StS6 Deep Space - Hidden Terror Read online

  When Mahesh’s eye found Kaem, the young man was already walking to the center of the building, carrying a model rocket Ed Nagy had kept on his work table. When he reached the middle of the room, he pulled out a chair and stepped up onto it. It seemed that during Kaem’s short walk to the middle, everyone in the building had automatically stopped and focused their eyes on him.

  When he spoke, you could’ve heard a pin drop.

  Kaem didn’t speak loudly, in fact, you could say he spoke gently despite the telling rasp in his voice. “I’d like for all of us to spend a moment in silence or quiet prayer while we consider the life of our friend and colleague, Ed Nagy.” Kaem bowed his head and the room, already quiet, somehow grew more silent.

  Something about the way Kaem had spoken affected Mahesh deeply and he found himself wiping his eyes again and again without worrying about who might see him crying.

  After a period of silence that seemed perfect, not too short, and not too long, Kaem raised his head and said, “I considered Ed a friend. Someone I loved for his aptitude as an engineer and his ability to make me laugh. My favorite memory was the day he booby-trapped Jerry’s chair by putting Stade caps under its feet. He carefully poured little piles of sand around them to keep the chair from sliding away before Jerry had a chance to sit down. When Jerry came back from lunch, he dropped into the chair in that exaggerated fashion only Jerry has… Hooeee, the look on Jerry’s face as he skidded across the room! Even better was the look on Ed’s face as he watched his friend sliding and sliding, desperately trying to stop…” Kaem shook his head, then he looked around the room. “Norm, earlier you told me your favorite Ed Nagy story. I’m hoping you’ll share it with everyone. I’m hoping any of you who feel up to it will share your own Ed stories. I think Ed would have loved to be remembered for the laughs he gave us.” Kaem stepped down and held the model rocket out to Norm, “I pass the icon to Norm.”

  Norm stood, took the rocket, stepped up on the chair, and recounted his own humorous Ed anecdote, then passed the rocket to Amy.

  And so it went, some stories touching, most of them hilarious, but the jokes were never as funny as Ed could’ve made them. When Mahesh’s turn came he related his dismay upon realizing that he’d been the last person at Staze to see Ed when he left that day, and how sad he was that he hadn’t said anything more meaningful than, “Stay safe,” something Ed hadn’t been able to do.

  By the time the last person had spoken Mahesh felt exhausted. As exhausted as one might expect if one had just been through a massive emotional catharsis. Kaem told everyone to make sure that any customers expecting important deliveries were aware there was going to be a delay, then to take the rest of the day off to be with friends and family. Mahesh wholeheartedly agreed. He desperately wanted to go home and see his wife and kids himself.

  Before he got back down off the chair, Kaem said, “One more thing. When I feel terrible about something bad that’s happened, I find solace in pondering ways to fix the problem or keep it from happening again. I know we can’t go back in time to rescue Ed, but I challenge you to think about how to keep hurricanes from killing people in the future. In a few days, we’ll have a meeting to talk about any ideas you might have had along those lines.”

  As Mahesh drove home, he found he’d already started thinking about Kaem’s challenge. Maybe some kind of Stade network on the roofs of houses? Though, the obvious solution would be to put on a Stade roof…

  Chapter Three

  NASA director James Eckels thought it was about time to call the meeting to order. It was a small group with only about twenty people, mostly from NASA, plus the four from Staze. He decided to wait another minute for Alston Dergraf to arrive. Dergraf was always late, but the man was brilliant so…

  Eckels ruminated.

  By promising confidentiality, Eckels had hoped to get the famously reclusive super-genius founder of Staze, “Mr. X,” to come to the meeting but that effort had failed to bear fruit.

  The people at Staze had told him he was getting the next best thing in Kaem Seba, a young man who X apparently used to listen in on important meetings. They’d even said X often fed ideas to Seba in real-time so it would almost be as if the great man were there in person.

  In fact, the person he’d been speaking to at Staze had told Eckels that the time-stopping theory Staze was based on had actually been Seba’s. X had been the one to come up with a practical way to use Seba’s theory. He’d founded and owned the company, developing its world-spanning impact. However, apparently, when they awarded the Nobel Prize for stasis, it would go to Seba. On the other hand, Eckels wondered, for a Nobel to be awarded, wouldn’t Seba have to publish the theory, which he hasn’t done so far and shows no inclination to do? Perhaps, if publication is required, he’d never get the award, no matter how much it was deserved.

  To himself, Eckels thought, Seba’s probably a very weird egghead. I wonder if he’ll be much help, even if X is backstopping him.

  Giving up on Dergraf, Eckels cleared his throat. He said, “Hello, I’d like to call this little meeting to order. I’m NASA Director James Eckels.” He went around the room introducing the NASA personnel. Some were in the little group of four NASA scientists who had been considering Eckels’ ideas for Stade. The remainder weren’t yet aware of the project Eckels was about to propose, so he hoped to get critical feedback from them as well as the Staze people. Especially from Alston Dergraf, who arrived just in time to be introduced last.

  The oldest man on the Staze team introduced himself as Mahesh Prakant, who Eckels recognized as the company’s CTO. He then introduced the others. To Eckels’ surprise, Seba was handsome and fit-looking, not at all the nerdy type Eckels had expected.

  “So,” Eckels began, “as you know, we’ve asked you here so we could begin to discuss the use of a Staze-type space launcher and some Stade spaceships to further NASA’s interplanetary exploration program. Our interplanetary human exploration program,” he said with pride, both for the resumption of human exploration and for the exciting ideas he and his team had toward furthering that endeavor. “You may have believed, as many others do, that NASA permanently backed away from human interplanetary exploration after the Mars One debacle. You may think that the fact everyone on that mission died has caused us to tuck our tails between our legs and give up on any further attempts.” He smiled ruefully, “You may even be correct. NASA’s posture has reflected such a stance… until now. The Mars One people died of radiation poisoning and what I would characterize as an appalling lack of delivered resources. With the development of Stade, however, it would appear that we can now build and launch a spacecraft with total radiation shielding. One that will allow us to reach the fourth planet in good health, having sustained insignificant radiation exposure. Once there, we’ll be able to dig underground or set up Stade huts for living quarters. Our astronauts will have sufficient supplies because such sundries can now be launched to orbit at a reasonable cost and enough fuel can be launched to power a transfer orbit that can reach Mars in reasonable time periods.”

  Eckels looked around the room, mostly checking the people from Staze. He thought they looked eager. “What we’re hoping is that Staze can build NASA a space-launch facility on Cape Canaveral.” He put an image up on the screen, “One with a tower that’s 1,000-kilometers long so we can launch to higher velocities.” He smiled, “Escape velocities. Speeds high enough that our spacecraft won’t need much fuel to reach Mars.” He put up another image with orbits diagrammed on it, “Such a Mars mission would, nonetheless, rendezvous with a pre-launched fuel depot on its way to Mars, topping up with fuel so it will be able to rapidly decelerate when it arrives. Earlier launches will already have landed supplies at the chosen location on Mars and placed more fuel depots in orbit around Mars for use of the return flights.

  “In our proposal, most of the astronauts who land on the planet will travel in stasis, leaving only a flight crew awake to keep an eye on things during transit.” He paused to t
ake the measure of his audience, especially those from Staze. He thought they looked surprised and felt good that he and his team had found uses for their product they hadn’t considered yet. He cleared his throat and concluded humbly, “I’m sure we haven’t considered either all the potential of your product, nor some of the issues that will pose problems, but I’m hoping you’ll join with us in a free-form discussion that endeavors to determine whether this concept might work, and, assuming so, how best we should go about it.”

  The people from Staze looked at one another as if a little puzzled. Eckels thought, I should’ve sent the general concept to them before the meeting so they could think about it beforehand. It’s a little much to expect them to respond in minutes to ideas we’ve been thinking about for months.

  Eckels was thinking how best to avoid further embarrassing them, when Alston Dergraf interjected, “Personally, I think there are a lot of near-Earth projects we should be asking Staze to help us with before we go jaunting off to Mars.”

  A brilliant asshole, Eckels thought irritatedly of Dergraf. He said, “That may be, Alston. But the agenda today is a Mars mission.” While he was saying that, Seba leaned toward Prakant and whispered, distracting Eckels. Eckels returned his attention to Dergraf, “So, while we perhaps should discuss such near-Earth projects another time, today we should focus on the agenda we have before us.”

  Prakant cleared his throat, “We at Staze would like to know what near-Earth projects Dr. Dergraf is considering? Perhaps we shouldn’t discuss them at length, but it would be helpful for our company to know what other projects might be contemplated or in the pipeline.”

  Though reluctant to do so, Eckels smiled graciously and said, “Certainly.” He turned to Dergraf, “Alston, briefly, what projects did you have in mind?”

  Dergraf said, “Well, I haven’t given this a lot of thought, but it would seem obvious to use Staze’s space-launch capability to add more modules onto ISS2. It would be particularly beneficial to send up some modules made of vacuum-Stade. Because they’d be essentially massless, they wouldn’t cost much to launch, but upon arrival, they’d provide more space for microgravity research. A set of Stade living quarters would, very importantly, be radiation protected to the astronauts’ benefit.

  “Second, the James Webb Space Telescope. Though it has delivered some astonishing images and information, it’s getting long in the tooth. Ideally, we should send up a replacement, especially since one of its hexagonal segments has been badly damaged by a meteoroid. I know we’ve been saying that we can work around the damaged segment of the mirror, but I think at the very least, we should send up a replacement segment. Perhaps we could send up more than one additional segment. Some of the other hexagons have significant numbers of flaws caused by space-dust-sized micrometeoroids.

  “Third, the Moon. We should be using Staze’s new space-launch capabilities to send up materials that will allow us to increase the size of our paltry moonbase. This should include Stade shielding for the base since we haven’t succeeded in tunneling the base beneath the surface. That would at least radiation protect our people during the hours they aren’t working on the surface.”

  Dergraf rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “Fourth. We should seriously think about building something bigger than the stalwart ISS2 plus the few extra modules I suggested earlier. Something we could consider a real habitat. With the space-launch system and Stade’s low mass, we should be able to send up the components of a rotating wheel station that could provide gravity. Gravity and a radiation shield would go a long way toward keeping our people healthy up there.”

  The man shrugged, “When we’ve done those things, that’s when we should start planning our mission to Mars. Honest to God, Mars just isn’t that appealing. Useless atmosphere, a lot of radiation, no life, little water, little oxygen. It’s barely more interesting than the Moon, but it’s a lot farther and harder to get to. And, if something goes wrong, it’s a hell of a long way from help!” Dergraf put up a halting hand, “And, before any of you say that we need to establish humanity somewhere else in case of catastrophe here on Earth, the best place for that is in low earth orbit. Build a damned habitat! Not just a hovel for a few people. Build a great place to live with room to farm and become self-sufficient.”

  Eckels took in the other NASA people as he turned his eyes to look at the folks from Staze. He hoped they weren’t too put off by Dergraf’s caustic commentary. In fact, they didn’t look put off at all. He asked, “Anyone else have a perspective on the value of a Mars mission?”

  Dave Tomas, an older, stolid, engineering type, lifted a finger, then began talking without waiting to be called on. “I don’t completely disagree with Dergraf. The biggest bang for our buck is closer to Earth. However, I learned early in my career at NASA that you should never discount the PR value of a mission. We can use the cachet of a “Mars mission” to get funding for the infrastructure of the Martian venture. Once we’d built this extra-long, high-velocity launcher, even before we’d launched our Mars mission, we could use that same launcher to send robotic missions to Venus, Mercury, the Belt, various comets, or any of the other planets and their moons. Those missions wouldn’t be size restricted by what we could launch from the bottom of Earth’s gravity-well, because we could build most of a spacecraft out of massless Stade. And, with the launcher, we could send up a lot more mass in the first place. We could get a hell of a lot more data back from robust missions like that.”

  Feeling like Tomas had “damned Eckels’ Mars mission with faint praise,” Eckels said, “Anyone else?” He gave Sam Allwood the eye. Allwood had been a member of the small group Eckels had convened to start planning the Mars mission. Realizing he was on the spot, Allwood sat up and said a few words about his perspective on the value of a Mars mission.

  Several others commented, but to Eckels’ surprise, no one from the Staze team said a word. Are they total duds? he wondered. Taking matters in his own hands, he addressed Prakant, “What does your team think? Do we need to take a break so you can have some time to talk amongst yourselves? Or do we perhaps need to schedule another meeting after you’ve considered the issues?”

  “Oh, no,” Prakant said. “We can shoot from the hip on several of your issues. Um, one of the first things you’ll need to understand is that we now have two models of our spaceplanes. The new one is larger, having a cargo capacity of 1200 cubic meters. To give you a gut feel for that volume, a semi-trailer holds about 100 cubic meters. Of course, the long narrow shape of the spaceplane itself will constrain the shape of whatever you launch, so—”

  Dergraf interrupted impatiently, “More important than the launch capacity volume, is its mass. How much weight can you throw?”

  Prakant tilted his head, “That’s only limited by the time we have to spin up the flywheels that power the launch. Well, that and how much power the grid can spare to spin them up.”

  Somewhat derisively, Dergraf said, “You think you could fill that volume with water and launch 1200 metric tons? Have you stopped to calculate how much power that would take?”

  Seba broke in, “It’d take 176.5 meganewtons to accelerate it at fifteen gravities. Um, that’d be 40,000,000 pounds of force. Fourteen of the old space shuttle’s boosters could generate that much thrust, so it’s not as extreme as you might think. Double that thrust if you wanted to launch at thirty gravities. With a thirty-gravity acceleration on our existing 200-kilometer-long launch towers, you could reach escape speeds. In fact, it’d get you to just over 39,000 kilometers per hour. If you figured a seventy-five-million-kilometer journey to Mars, that speed would get you there in seventy-seven days.”

  Dergraf narrowed his eyes, “Are you guessing, or did you just happen to have those figures to hand?”

  Seba blinked, “No. Those calculations aren’t particularly complex so I just worked them out when you asked. I’m confident they’re correct, though you’re welcome to check them.”

  Eckels stared, I’m pretty sure he didn’t
use his phone or laptop. Is he saying he worked them out in his head?

  Seba frowned, “Back to the issue of moving to Florida. We’ve engineered our current launch tower’s foundation in Virginia’s basalt to withstand two hundred million pounds of force so you could even launch a 1,200 metric ton load at sixty gravities from there. That’d get you to Mars in 57 days. I’m not sure about achieving those accelerations in Florida. I’ve heard Florida’s bedrock is almost all low-strength limestone. If that’s true, there might be issues with establishing a strong enough foundation there, but it’s not my field of expertise. I assume it could be done but might take a lot more work.”

  Dergraf waved dismissively, “If you build Eckels’ thousand-kilometer launch tower, you’ll be able to launch at lower accelerations and reach higher velocities.”

  “A thousand-kilometer tower has its drawbacks,” Seba responded. “It would travel a lot farther through the denser layers of the atmosphere—”

  “What?” Dergraf interrupted. “Why?”

  “Well, it’d be at a shallower angle, so just on that basis alone. Then there’s the curvature of the Earth’s surface,” Seba answered. “Over that much distance, you could think of the Earth’s surface as arching up closer to the launch rail. So, you’d be skimming closer to the surface of the earth, and therefore staying down in the denser part of the atmosphere for a greater percentage of the launch before you finally rose to the hundred-kilometer ‘edge of space.’ Means more drag. More extensive sonic boom. More complaints.”

  “Tilt it up higher! It won’t hurt a spacecraft to launch off the end of the tower at a height of 200 or even 500 kilometers!”

  Seba shrugged. “Might be kind of hard on any satellites that bounce off the tower while it’s up at that angle, to say nothing of the time it’d take to tilt it up and lower it back down for each launch.”