I shaved, zipped on my crew suit and made my way to the dining room to find the other three already there. Breakfast, the last hot meal we expected to have for nearly a month, was eaten in an air of forced cheerfulness and good humour.
Afterwards we assembled in the briefing room for our final instructions, said goodbye to chiefs of various departments and, with handshakes all round, made our way to the crew jeep which was waiting outside.
The door opened to a ring of cheers, for every worker not engaged in take-off routine was out there to see us off. They swarmed round the jeep as we got into it. The roar we got as we moved off towards the launching platform must have been heard at Alice Springs.
Lemmy, who had been a little subdued and less talkative than the rest of us, brightened up considerably during this spontaneous demonstration and wore a beaming smile as he turned in his seat to wave goodbye. As we sped towards the launching site the crowd broke up and the men who had composed it began to race towards the main underground shelter to race for the best seats in front of the televiewer.
We reached the launching platform within five minutes. The control room director was waiting for us. He accompanied us up the steps of the launching apron as far as the elevator which was enclosed within the labyrinth of steel scaffolding. The elevator was merely a platform. It had no sides and no roof.
As we began to ascend, the controller yelled his goodbyes and good-lucks at us and we yelled and waved back. Three faint cheers came up to us from the guards who had formed a tight little group down on the ground and were waving their bush hats to punctuate the timing of their cheers.
“Goodbye, Earth,” said Lemmy. “I’ve set foot on you for the last time.”
“Not the last time,” said Jet.
“It feels like the last time.”
The walls of steel rods went flashing past. About half a mile to the south three rockets soared into the air and burst into a shower of red sparks which fell to the ground like a great meteoric display. It was the first signal; the first warning that take-off was near and that the launching area must now be cleared.
The elevator jolted to a stop. The entrance to the air lock stood open, its door folded back into the ship. We could see Luna City spread out below us, see the lights of the jeep which had brought us receding into the darkness as it carried the guards towards the viewing shelters. The controller’s car made its way to the control room and disappeared into the underground park.
We were now alone. Utterly alone. The only men in the area with their heads above ground.
“All right, we don’t need to stand here admiring the view,” said Jet. “Let’s get inside.”
We clumped our way across the wooden platform, through the circular opening and on to the steel floor of the airlock. There was just about enough room to accommodate the four of us. We paused as Jet, leading the way, climbed the ladder that led through another circular hole in the ceiling and into the cabin.
I went next. The rungs of the ladder felt cold to my hands which, I must confess, were sweating a little at the palms. Once through I turned to give a hand to Lemmy who was following me.
“Here we are,” he said as his head popped out of the hole. “Home, sweet home.”
I heaved him out of the opening and then gave my hand to Mitch. We were now under Jet’s orders. He wasted no time. “Lemmy,” he said, “open up the radio. Carry out pre-take-off checks.”
“Yes, Jet.” Lemmy moved over to the control table.
“Carry out your checks, Doc, and you, Mitch.”
We set to. Base was contacted, televiewers, radar, fuel gauges and oxygen supply checked. Suddenly a siren sounded, its wail coming up through the air lock like a voice from another world.’
“Second warning,” said Lemmy unnecessarily.
The wailing faded away just as the check routine was completed. We reported our findings to Jet who logged “Check OK” on the tape recorder. Then he turned to the three of us and said: “It will be half an hour before they remove the gantry and are ready for firing. We’ll all lie down while we’re waiting. Relax. Don’t talk unless you have to. Radio will be left on. Ignore it if you can.”
I stretched out on my bunk which was underneath Jet’s. We had gone through this routine often, the last three times within the ship. Take-off procedure had been rehearsed in every detail, the only difference between then and now being that we had not left the ground. Jet’s orders had always been couched in exactly the same words. Even so they sounded fresh, had a different tone about them. The very cabin looked different. The atmosphere was different. This was real; before it had seemed play.
For the first time I noticed how small the cabin was. I could, by reaching up, almost touch the underside of Jet’s bunk and my own was less than two feet from the floor. The other two bunks, their official designation was ‘take-off couches’, were only ten feet away. They were of exactly the same design as mine and Jet’s, of course, and were occupied by Mitch below and Lemmy above. Short ladders led to the upper bunks.
The shiny-new cabin was spherical, its flat floor being set low in the sphere. Consequently the walls and ceiling, except where control boards had been built against them, were dome-shaped. In the centre of the ceiling was a circular hatch. This was the entrance to the pilot’s cabin, used only during the landing period of the return journey to Earth for, although the ship took off vertically, it landed horizontally like a superstratocruiser. For such flights our bunks could be converted into chairs. The cabin then became lopsided, like a living room that had been tipped over to allow one of its walls to become the floor and the opposite one the ceiling. But this was unimportant for, by the time this tipping-up process was necessary, our journey would be virtually over and there would be nothing to do but sit tight until the landing had been made.
Below the cabin floor was the airlock and the emergency access hatch to the fuel tank area. Running from below the cabin floor and deep down into the motor was a long, narrow tube which carried the connecting wires from the control boards. Almost immediately it ran through a specially treated, thick sheet of circular lead which served to separate us from the radio activity set up by the motor. Below the protective sheet were the spherical fuel tanks; below them the motor itself. The fuel tanks and motor combined filled a greater area of space than the rest of the second stage put together.
The pilot’s cabin, the crew’s cabin, the fuel tanks and all but the exhaust of the motor were enclosed in a conventional, rocket-shaped shell which, as protection against the unlikely possibility of a meteoric collision, was again enclosed in an outer wall of identical shape, an inch or more of space being left between the two hulls.
We could hear the voice of Control calling the out-stations to report. One by one they checked in; radar, televiewer, observatory, firing control, radio transmitter. Personnel deep shelter reported ‘all under cover’. And through it all, the automatic speaking clock: “
Zero, minus 20 minutes.”
Jet announced the next orders. “Fasten safety straps.”
We pulled them into position and made them fast.
“Position control panels.”
There was a faint hum as the four panels slid out from the wall into their take-off positions a foot above our faces. Each panel contained the gauges applicable to the duties of each crew member. Mine contained the oxygen, air conditioning and temperature indicators. I also controlled the flywheel stabilisers. Jet’s indicator would tell him full details of line of flight, speed and acceleration during take-off. Mitch would watch the performance of the motors while Lemmy had the radio, radar and televiewer controls duplicated on his panel. In one respect the panels were identical. They all carried a small televiewer screen and intercom microphone.
“Hullo, Luna. May we remove the elevator?”
Only Jet answered Control during take-off. “Go ahead.”
“Zero, minus 19 minutes.”
“Lemmy, televiewer--control view.”
“Control view one.”
The screens came to life and showed an image of the ship as seen by the control room. It was relayed up to us via the teletransmitter. The rocket was still enclosed within the gantry and looked very tiny, like a model. It was difficult to believe that I was actually within the ship.
“Stand by, Luna. Airlock and outer door closing.”
There was a click of relays and a whirr. The circular airtight door which was to seal off our tiny cabin sank slowly into the floor, then the deeper hum of the automatic outer door control filled the ship. A click, a clump, and then silence, followed almost immediately by a hiss of air that quickly faded away.
“Airlock closed.”
“Zero, minus 18 minutes.”
We were completely cut off from the outside world now. Automatically the oxygen supply came on. The dials on my panel showed the pressure.
“Oxygen, Doc?”
“OK.”
The seconds ticked by.
“Zero, minus 15 minutes.”
Jet ran over take-off routine for the last time and ended: “Remember, everything has been checked and rechecked. Nothing can go wrong.”
The addition was not in the book. Mitch raised his eyebrows enquiringly and looked up towards Jet’s bunk.
“Keep your ears open for Control. They may need to send new instructions once we’re under way, but we probably won’t be able to do anything about them until acceleration ceases.”
“Zero, minus 10 minutes.”
“They’re moving the gantry.” It was Lemmy who spoke.
I looked at the screen. The scaffolding, all in one piece, was backing away from the ship. Within a couple of minutes it had moved into the background of the picture, leaving the rocket bare. It was the first time any of us had seen her out of the splints. She looked magnificent, even in the small frame. I glanced at the large televiewer screen over the main control panel to get a better view.
Although her base was more than ninety feet in diameter, her height and the way she tapered off to the fine point of the antenna in her nose, gave her a slim, graceful appearance like a gigantic obelisk. She was nearly twice as high as Nelson’s column and her whole weight seemed to rest on the tips of the four great stabiliser fins. In fact they barely touched the ground. It was the rim of the exhaust of the huge, liquid fuel motor of the booster stage that carried the ship’s weight as she stood poised over the deep exhaust tunnel on the flanges of curved, steel supports. But, due to the bowl-shaped launching area, so designed to reduce the danger from an accidental explosion, the supports could not be seen.
It was impossible to tell that the ship was built in two stages. Just above where the separation line might have been visible were the two great swept-back ailerons and, near the nose, were the smaller ones, sloping back to the same angle. Just below them, like an elongated blister, was the pilot’s canopy.
The first streaks of dawn began to light up the sky. Until a moment ago the floodlit rocket had stood out against a black background, but it was now possible to detect the silhouetted, jagged outline of the hills behind it.
“Zero, minus 5 minutes.”
We waited in silence.
“Four minutes.”
Jet gave his final warning before firing time. “When we’re under way, lie flat. During the first acceleration period we will reach nine g’s.”
“Hope somebody remembered to buy return tickets for this trip.” Lemmy reacted to his own joke but there was no response from anyone else.
“Three minutes.”
Jet’s tense voice broke in on Lemmy’s. “Doc, gyro.”
“Gyro,” I repeated, and pressed the contact. I could feel the hum of the flywheel through the steel supports of my bunk.
“Two minutes”
“One.”
Down in the concrete, sunken blockhouse that was the control room, six rows of ten indicator lights were illuminated on the firing panel. As each second passed one light went out.
“Stand by for firing.”
“Recorder, Lemmy.”
“Recorder on.”
“Zero, minus 30 seconds.”
“Lemmy, lie still!”
“Only getting comfy.”
A red button of light was flashing on Jet’s panel. Once every second.
“Twenty seconds.”
Down in the control block a button was pressed and the ignition circuit completed. A wisp of white vapour drifted up from the base of the rocket.
“19, 18, 17, 16, 15 . . .”
The wisp of smoke became a belch of flame. The fuel pumps came to life, slowly at first and then at full force as consumption increased to an almost insatiable level. The tongue of flame shot down into the jet deflector. There it turned the cooling waters into steam which was propelled along the tunnel shaft, under the apron and up and out of the safety vent a hundred yards from the rocket, like a powerful, natural geyser.
“14, 13, 12, 11 . . .”
The noise, even to us in the ship, was almost unbearable. It began to drown out the speaking clock.
At ten seconds a row of ten white lights, the first of which was situated immediately below the flashing one came on. Jet, thinking we might not hear the voice of Control, took his time from the lights and yelled off the seconds as each one went out.
“10, 9, 8, 7, 6 . . .”
My mouth went dry. I shot a glance over towards Mitch. He was lying quite still, his eyes fixed on the indicators of his panel. I turned back to the small picture of the rocket on the screen before my face.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1--fire!”
I felt the ship stir; give a very slight roll. She was leaving the ground. Slowly, slowly, one foot, two feet, three feet, four.
“Plus 1 second.”
The gap between the platform and the base of the first stage was quite appreciable. The ship seemed to be balanced, perfectly balanced, on the bright flame of its exhaust. We were nine feet off the ground.
“Plus 8 seconds.”
Height, a thousand feet. The picture on the screen was still that as seen from below. As it rose higher, the rocket got smaller, a column of fire and smoke trailing behind it.