AMERICA ONE (26 page)

“Roger that,”
replied ground.
“Keep her there for three minutes, which should have you on the correct glide slope.”

Slowly the forward speed decreased as the small wings began to feel minute amounts of atmosphere, and the thrust from the liquid hydrogen motors used up the last liquid fuel in the tanks. Once the fuel was gone, the angle would certainly increase rapidly.

“I see the U.S. coastline coming up,” stated Jonesy as Maggie closed the rear motor down, its job done. The aircraft, still flown by computer, became more maneuverable at 5,000 knots and at a little over 100,000 feet.

As the craft entered real atmospheric conditions, the speed began to decrease rapidly, and the altitude seemed to slip away.

“I have manual flight,” stated Jonesy two minutes later as Maggie switched over the computerized auto-pilot system to manual control. “Speed 2,900 knots at 85,000 feet.

“Your speed is too high,”
stated ground control.
You have 3,000 feet more altitude than you need, bleed off forward speed. Over.”

“Roger,” replied Jonesy and pulled the nose up slightly.

“More!”
stated ground control. He did so and for once the shuttle wasn’t losing height and her forward momentum kept her straight and level. Jonesy flew straight and level for thirty seconds before the speed bleed-off forced her down rapidly towards earth again.

“Sierra Bravo, you are crossing into Nevada at 72,000 feet; your speed is far too fast at 1,140 knots. You still have 2,000 extra feet altitude,”
stated ground a couple of minutes later.

Jonesy acknowledged and did what all pilots wanted to do to lose added height and speed rapidly. He started flying her in “S” turns and brought her nose up a degree or two. He could only use his air brakes on a half notch setting below 680 knots, below the speed of sound.

“You are at minimum altitude, forty miles and your speed is still too high,”
stated ground control.

“No problem, I have the added speed to compensate. Let me fly her in. Out.” Jonesy did not need the team on the ground anymore and concentrated on what Maggie would tell him.

“Thirty miles to target, speed 840 knots, height 60,000 feet,”
she told him while he concentrated on the flying. They were nearing the last 50,000 feet, where they had done the many practice flights. Jonesy brought up the nose even more and quickly the excess speed bled off.
“Twenty miles to target 55,000 feet, speed 720 knots.”
He concentrated on his flying, and decided to leave the nose up for another couple of seconds.
“Fifteen miles to target 48,000 feet, 690 knots. Air brakes available.”
Maggie suddenly realized that he was working his butt off trying not to use them. She smiled; he wanted a perfect landing.
“Ten miles to target, 34,000 feet, 580 knots,”
she read out and Jonesy smiled slightly.
“Five miles to target, 21,000 feet, 499 knots. Three miles to target, target in sight, 16,500 feet, 440 knots. One mile to target, 9,000 feet, 370 knots, you need air brakes.”

“Crap!” stated Jonesy. He was too high and too fast, his perfect approach out by so little from 180,000 feet, and he had to use the air brakes. He let the air brakes out at half notch for two seconds and retracted them.

“Perfect slope 300 yards out, 1,500 feet, 300 knots, flaring out…… wheels down,” stated Jonesy.

Jonesy and Maggie brought down Ryan’s first foray into near space to a perfect conclusion, except that the larger chutes had not yet arrived and they ended in the flat and dusty dirt, a dozen yards past the end of the runway.

The second last Christmas for many.

Boy! Did the first beer taste good to Jonesy. It was getting dark outside; the day had been a long one with his first flight to the outer atmosphere and the long debriefing afterwards. He felt very good about his flying, he was back on top of his ability, and knew it. He went over the day’s proceedings in his mind.

After the flight, the shuttle was wheeled into Hangar Six for inspection. The pilots and passengers, who had been aboard, as well as Suzi and VIN, were asked to take part in the debriefing in Hangar One’s Ground Control; everyone met over a well-deserved lunch; then, for five hours, they went over every second of the flight.

“So, Herr Smidt, Mr. Nikolaevich, Ms. Grigorevna, do you think the computers can be accurately recalibrated with all the collected flight data?”

“Ja, to a point,” replied Herr Smidt, an older German scientist in charge of computing the shuttle systems. “We can reprogram up to the maximum altitude the shuttle achieved, no more. Then we can match the next re-entry of either shuttle with the exact altitude, position above earth, and re-entry speed. This new information will give the computers a more exact re-entry map and slope through the atmosphere. Of course we have to wait to compute data from higher altitudes, but as your flights get further away from the atmosphere, we can reprogram the computers in all the space craft. Once we have data from your first flight to the 22,500 mile altitude, the new information will aid us in recalibrating all future flights to that altitude.”

“Is there any reason why we cannot slow the craft down with one extra earth revolution and then have a lower altitude, speed, and glide slope? This would give us eleven minutes in the hot re-entry zone instead of the full eighteen minutes from a normal altitude high-speed re-entry. What is stopping us from doing that?” Ryan asked his team.

“Just speed,” Ms. Grigorevna replied; she also looked to be in her seventies. “Due to the small size of the shuttles, a single forward thruster would need to slow her from 25,000 knots to 14,500. This will take two hours, or two earth revolutions, and use up all remaining hydrogen fuel for re-entry.”

“A solution?” asked Ryan.

“We could add a larger thruster,” the scientist responded.

“Do we have room?” Ryan asked.

“We would need to redesign and build the nose cone of both shuttles, but I believe there is room,” Mr. Nikolaevich added.

“The reason is that with the low re-entry point this morning, seven complete minutes of heat on the heat-resistant tiles was reduced by lower speed and altitude; this decreases the chances of something going wrong by nearly 40 percent while the craft is totally helpless in space. I would like to see the report on blast damage from the bricks first, but I think that the useful life of the bricks themselves could be extended by the same amount. Remember, we only need approximately ninety flights into space, forty-five from each craft; if one fails, our whole space project will be extended ad infinitum and we will never achieve our goals. How much more liquid hydrogen will be needed for a second thruster?”

“Well,” interrupted Herr Muller. “If we changed the forward thruster to one of the larger units we are currently building for the Astermine spacecraft, we could add an extra tank along the floor of the cargo bay. A three inch high tank wouldn’t be in the way of the cargo,” he suggested.

“Approximately 80 pounds of added liquid hydrogen and the extra weight of 20 pounds for the larger motor will displace the same amount of cargo on each flight,” added Ms. Grigorevna.

“Fewer passengers in the cockpit could solve the weight adjustment; that means that we will be short of the new motors. It takes two months to build these motors, so I suggest we start building four more of this more powerful version immediately, and equip the shuttles with the necessary added fuel tank. We will have to leave
Astermine One
with her original motors until the new ones are ready. We don’t have time to change her motors, but we do have enough time to adapt the more powerful thrusters to
Astermine Two
. Our first mining expedition must begin on schedule,” continued Ryan. All three scientists nodded that they would get started.

“Pilots, if our team here can tighten up your computer re-entry programs to eliminate seven minutes of heat with no communications, how would that sound?” asked Ryan.

“Well, my feet were getting pretty hot,” responded Jonesy. “We have now achieved one re-entry from 300,000 feet. I think that Ms. Sinclair, Ms. Sullivan, and I could do it blindfolded, if we knew the computers would spit us out of the fireball in the right place at the right speed with decent altitude.” Both Maggie and Penny nodded their agreement.

For four more hours the debriefing and “think-tank” continued. Fatigue was beginning to show on the face of everyone who had had the ride of their life hours earlier. Ryan skillfully changed direction.

“Herr Smidt, I believe we have some of Mr. Rose’s home brew here for special occasions? I think that right now is a special occasion, so please administer some pain relief to all in attendance. It is time to celebrate. We are halfway there.”

Christmas was quick in coming. With hundreds of hours of computer flight saved on the computers aboard the shuttle in Hangar Six, work came to an end for the pilots for the last week of the year.

The political front was also quiet. The country now knew who would lead the nation for the next four years, and Ryan spent time on many phone calls to friends trying to figure out what this change in leadership meant for his program. He had a bad feeling that he was going to run out of time very soon.

There was no interest in returning home for Christmas, even by Maggie and Penny, who had parents or friends they could go back to.

Jonesy had little interest in leaving base, and VIN had nowhere to go. Most of the scientists with children already had their families on base; the rest, older scientists, had grown children or grandchildren to visit, most of who were on the other side of the world, and a long round-trip flight was of no interest to them.

All of the other staff had signed twenty-four month agreements which did not allow them to leave base for another fifteen months.

So, everybody stayed, and the airfield, with the bar open over Christmas Eve, received a gift from Santa—a couple of inches of snow, which made the Nevada desert seem like a real Christmas for many.

All shifts came to a halt, and the whole team was given a fantastic Christmas dinner by Ryan. The two eating establishments needed two seatings to accommodate everybody, and a two-foot long red stocking filled with delights from around the world was handed out to each person on site before the meal.

A few days before Christmas a couple of trucks had arrived carrying imported national treats for the Germans and Russians. The Americans got supplies of chocolates and liquors, all the kids received an electronic toy, and the husbands or wives of the workers, a nice thank you gift.

There was alcohol aplenty; Mr. Rose and Suzi had outdone themselves on a German wheat beer and an American lager. They had even produced schnapps and vodka from potatoes for the international contingency, and VIN’s stock of a couple of stashed bottles of Jack Daniels was also swiftly put away by Ryan, the pilots, and a few others.

By Christmas night, the snow returned, and dumped another few inches on the ground; the party was in its final phase with only the die-hards remaining.

VIN and Suzi found a quiet area to sit together and finish their umpteenth beers. Penny Sullivan, Ryan, Bob Mathews, Michael Pitt, and the other two female pilots were using both pool tables, and Jonesy and Maggie were already asleep—in bed together in Maggie’s room—with the door locked.

Nearly the Whole Plan

During January and February, the cold Nevada winter reduced flying to a minimum. Actual flying wasn’t necessary as there were the simulators to use and spaceflight procedures to be worked on. Atmosphere flying had become old news to many. Bob Mathews liked his
Dead Chicken
though. He had gone over every inch of the skin of the aircraft in the warm hangar and had the hangar team repair any minute cracks and missing rivets.

VIN had a completed space suit, and often had to go outside with Suzi and sit in the cold temperature to stay cool. Over time his mind and body had adjusted to the hundreds of modifications done to the suit, and often he and Suzi ran around outside testing the suits when there was no ice on the ground. They were even timed running with a jeep on the runway. They both completed the full 10,000 feet at a fast thirty-five miles an hour, running faster than any person on earth. They could both jump twenty-two feet into the air, and VIN beat Suzi by completing two somersaults to her one during a jump.

VIN now spent time in Hangar Four, wearing his suit and learning how to use the rock sweeper machines. He would take one of them to DX2014, with a second one as backup.

The Astermine spacecraft were coming along. All three had dozens of computer programmers working 24/7 to download programs specially made for their longer flights into space.

At the beginning of March, Ryan called his space-pilot team and VIN, for a meeting in Hangar Seven, the home of the three spacecraft. They entered as a group, sat down, and enjoyed coffee and freshly made Danish.

“We are now thirty-three days from our next flight, our problem “decoy” flight into space. Flight training continues tomorrow, but today you will tour the rest of the facility and see the excellent progress completed by the large group of specialists, whose work you don’t know about yet. Today is the day there is no turning back. Mr. Mathews isn’t with us today, nor are his crew, who will not be flying higher than with the C-5. The main reason is that Mr. Mathews is happy where he is, and somebody has to return the C-5 to the United States Air Force.”

“What you see and hear today is top secret, and only the inner-core scientists sitting with you in this meeting know of our extended plan. Many others know bits of information I have shared with you. Over one hundred projects are being worked on here on the airfield. If you do not want to go further, please stand up and leave this hangar. I will understand if you are not comfortable with what has happened up to now, but the new life I am offering you will be as different to your current life as you are to each other. If you have any doubts about what is going on here, please stand up and leave the hangar.”