Orbit

Chapter 13

On any normal day the sight of Richard DiFazio walking into ASA’s maintenance office would be routine, but his sudden bursting through Mark Burgess’s office door just now catches everyone by surprise. The director of maintenance turns with a shocked expression as the CEO motions him to a corner office and pulls the door closed behind them.

“We have no choice, Mark. You’ve got to get Venture ready to fly by tomorrow, day after tomorrow at the latest.”

The veteran maintenance chief is shaking his head. “Didn’t I make it clear enough on the phone? Richard, the landing gear is damaged and the wing spar is cracked. We could easily lose her and anyone aboard if we tried to fly. Going up and especially coming down.”

“What are the chances of that?”

“Well, hell, I don’t know! All I can be sure of is that she’s dangerously weakened.”

“Percentages, dammit!”

“I don’t know, okay? Maybe a fifty percent chance. Maybe better.”

“Fifty or better of surviving?”

“Yes. Or a fifty percent chance of the wing falling off. No one’s going to be stupid enough to fly her like that.”

“I already have two volunteers.”

“Richard, she can’t fly.”

“This isn’t FAA rules. She’s experimental. This is a cutting-edge space program.”

“The hell it is! This is supposed to be a space line with high reliability, and it has been up to now. Dammit, Richard, we’ve talked about this very contingency.”

“Yeah, but it was just theoretical then. This is real.”

“She can’t fly, Richard.”

“Bullshit. If I have to, I’ll fire your ass and find someone to get her ready.”

He regrets the words as soon as he’s said them. He knows he’s gone too far, but the frustration is driving him to play the “Damn the torpedoes, full-speed ahead” card.

Mark Burgess, however, is too experienced and principled to be bullied like some green lieutenant. His arms are crossed, his jaw set, his head shaking slowly. “Go ahead. Violate everything you promised.”

“What did I promise?”

“To never, ever attempt to overrule my department’s judgment on flight readiness. We’ve learned the lessons of Challenger and Columbia even if you haven’t.”

Richard sighs. He’s cornered, and the defeated slump of his shoulders uncrosses Burgess’s arms.

“Look, Richard, I want this as much as you, but I can’t let you compound a disaster. We lose Venture and Intrepid, we lose the company, at least for a long time. No spacecraft, no spaceflights.”

“How bad is she, really? Venture, I mean.”

“You mean is there any hope of a fast repair?”

Richard nods.

“These are composite materials, laminated sheets with glue. But we’re already reexamining our conclusions. I’ve a team crawling all over her right now.”

“Good.”

“Keep in mind this is not a metal bird. I can’t just rivet a doubler in place like we could with aluminum.”

“Try, Mark. For God’s sake, try something.”

“I’m not planning to just sit here drinking lattes. But you have to accept that the chances she could be ready to fly this week are near zero.”

“Then Bill’s chances are the same.”

“You don’t know that. So he missed a deorbit burn. He may make it on the next one.”

“And if he doesn’t, he has enough air for the two of them for maybe…”

“Three days, tops. Yeah, I know. We build the scrubbers, remember?”

The two of them stare at each other in pain before Richard DiFazio flails the air with his right hand and turns to the door.

“I’m sorry, Mark. Do your best.”

“We will. We are,” Mark says to the back of the departing chairman.

Her instincts are on high alert as the aerospace reporter for the Washington Post punches off the latest call from ASA, her headset relieving the need to juggle a receiver as she sits at her desk. The questions ASA are sidestepping are key, and she’s traveled the arc from passing interest in a rumor of trouble to being convinced that the occupants of ASA’s private spacecraft are in danger. She’s already wasted a volley of calls on bad numbers and uncooperative “sources,” and now, she decides, it’s time for a minute of deep-think. The story—whatever the story really is—will break any second on cable networks or online services, or even on the AP wires. Someone is about to scoop her if she doesn’t get this figured out right now.

So what do I have? Two people aboard that craft, a stable orbit, no telemetry, and no communication. Could she be lying to me about the stable orbit? Could it already have burned up or something?

No, she decides. Ross is a pro, in the game for the long haul. She wouldn’t cite NASA as a source unless it was a valid claim. NASA saw them with a very long lens still in orbit.

But what’s really wrong? Is communications loss the extent of it, like she wants me to think?

There’s something scratching at the back of her mind and the veteran reporter twirls a pencil and looks around the newsroom to let her thoughts coalesce. Her eyes sweep past a large clock, doing visual busywork and taking in the quiet intensity of the other reporters working away on a planet full of stories.

And all she’s got is suspicion and a ticking clock.

Her patience at an end, she snaps back, wondering if she’s dredged up any answers.

Clock. Timeline. When did they launch?

She dives back into the Internet and checks the launch time listed on ASA’s Web site, looking for the planned length of the flight and finding nothing. She Googles and selects a hit from one of the first such flights nearly a year ago, paging down through endless verbiage until the right phrase catches her eyes.

“Each flight is planned for four orbits of approximately ninety minutes each,” DiFazio said. “That’s enough time to not only get a lifelong feel for zero gravity, but to drink in the most spectacular view anyone will ever see in his or her life. We deorbit at the end of the fourth circuit after six hours.”

Six hours.

She checks her note on the time they dropped the spacecraft from the mothership.

Eight A.M. Pacific Daylight. And it’s 2:30 P.M. out there now. That’s over six hours.

The reporter sits back hard, eyes wide, recalculating lest she screw up the math, then leaps to her feet to chase down her editor. Her head is swimming.

My God, they’re stuck up there!

Geoff Shear stands behind his desk looking out the window at the Capitol and waiting for his secretary to connect a call to Houston. He’s quite capable of lifting his own receiver and punching the single button that connects him to the operator at Johnson, but he has little respect for leaders who drop the trappings of power to be just one of the boys. Like Jimmy Cornpone Carter and his silly “jes’ folks” act of carrying his own hang-up bag to and from the White House when Shear was a White House aide. He’d been disgusted to find out the suit bag was usually empty.

“John Kent is on line one, sir,” a female voice announces over the archaic wood-boxed intercom he insists on maintaining on his desk.

“Thank you.”

“Kent?”

“Mr. Administrator?”

“Well, that’s right. I thought maybe you’d forgotten my title.”

“I have my moments of wishful thinking, Geoff.”

“And I have my moments of distasteful leadership duty.”

“Meaning?”

“Let me see how I can put this delicately, Colonel Kent. How’s this? Your mutinous ass is fired. Clear enough for you? You’ve had no authority to start planning a mission, and this is the last straw with your insubordinate running of that office. I’ve warned you before.”

There is a disgusted sigh from Houston loud enough to echo through the speaker. “You can’t fire me without a lot of congressional fallout, Geoff. Or is this just a little autoerotic exercise?”

“Clean out your desk, throw your crap in a box, and be out of the front door in precisely twenty minutes or I’ll have you arrested. Your security clearance has just been canceled and you have no authority to be in a secure area.”

“Cute, Geoffrey. Juvenile, but cute. You know I’ll simply walk out the front door, make two calls, and walk back in.”

“Well, go ahead and try. But you’ve been running around behind my back all day against my direct orders, trying to waste a few hundred million of the taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars on a foolish mission I have not and will not authorize.”

“So you hate DiFazio.”

“I spend no time thinking about that huckster.”

“That’s still one of our guys up there. A NASA guy.”

“You mean Bill Campbell? I’m not just concerned about Campbell, I’m worried about the safety of both of those men, but I warned DiFazio very clearly we do not have the resources to mount a rescue if they get in trouble.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Your problem, Kent, is pure insubordination. Either in government or business that’s pretty much enough to justify firing anyone up to and including Jesus.”

“Well, Geoff, you didn’t even have the courtesy to answer my question when we had our little conference this morning. I had no idea you were prohibiting a quick feasibility check. So there was no direct order.”

“I e-mailed you an hour later that you were not to attempt to construct or research a rescue mission unless I gave you direct approval.”

“Sorry. Never got it. You should have called.”

The sound of voices in the background from Houston are already interrupting Kent, and Shear can hear him being apologized to by security.

“Some of our very embarrassed friends from security are here, Geoff, to do your dirty work. Sorry we can’t talk further. Oh, by the way,” Kent adds, his voice steady and a chuckle in his tone. “If, somehow, you make this stick, be sure to watch the Washington Post and ABC’s 20/20 in a few weeks. You’ll find it all very interesting. I would strongly suggest early retirement.”

“Time to write your book, Kent.” Shear punches the line off and sits, pulling the receiver to him as he flips through a small notebook for the first of a half dozen congressional leaders he’ll have to call before Kent can get to them. The ranks of the John Kent fan club on the Hill are extensive, and he’ll be forced to rehire the smart-ass astronaut in a day or two. But those two days will make all the difference in derailing any half-assed attempts to light an emotional bonfire and accelerate the launch schedule at the expense of safety, which has to be the prime concern. With only two shuttles left and the entire program hanging in the balance, he cannot be sentimental.