Orbit

Chapter 10

It’s time.

Kip powers the laptop to standby mode and reinserts the machine in its holder before gathering the checklists and positioning himself in Bill’s seat. A confusing feeling of excitement comes over him, a small rush before the sprint, he figures, his mind relieved finally to be at the threshold of action.

He runs back through the planned steps and reviews the three coordinates. Intrepid has to turn around one hundred eighty degrees to fly backward, and the pitch and roll readouts on the attitude indicator must be precisely right before firing the engine. The master keyboard is in front of him and he pulls it closer. With care he punches in the three numbers and triple checks that he’s got them right. His finger hovers shakily over the “execute” button for several seconds as he wonders if there could be anything he’s forgotten, then he forces his finger down, hearing a small click.

The screen changes, registering the fact that the new coordinates have been accepted, and suddenly there’s a small box proclaiming that the automatic realignment maneuver has begun.

Thank God!

He holds his breath, wondering how it is that the small reaction jets on Intrepid can be firing so gently that he can’t even feel them. It’s almost as if nothing is happening, despite the announcement on the screen.

He looks at the attitude indicator, willing it to move at least in some direction, but it’s static, the display as steady as if the whole spacecraft was sitting on some concrete floor back on the planet.

He takes in the screen, then the keyboard, and punches the execute button a second time, but still no movement. The annunciator screen indicates that everything should be working, the jets firing, and Intrepid should be turning around tail-first. Right now!

Okay, I forgot something, he decides. Complex procedures can be thwarted by one simple mistake—like getting no toast because you forgot to plug in the toaster.

What did I miss?

He runs back through the checklist, feeling a cold, creeping trickle of panic.

Focus!

One by one he reenters the coordinates, his fingers shaking visibly now as he triggers the execute button.

And once more—despite the signs on the small LED screen that all is well and working as indicated—Intrepid continues flying straight ahead and on her back. No pitch. No yaw. No roll.

No change.

Kip checks his watch. Eight minutes remain before the time for retrofire. If the automated system won’t work, all he has left is the manual control, and he alone to manipulate it.

But he’s clicked the manual control button on that joystick before, in training, electing “active mode.” And in that simulator he promptly lost control so badly they had to stop the spinning simulator. All of the instructors and fellow students were holding their sides and laughing when he climbed out, and the follow-up session wasn’t much better.

“Kip, I guess we forgot to tell you,” the instructor had heehawed. “The object was to stop the spinning, not set a new record for the highest number of revolutions per minute.”

He stares at the joystick, a tortuous, diabolical little tool that in the hands of a qualified astronaut is a singular thing of interfaced beauty, giving the ability to move in all three axes by just turning the wrist and hand.

But to an amateur, an invitation to spinning disaster.

I’m not touching that thing! he thinks, testing the words.

The spacecraft is still not turning. He thinks about entering the numbers a third time, but he’s already done it correctly twice. It’s already acknowledged his entries twice. And yet nothing automatic is happening.

I’m only on Orbit Two. I’ve got time to figure this out. I don’t have to force it right now.

The logic of waiting is impeccable, but it’s no match for his massive urge to get home now!

And without thinking he succumbs, adjusting his hand over the joystick and consciously punching the red button on top that reverts the spacecraft to manual attitude control.

He can hear his breathing rate increase, but nothing much is happening. There is a little drift now to the left, just a few degrees, and maybe a bit of roll, but he’s not sure.

Okay, time to try it.

He knows the controls are sensitive. The watchword will be moving in only one axis at a time, and he reviews the basics without moving his hand.

Push forward to pitch forward, pull to pitch up. Twist left to yaw left, right to yaw right. Nudge the entire stick left to roll left, nudge it right to roll right. Okay, which way first?

The Earth is still passing along above him, and it’s easy to see the horizon, the Earth’s curvature. So maybe he should take care of the main event first and just turn around backward before turning planet-side down.

Yaw right a full one hundred eighty degrees, putting the tail into the line of flight. Then I can fine-tune it to exactly the right numbers.

Slowly, carefully, he begins rotating the stick to the right, a millimeter at a time it seems, his muscles protesting until he suddenly feels and hears the hiss of the reaction jets yawing him in the right direction.

He releases the rotational pressure on the control stick, impressed at how smoothly Intrepid has begun to rotate to the right around its center of gravity. The rate is steady, and he doesn’t seem to need any of the other two axis controls, at least not yet. He’s turning, through ninety degrees at last, finally completing a full reversal, and he leads his arrival at the right coordinates by twisting the control back to the left until he fires another small burst to stop the turn.

But it’s a bit too much, and the turn now reverses, very slowly at first.

He tries a tiny burst back to the right, but it, too, is overdone. Once more he’s turning right, passing through the one-hundred-eighty-degree point and continuing on around, this time beginning to pitch up, the nose heading toward Earth.

He pushes the stick forward for a small corrective burst and tries to arrest the yaw at the same time, and suddenly he’s turning back left slightly, pitching down away from Earth’s surface, and beginning a left roll, all at the same time. He can feel the sweat beading on his forehead as he tries to steady his hand and oppose the motions one axis at a time, but each burst is too much, and the memory of what happened in the simulator returns like a nightmare, as Intrepid begins to tumble, slowly at first, then faster, the Earth beginning to gyrate and roll in front of his eyes.

Somehow he manages a glance at his watch. Four minutes left before he has to be rock-steady for retrofire.

The chirp of her car alarm system arming behind her is all but unheard as Diana races through the front door of ASA’s building and accelerates toward Mission Control in search of Richard.

Sleep had been difficult after returning home from her trip to see Kip. Nevertheless she’d had every intention of being on the tarmac as they taxied out and grossly overslept instead.

Her cell phone is ringing and she curses quietly as she yanks it to her face, hearing a familiar name from the small list of aerospace reporters. She comes to a halt in the corridor and pulls the cell phone back for a moment, staring at it as if she’s discovered a pipe bomb in her hand.

So now it begins, she thinks. She had dreamed of being an astronaut and always thought she had ice water in her veins. Now she’s going to be tested.

“This is Diana Ross, ASA’s PR director,” she announces sweetly, as if it was a routine day in the office. Suddenly she’s working hard to dredge up any information from her memory on this particular reporter.

DiFazio has emerged from Mission Control down the corridor and is walking toward her with a grave expression, and she waves him to be quiet. He joins her silently, listening to her end of the conversation as she tries to convince the reporter in the calmest of tones that nothing in ASA’s world is amiss other than a nasty communications glitch.

“Really?” is the skeptical reply from the Beltway. “Then why am I looking at a live picture of your Mission Control and seeing absolutely no data streaming down from the spacecraft on any screen?”

“That’s what a communications glitch sometimes entails. We’re working on it.”

“I have a source who tells me it’s far more serious than that.”

“Really? Could your source call us? We’d sure like to know what he knows, because we’re not aware that the problem is any more serious than any other problem in spaceflight.”

The reporter is sighing, well aware she’s sparring with a pro. “Okay, look. I understand you’re in damage control mode and probably you don’t know yourselves what’s happening, but let me at least get some vitals on who’s up there.”

“I’m just getting to work and I need some coffee,” Diana says. “Give me your number and twenty minutes and I’ll get back to you.” The agreement is reluctant, but she ends the call and looks at Richard, taking in for the first time the depth of worry on his face, the hopelessness in his eyes.

“Richard?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, nodding slowly, his eyes on the floor as he chews his lip.

“Lord, how bad is it?”

“We don’t know anything new yet, but we’re praying that Bill is okay and getting ready to retrofire in a few minutes. We’re coming up on the end of the second orbit.”

“But we can’t talk to him?”

Richard launches into a quick and tense briefing that ends as they reach the entrance to Mission Control. He moves back inside with her in trail and Diana can feel the tension thick as summer humidity in Houston. The risks of making a business out of spaceflight she’s long understood. At least intellectually. She can talk about it for hours, marshaling details and numbers and even orbital mechanics. She knows Intrepid and its grounded sister ship are tiny bubbles barely sustaining human life after being shot to impossible speeds and altitudes and brought back against incredible forces. But they’ve been doing it almost a year now, week after week, without fail. The thought may be silly, but it’s echoing through her head: Since we know how to do this perfectly, it simply can’t end badly.

A sudden burst of activity flutters into view at the flight director’s console and she sees a receiver pulled to Arleigh Kerr’s ear. He speaks quickly and turns toward the rear, spotting Richard and Diana and motioning to the boss with a staccato movement. There is no smile on Kerr’s face, no deliverance in his expression, and Diana follows, feeling ill.

“What, Arleigh?”

He lowers the receiver as he searches for the right phrase.

“What, Arleigh?” Richard snaps.

“Okay, Richard. NASA is pulling in a live long lens picture, and it shows Intrepid is tumbling.” He sees the question in Diana’s eyes. “Rotating around its center of gravity in all three axes.”

“I understand what tumbling means,” she says.

“Which indicates to you, what?” Richard prompts.

“He may be out of control.”

“Jesus.”

They all know the rest of the equation. A tumbling spacecraft can’t fire its rocket motor and drop out of orbit.

“How long to the retrofire window?”

“One minute. They’re watching.” Arleigh raises the receiver back to his ear and turns away, as if expecting his monitor to burst to life with good data streams from Intrepid. Every technician in the room somehow seems to know what he knows, and there is a collective quiet as the seconds tick away and more and more eyes turn to the flight director. He holds the receiver with one hand and rubs his eyes with the other, willing the nightmare to go away.