ the earth in its orbit by 12,238 kilometers and is 5,069 kilometers north.”

  First they sent a “port rocket” through the port on the rocket that they were using to observe the comet. They had Allan move the “port rocket” 60,000 kilometers from the comet the opposite direction from the direction they wanted the comet to be moved. Next they popped the five kilogram impactor rocket through. It happened to be that the rocket they had observing the comet at present was already well placed to observe the impact site so it didn’t have to be moved.

  Accelerating at 5 G, it took seven and a half minutes for the rocket to get to 22 kps so Ell called Manuel to talk to him about making more impactors while they waited.

  When the impactor hit, a huge plume of material burst away from the side of the comet. Ell said, “Wow, that looked a lot bigger than when the guys hit their asteroid!” She frowned, “Of course a metal rich asteroid is a lot harder than an icy comet… Wait, the asteroid could have been farther away. Allan, display the two impacts to us again as if they are being seen from the same distance.”

  Displayed at the same magnification the asteroid was smaller than the comet and the comet impact plume was much bigger, presumably due to the softer material.

  “Allan, can you measure deflection yet? If so what is the mass of the comet?”

  “Best estimate at present is 298 million metric tons. The estimate will be improved with a longer baseline.”

  “Any evidence of instability in the comet nucleus?”

  “No.”

  “OK,” Ell turned to Emma and Roger who’d been patched in to Allan’s responses. “Let’s build some 150 kps impactor rockets.”

  Soon she and Emma were working on improving Ell’s circuit for the 150 kps ports and programming the circuit fabricator to build them.

  Chapter Ten

  As Epaulding got up to go to the meeting with the comet team his AI said, “You have an urgent call from Joseph Stein, leader of the team building the motors for the comet rocket.”

  He sighed, grabbing his coat, “Put them on.”

  “D5R refuses to sell us the ports!” Stein said in a panicked tone.

  “Calm down,” Epaulding said soothingly, “Did they say why?”

  “Something about new regulations and that they weren’t allowed to sell any until they had the proper permits… They think that will be months!”

  “Take a deep breath. I’m sure that this is something that can be fixed. I’ll see you at the meeting in about 10 minutes.”

  Epaulding frowned around the room. There was no doubt Candela had assembled some really smart people for this most critical of all projects. Unfortunately, Epaulding thought, they were all idiot savants with seriously impaired people skills. No wonder Candela had had a stroke! Their anxiety about the critical importance of the project had them working incredibly long hours and engaging in “flight of ideas” discussions when together but they weren’t getting much done. They certainly weren’t a team. Worse, these geniuses had been oblivious to some basic changes brought to their world by Donsaii�
��s inventions.

  The rocket engine people, originally tasked to create a nozzle that would tolerate extremely long burns for constant acceleration were still working on that, even though the ports’ 22 kps limitation meant that they would only be firing a short period before they were in danger of going too fast and ruining their ports. To his dismay they still didn’t have working rocket motors for the craft.

  The craft was being built and should be done sometime soon. But they’d built a beautiful streamlined craft to launch from the ground instead of an ugly bugger that D5R could take up to orbit for them in their modified Lear Jet.

  They had spent weeks on a mission control computer to go on the craft instead of just keeping the computing resources here on Earth and using PGR chips to receive data and send controller messages.

  The group working on orbital mechanics had worked out some beautiful trajectories and were bemoaning the fact that as time passed their ability to affect the comet’s trajectory became more and more limited. The more he listened the more he became convinced that the leader would have to come from outside this group.

  “OK,” he said, “You guys have a genius level group but that group is very dysfunctional.” He looked around the group. “Does anyone disagree with this assessment?”

  There were some sullen looks but as he focused on each of them in turn, each nodded, most of them reluctantly.

  “I am going to appoint someone outside the group to lead you but for now I have the following directions.” He looked at the motor people. “Build a motor that will burn just long enough to get up to 22 kps. Talk to the people at D5R and pick their brains for what they’ve learned about port fueled motors. Use their plans if there’s any way they’ll work, do not ‘reinvent the wheel.’ If they have motors ready, buy them. If they’ve got some in construction buy those. If they don’t cooperate let me know and I’ll talk to Donsaii. Stop worrying about getting the ports. Like you said, they already exist, we’re only held up by government permits. Remember, we have an ‘in’ with the government. I’ll talk to DOT and get that fixed.” He turned to the craft builders, “Stop streamlining. Get it done. We’ll get D5R to launch it for us.” To the computing section, “Get with the program. You don’t need a radiation hardened computer in the craft. PGR chips and computing resources here in Houston are the way to go. Make it happen by next week.” He looked around the table again, “I want this rocket to be on the way next week. Fail me on this and you fail the entire human race… Yourself and your families too.”

  Epaulding looked around at them again. Many of them looked embarrassed but they seemed to have gained some resolve. I don’t need a genius to lead this group. I need a “people person.” Maybe Mike Voight?

  ***

  In Ell’s ear Allan said, “‘Belle’ has a call from Gordon Speit.”

  “Put him on,” she said, feeling that it was somehow odd that life—such as calls from Gordon—went on normally despite her knowledge of the comet breathing down the world’s neck. Using her “Belle” voice she said, “Hi Gordon, how’s ‘the road’ treatin’ you guys?”

  “Hey, it’s pretty amazing. Since Vic helped us with our sound our audiences have been going crazy. Word seems to be spreading and we’re selling out. Our manager is moving us to bigger venues!”

  “Wow! That’s great. I’ll tell my Aunt she bet on the right horse this time. After making a long list of bad investments, I’m not sure she’ll know what to do.”

  “Yeah, if things will just keep going this way we should be able to pay back her loan pretty soon… actually I was calling to ask a favor?”

  “Another loan?” Ell asked dubiously.

  “No, no, we’re doing well financially. Actually, I was hoping you’d talk to your friend Emma and get her to invite Ell Donsaii to our show in Greensboro next week? We really feel like we owe her… for getting us started. We’ll leave her ‘comp’ tickets at the box office in case she decides to come.”

  Contradictory feelings rushed through Ell. Happy to be invited as “Ell.” Disappointed to be left out as “Belle.” Suspicion that they just wanted Ell as a publicity generator. Jealousy of “Ell” because he wasn’t very interested in “Belle.” Is this what it’s like to have a split personality? “Uh, sure. I’ll try to get a message to her.”

  “Great!” then as an afterthought, “Uh, I’ll leave comp tickets for you and Emma too. Hope you all can make it.”

  After he signed off Ell said, “Allan, summarize the news on Gordon Speit and Velos for me.”

  As she read through the information summary that Allan assembled for her her eyebrows rose. Velos was becoming hugely popular in the Southeast and people were flocking to its shows. Recently, fans were having to be turned away in droves.

  ***

  “Secretary?”

  “Yes?” Bayless grumped. He’d just gotten off the phone with Overstreet over at PHMSA. Instead of getting flustered when Mullins had shown up to shut D5R down, that irritating little girl they had in charge had apparently just said, “No problem, go ahead and treat our ports like pipelines. We’ll make whatever applications you want.” Bayless had been looking forward to seeing some video of Donsaii’s dismay when he slapped her down—admittedly second hand but still, he was sure she’d know it was him. It was petty he knew, but he desperately wanted to get even for the way she’d put him in his place at that ridiculous meeting of Horton’s. Worse, D5R had already submitted applications and Overstreet implied that she didn’t think anything should be done to hold them up! D5R had apparently hired a lawyer with a lot of experience submitting PHMSA applications and theirs looked flawless. Bayless had had to lean heavily on Overstreet to get her to agree not to look at them right away and then to look very hard when they did examine the applications. He’d insisted that they do special safety evaluations of the ports but Overstreet had frowned and said that it didn’t sound like there was much that could go wrong. The ports either worked or they didn’t. The material either showed up where it was supposed to or it didn’t show up at all. They weren’t like a real pipeline that could leak half way to its destination.

  Crap! Bayless rubbed his forehead and wondered what else he could do.

  “Director Epaulding from NASA would like to speak to you.”

  “Put him on.”

  “Um, sorry sir, he’s here to speak to you in person.”

  Bayless’ eyebrows climbed. “OK, send him in.”

  Epaulding came in the door and put out his hand to shake. “Hey Jim, I’d like to speak to you, ‘off the record’ if you don’t mind.” Epaulding lifted his AI headband off and popped the PGR chip off the back.

  Bayless reached back and unplugged his AI, feeling a bit like a dinosaur when he did it. He showed Epaulding the jack, then said, “What’s this about?”

  “PHMSA has stopped all sales of transfer ports by D5R, the company that saved the Space Station a few months back.”

  Bayless waved his hand in dismissal, “Yeah, I know all about D5R. They’re a menace.”

  Epaulding drew back, for the first time considering that PHMSA’s actions might have been purposeful and directed, rather than a random flexing of the agency’s regulatory arm. “Uh, how are they a menace?”

  “Are you kidding? Their ports are going to destroy the economy. All the nation’s pipelines, tanker ships and tanker trucks are going suddenly become superfluous. That’s just in my bailiwick, all the power lines will be coming down,” he waved his hand again, “it’s a freaking disaster!”

  “Well, sure. There’ll be some upheavals in the economy. But there’ll be huge savings too. In the long run we’ll be much better off!”

  “Yeah, well, it’ll be the really long run if I have anything to say about it.”

  Epaulding closed his eyes and pursed his lips against any vehement retorts. Keep your eye on the ball Jim, he said to himself. “OK, but I’d like to request a special dispensation for a set of ports that ILX ordered.”

  Bayless rolled his
eyes and picked up the jack for his AI, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re only one of about 200 people who’ve been calling DOT about how they must absolutely, without a doubt get some ports yesterday.” He jacked his AI back in. “This old world has been doin’ business the old way for millennia and it’ll just have to keep on doin’ it that way a little bit longer.”

  Epaulding closed his eyes a moment again, then gathering resolve said, “Please, as a favor to me, go off the record a moment longer?”

  Bayless narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like this kind of begging for personal favors among the movers and shakers but he did reach back and pull the jack one more time. He steepled his fingers and waited.

  “I don’t suppose you’d take my word for it. That there’s something very, very important that we need those ports for?”

  Bayless sighed, “And I suppose it can’t wait?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Epaulding shook his head.

  Bayless said, “If you’re going to ask me to break with my personal ethics on this, then you’re gonna have to tell me why.”

  Epaulding reflected that Bayless’ reputation for personal ethics wasn’t that great. Which made Epaulding reluctant to talk to him about the comet. Could I talk to someone lower on the food chain and get them to authorize the ports? Or maybe just get Donsaii to give us the ports behind DOT’s back? He grimaced, “Then I’m going to need to ask you to keep what I tell you an absolute state secret. This is ‘don’t even tell your wife stuff,’ do you understand?”

  Bayless’ eyes widened. He hardly ever dealt with highly secret information in the DOT. He shrugged, “Sure.”

  Epaulding reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a paper. “I have the President’s authorization to require you to sign this document stating that you are fully aware of the penalties for revealing a State Secret.”

  Bayless frowned, why would NASA have a State Secret? For a moment he considered saying that he’d approve the damn ports for ILX without being told, but then his curiosity got the better of him. He held his hand out for the paper, took it and signed it with a flourish. He looked back up at Epaulding questioningly.