SpaceCorp (2 page)

That great venture won’t be run solely by NASA and its partners. It will be driven by the innovation and imagination of private enterprise. Governments may have led the way into space, but realizing its promise will be the work of capitalists and entrepreneurs, like those of Ejner’s SpaceCorp.

Our exploration path will not be a smooth one. Ejner’s road to the stars is potholed with accidents, explosions, rocket failures, debris strikes, and malicious acts of war. But what else would you expect as humans carry their dreams and failings toward the stars?

—Thomas David Jones, June 2014

STS-59
and
STS-68
in 1994,
STS-80
in 1996,
STS-98
in 2001

Tom Jones on his second spacewalk on STS-98 Feb 12, 2001

With fifty-three days in space, Tom Jones is an authority on life in Low Earth Orbit—the setting of this book. After graduating from the Air Force Academy in 1977, he piloted B-52D bombers in Texas before earning his PhD in planetary science at the University of Arizona, studying asteroids for NASA. The space agency selected him as an astronaut in 1990. Tom flew on four shuttle missions on the Endeavor, Columbia, and Atlantis, serving as a payload commander, deploying and retrieving satellites, and helping deliver the Destiny Laboratory Module to the International Space Station. On that mission he led three space walks totaling 19 hours working in the vacuum, 220 miles up. Since leaving NASA in 2001, Tom has pursued a successful career as a scientist, consultant, writer, and public speaker. The Wall Street Journal called Tom’s Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir (Smithsonian Collins) one of its “Five Best” books on space. His website is
www.AstronautTomJones.com
.
 

P
ROLOGUE—
T
HE
K
ESSLER
S
YNDROME

1978
—NASA Scientist, Donald Kessler, predicts that the density of space junk in Low Earth Orbit or LEO will eventually reach a critical mass such that the random collision rate will exceed the orbital decay rate—not unlike a nuclear chain reaction. Objects in LEO maintain orbital speeds of over 26,000 kilometers/hour, enough kinetic energy for a 1-kg piece of debris to destroy a 1000-kg satellite costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Such a collision would shatter the satellite into hundreds more fragments that go on to strike still more targets. If this phenomenon is unmitigated, the collision rate will hit a tipping point, exponentially reducing the life expectancy of new satellites until space is no longer be commercially viable.

1985—
US F-15A fighter shoots down a 907-kg
Solwind
P78-1 research satellite with an ASM-135 antisatellite (ASAT) missile producing an undisclosed quantity of debris.

2006—
USS Lake Erie Ticonderoga class missile cruiser shoots down USA-193 spy satellite with a RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 producing an undisclosed quantity of debris.

2007—
Chinese Xichang Satellite Launch Center shoots down a 750-kg
Fengyun
FY-1C weather satellite with an SC-19 ASAT producing more than 3000 pieces of space debris.

2009—
A 560-kg Iridium-33 communications satellite and a 950-kg Kosmos-2251 communications satellite collided producing a combined total of 1788 pieces of space debris.

2013—
Chinese Xichang Satellite Launch Center tested an improved SC-19 ASAT missile capable of reaching medium earth orbit (MEO), highly elliptical orbit (HEO), and geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). There are no satellites orbiting Earth that are not vulnerable to ASAT attack.

2022—
NORAD publicly announces that without increased funding from Congress and the exponential increase in fragmentation and mission-related debris, it will in the future only attempt to track large spacecraft and rocket bodies.

2023—
US Congress passes a bill stating that the role of NASA is as a risk-reduction agency for the commercialization of space, citing there is no further public demand for space exploration. Included in the bill is authorization to sell to private interests all NASA and Air Force facilities and equipment devoted to space launch, development, and science & exploration.

2024—
Nuclear weapons, now commonplace among Second and Third world nations, are primarily seen as political immunity devices due to the international consequences of offensive use of nuclear weapons—the return of the Cold War’s Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine (MAD). As a result, rogue nations turn to shooting down derelict satellites in LEO in order to advertise their status in the global arena.

2028—
The average lifespan of a satellite is now less than three months due to increasing density of space debris. Lloyd’s of London declares it can no longer insure satellites. Commercial operations in LEO cease.

2030—
SpaceCorp initiates construction of the SpaceCorp Space Station
SSS Werhner Von Braun
, a one kilometer spinning ring
advertised as the first debris-proof instrument-hosting space station.

2038—
The
Von Braun
is christened. 45 astronauts are killed and 427 wounded by debris strikes during its eight-year construction.

PART
I

C
HAPTER
O
NE

12 December 2069

Iranian Space Agency (ISA) Mission Operations, Shahrud, Iran

Dr. Farshad Rahmani, ISA Director and Chief Scientist, never grew tired of sunset launches. The wispy exhaust plume of the
Shahab-7
traced a beautiful S-curve across the evening sky. Tracking cameras mounted outside the mission operations blockhouse projected the missile’s progress on a large theater-sized monitor in the front of the room. He regretted not be allowed to tell his family of impending launches, especially his young son, Arash. Rahmani dreamed of a day when Low Earth Orbit was cleared of debris and young Arash could follow in his footsteps to launch missiles into space—communications or weather satellites for the benefit of all mankind. Perhaps Arash himself would travel to space as an astronaut—what little boy didn’t want to be an astronaut and fly among the stars? But this was a military facility and launch information was classified.

* * *

There was a building in the far corner of the compound where classified documents were set on a conveyor of rusty metal trays and passed through a gas-fired oven. All that came out the other end were piles of ash. When a security violation occurred, an investigation would be conducted to see how much the mission had been compromised. Such investigations never lasted more than a few days. Then the involved parties would be led to the classified document disposal building and each one secured to a stretcher with heavy bailing wire. They would kick and writhe about until their wrists and ankles were bloody and their voices raspy croaks. They might have to lie on the stretchers for thirty minutes while piles of classified documents were disposed of first. The practice was over a century old, thought to have been a disciplinary procedure from Soviet intelligence.

Ten years ago when he was a deputy director, Rahmani and the other two deputies had been forced to observe such a disposal. A mission control operator had let slip to his wife about an upcoming launch. She had told others. Six kicking bodies went into the oven… counting the Director. Six piles of ash came out. One of the deputies fainted from the stench and the other was unable to stopper his stomach with his hands. Rahmani walked out the door wearing the former Director’s insignia, plucked from his tunic at the last moment by the Intelligence Officer. He had stuck it onto Rahmani’s chest above the breast pocket, then patted his handiwork with a thin smile. Later, when Rahmani was alone in his new office, he opened the teak wardrobe where he knew the old director had a long mirror attached to the back of the door. Rahmani examined himself for a moment, then straightened his insignia and shut the door.

*   *   *

“Second stage separation complete,” said the mission commander. He was seated before a trio of adjacent monitors.

The large monitor showed the second stage falling away from the third stage and warhead. The third stage would not separate from the warhead—it served a dual role of providing the last of the altitude gain needed to reach the abandoned Centaur upper stage orbiting overhead. It was also designed to provide maneuverability in case its target attempted evasive maneuvers. That would not be necessary this time. This target, Atlas Centaur R/B 1981-018B launched on 21 February 1981 to place a satellite into geosynchronous orbit at 36,000 kilometer, had spent the last 88 years known only as NORAD 12363—one of thousands of debris objects tracked by the few remaining operational radars in NORAD’s derelict Space Surveillance Network. This Centaur had a peculiar orbital feature that allowed it to be a target for the
Shahab-7
. Its orbit was highly elliptical going as high as 36,000 kilometer and as low as 600 kilometer. It was when the Centaur was at its lowest that it became a reachable target for the
Shahab-7
third stage that was now minutes away from intercept.

“Do you have target acquisition yet?” Government Minister Hashem Shirazi asked.

“Not yet, sir. The radar is just now unshackling itself from its launch configuration. It needs to warm up. Then it will be another few minutes before it begins its acquisition scan.”

“You know the Supreme Leader is watching this from his palace,” said General Omid Farahavi.

“Let’s hope he’s not disappointed,” said Rahmani.

At that moment a new pair of images appeared on the large monitor. The first was a grayscale image with a dark undulating blob in the middle. The second was a visual band color image that was rapidly oscillating between bright and dark.

“Why is it doing that?” asked Farahavi.

“It appears to be rotating—constantly flipping end over end,” said Rahmani. “Commander, check your radar lock!”

“We have no lock, sir. The spinning is interfering with the Doppler. Do you wish to abort?”

“Yes, abort!”

The mission commander lifted the red cover that protected the abort toggle on his console.

“No! You cannot abort! The Supreme Leader is counting on us. Allah will prevail!” said Minister Shirazi.

Both the mission commander and Rahmani stared at Shirazi for a few seconds. “Do as he says, commander,” said Rahmani.

“Will it pass close enough for the proximity fuse to detonate?” asked Farahavi.

“Possibly. We’ll know shortly,” said Rahmani.

The image was rapidly growing in size on the large monitor. The acquisition radar showed a fuzzy undulating blob even though the wavelength was in the millimeter band—a first cousin of the infrared and second cousin to the visual band. It was a distinguishable image, better than the simple spot obtainable by the longer radar wavelengths. But the high resolution visual band image was truly stunning. The color and contrast were vibrant and the high speed video downlink was completely free of pixilation and tiling. The Centaur continued to grow on both screens. Rahmani backed away unconsciously as though a crash was imminent. One last glimpse and suddenly both views went blank.

“We have a detonation command signal,” said the mission commander.

“Was the target destroyed?” asked Farahavi.

“We can’t be sure until NORAD updates its debris database and 12363 turns up missing. But the prox fuse would not detonate unless the target was close enough for the warhead to do significant damage,” said Rahmani.

“And how big is the warhead again?” asked Shirazi.

“1500 kg of Composition B high explosive wrapped in a steel fragmentation coil.” said Rahmani.

“That’s like shrapnel?” asked Shirazi.

“Essentially,” said Rahmani.

“Can we claim success then?” asked Shirazi.

“Depends on what you mean by success,” said Rahmani.

“I define success as accomplishing what we set out to do—to aim at and hit a piece of Western garbage blocking Allah’s view of His beautiful world!” said Shirazi. “Nuclear bombs restored Persia once again as a major force on Earth! Shoot-downs like this make us a major force in space. We must return to Tehran immediately. The Supreme Leader will want a full report.”

“Can’t you stall him for a few days while we wait to see what NORAD reports?” asked Rahmani.