Moon Hoax

14 SPACEQUEST

Peter’s first impression of SpaceQuest’s facility in southern California was one of awe. The daunting five-story mirrored glass structure seemed to go on forever. Everything he saw was new and first class. He had just arrived and was getting a personal tour from the CEO, Allen Ferguson. He was happy to have gotten in a few hours of sleep on the flight over, dreaming of Anya the whole way. It was time to clear his head and focus on the task at hand. He intently listened to the heavyset man who came across as a confident go-getter. Their first stop was the back half of the building which housed large sections of the Newton 9 rocket, along with simulators, a few Galileo capsules, and even the mockup Soyuz that NASA sent.

After inspecting most of the equipment, they approached what looked like the simulator for the Galileo capsule. Allen patted the side of the equipment. “This is where you will probably spend most of your time, in this simulator, and in the weightless training pool.”

Peter looked over the machine, which had an actual modified Galileo capsule sitting on a hydraulic platform with pistons surrounding the bottom portion to simulate movement. The capsule was white with SpaceQuest’s logo painted in navy blue along with the American flag.

Peter felt this was as good a time as any to tell Alan about Viktor. “Allen, I know NASA told you this would be a one man mission, but I have recruited another astronaut to help out.”

Looking startled, Allen asked, “Really, who?”

“Viktor Alexandrov,” said Peter.

“Viktor Alexandrov, the Soviet cosmonaut? Isn’t he dead? How old is that guy?”

Peter was impressed Allen actually knew Viktor was a Soviet cosmonaut since he flew prior to the wall falling. “He’s seventy-five, and in great physical shape. With his knowledge and flight experience of the Soyuz, along with his Russian background, I feel he would be an invaluable addition and a tremendous help.”

Allen shrugged. “Should be no problem. We can just as easily get two men into space as we can one. When is he going to arrive for training?”

“He should be here in a few days,” said Peter.

“Good,” said Allen as he walked up the steps to the hatch before swirling around, his large body covering the entrance. “How about you go on in and check it out?”

Peter was more than happy to oblige. He was eager to see the inside of the capsule that would be taking him to space. Alan shuffled aside as Peter stepped up to the small platform and squatted to peek inside. The capsule’s lights were already on, brightly illuminating the interior. As he peered around, he noticed it was quite different from the Shuttle; it was more like one of his dad’s capsules. The ship had four seats up front sitting side by side. He squeezed his six-foot one-inch frame through the entryway, and sat in one of the middle seats, taking a moment to study the control panel. It was obviously not like his dad’s. The control panel was set up with computer screens and displays, rather than the many gauges and switches that surrounded his dad’s cockpit. Before him was a futuristic and impressive-looking panel. Allen poked his head in and watched Peter ogle over his baby.

Though the set up was different than the Shuttle, Peter’s experience still enabled him to determine what most of the instruments and displays were used for. Yet it was obvious he would still require quite a bit of education before he would be able to operate one. Directly in front of each outside seat was a large monitor with its own window. These seats had two hand controllers on each arm rest. Peter assumed the controller on the right was the rotational controller while the one on the left one was the translational controller. Peter was sure these seats were for the commander and pilot.

“What do you think?” asked Allen, still grinning proudly.

“Impressive.” Peter swiveled his head around observing all the controls.

“Do most of the instruments make sense?”

“Most.” Peter was being generous, but wanted to give Allen a good first impression of his knowledge.

Allen proceeded to give a brief description on how the instruments worked. Peter was all ears and impressed the CEO knew so much detail. “You know the folks at the space station are not going to be expecting you, right?”

Peter nodded.

“So you’re going to have to dock this baby yourself instead of the ISS arm grabbing you, like it will for our unmanned capsules. We will fly you to within fifty meters of the station before passing control to you. Think you can handle it?”

In the short time he had been around Allen, he knew how much he cared for his equipment so he emphatically answered, “Absolutely! I’m your man.”

“Good. How about you try on the headset?” Allen pointed to the snoopy cap hanging in front of one of the pilot seats.

Peter moved over to the end seat and slid the cap on before being asked to test the headset to see if it worked. “Testing, one, two, three,” said Peter into the small microphone. He gave a thumbs-up after hearing the operator on the other end.

Allen gave him a canary-eating grin. “Great! How about we see what you can do. I’ll have the operators run a simulation. Let’s see if you can dock this baby.”

Peter’s jaw dropped. I sure hope he’s kidding. But before he could interject, Allen closed the hatch. He wasn’t ready for the locking of the latch. He grimaced and assumed this was a test to see what kind of astronaut he was. He liked the challenge, but he could use more education on how the systems were interlinked. He quickly reviewed everything Allen had pointed out.

Within a minute, his headset came alive. “Okay, Peter, this is Mission Control. We’re going to start the simulation where you are fifty meters out from the space station. When we give you clearance, we want you to proceed at .05 meters per second toward the docking port and hold at the ten meter mark, over.”

Peter had no choice except to wing it. “Roger, Mission Control.”

He focused on the monitor in front of him, reviewing its display of various views of the space station in reference to his location. He found where he could change the screen to give different angles and orientation. He decided to go with “God’s view,” which allowed him the best view of the space station and his spacecraft. The display had x and y coordinates showing his distance, along with altitude, range, and speed all with respect to the station. He looked out the window above the control panel at a video screen showing an animated scene of the space station. Wow, that’s cool.

He slowly wrapped his fingers around each controller and took one last look at the key instruments he sensed would be needed for the exercise.

“Galileo 1, this is Mission Control. You are cleared for initial stage docking with Node 2 Zenith, over.”

“Roger, Mission Control,” Peter said. Knowing the design of the space station helped. Fortunately he knew exactly where the Node 2 was, sometimes called by its given name, Harmony. Harmony had a total of four ports: starboard, forward, port and zenith. Harmony was now highlighted by a green-lined box on the monitor in front of him, indicating that was his target. He started to move the rotational controller slightly back to pitch the capsule upward so he was aimed at the space station. The pistons underneath the capsule suddenly jolted, giving him a simulated movement. I didn’t even have to put a quarter in this thing.

Peter focused, wanting to give a good impression to Allen and the operators. Come on Peter, you can do this. He was about to move the translational controller forward before remembering he needed to pop open the front cone of the capsule, exposing the docking adapter, or he wouldn’t have been able to dock. Good job Peter, you don’t want to start off with a screw up. While holding his position, he flipped the switch and heard a soft rumbling motor sound. Peering out his window, he could see an animation showing the tip of the capsule had swung open. Cool! A light on his display signaled cone detachment. “Mission Control, Galileo 1 has cone detachment.”

“Roger, Galileo 1. We confirm detachment and clearance. Please proceed to initial stage docking.”

“Roger, Mission Control.” Peter began to sweat. He continued monitoring the instruments, cautiously moving the capsule toward the station. Soon he was at the ten meter mark and glanced outside, confirming he was aligned correctly. The large black cross known as the Stand-off-Cross, his docking target, was a little off center. He rotated the left controller slightly to get Galileo in perfect alignment. Once he felt good with his position he radioed, “Mission Control, Galileo 1 at the ten meter mark and on target. Holding for clearance to proceed, over.”

“Roger, Galileo. Continue to hold while we confirm your position.” The radio went quiet. Peter was feeling pretty damn good about himself. As he waited, he took a moment gazing out the window at the animated space station. He began tapping his fingers on the controllers imagining in just a month he would actually be docking in space.

The radio came back alive. “Galileo 1, all systems look good and you are cleared to dock.”

“Roger, Mission Control.” He pushed the translational controller forward and carefully proceeded to the ISS docking ring. Five meters away and all looked good. Peter took his eye off the monitor to locate the docking switch in the cabin that would initiate a series of hooks to engage the ISS. The hydraulic pistons abruptly lurched him forward. What the hell was that? He quickly looked out the window to see the Stand-off-Cross no longer there. Shit, where did it go? He looked back down at the monitor; his heart stopped. The Galileo was in a slow roll increasing in intensity, yet he was not moving either controller. The roll was taking him toward the space station. Damn it, I’m going to crash if I don’t stop this thing. Peter had only a few seconds to fix the problem. His sweating increased as he tried to counteract the roll, adjusting the left controller, but he was not having any luck. “Mission Control, I have a problem, I’m rolling out of control.”

Before Mission Control responded, his capsule crashed into the space station on his monitor. He shook his head in disgust before seeing big bold letters on his monitor. “You just crashed into the space station… ouch!”

Peter pursed his lips and exhaled in frustration. A thruster must have malfunctioned and possibly if he had not taken his eye off target, he might have had time to correct his position before spinning out of control. He was better than that.

“Nice try, Peter,” said the radio. “Just a moment and we’ll get you out of there. We need to make molds of your hands and then Allen wants to talk with you in his office.”

“Roger,” said Peter. I’m sure he didn’t like what he saw. I better come up with something to prove to him I’m still his man. Damn!

“SO YOU CRASHED into the space station. Not only did you damage a $100 billion piece of equipment, you pissed off a bunch of countries who own that damn thing. And keep in mind, SpaceQuest’s logo is on that capsule you just crashed.” Allen sounded facetious as he sat behind his desk.

“Sorry about that, boss. However, after SpaceQuest training, it won’t happen again.” Peter lounged in his chair, deliberately injecting confidence into his voice.

“I sure hope so,” said Allen his tone softening. He grew serious. “Peter, my responsibility is to get you into space and docked to the space station. And to be blunt, that’s really all I care about. I want to make sure you’re prepared to handle any problems that might occur when docking. Seeing you crash into the space station was not encouraging. I want you to spend a good chunk of your time in that simulator, so you’re prepared for anything that could go wrong. We’re not going to spend much time training for the launch. I’m confident we’ll get you two into orbit. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride. We don’t have time to go over emergency launch procedures if anything should go wrong. The way I look at it, you signed up for a suicide mission; therefore, we are not going to invest precious training time on emergency procedures to save your ass. I want your training split between docking with the space station and learning the procedures needed to get you to the moon.”

Peter understood where Allen was coming from. If he failed to dock with the ISS, SpaceQuest’s future would be in jeopardy. However if they were successful, Allen could virtually write his own ticket in the space business. Bottom-line, it was obvious nothing meant more to Allen than SpaceQuest, and he was not shy in expressing it.

Allen leaned over the side of his chair, picked up a four-inch-thick manual off the floor and plopped it on his desk. “Here is some nighttime reading for you. This is the manual for the Galileo.” He picked up another manual, this one five inches thick, and plopped it on top. “Here is the manual on the Soyuz.” He picked up the final manual and threw it on top of the other two; Peter was happy to see it was only two inches thick. “And here is your Mission Procedure Manual. As you can see, there is a lot to learn in a very short time.”

Peter had been in similar situations as a SID agent where there was a ton of information he needed to learn in short order. Dealing with such situations was part of his CIA training.

He was not intimidated by the large manuals put before him. He would be prepared. However, he needed to put Allen at ease. “With SpaceQuest’s help, I’m confident we’ll succeed. No doubt there is a lot to learn in a short time, but fortunately I have Viktor on board, who knows the Soyuz. Most of my focus will be on mission procedures and docking the Galileo.”

“Good. One question—I read through the mission procedures and noticed some discussion on a laser and disengaging it. The manual did not give many details on how. Do you know how?”

“I’m familiar with the laser, but not an expert. We need to get a hold of Rob Foster of Byington Corporation in England. He’s the design engineer and can answer all our questions.”

“Okay, I’ll discuss the urgency with Doug Rose and see what he can do. So, no more crashing my spacecraft into the space station, right?” Allen smirked.

“Nope, I’ve got that out of my system, boss.”