The Sky Calls To Us - Part1
"The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars."
-- Carl Sagan
Eileen Avery lay back in the padded chair. Gravity tugged at her back with gentle, constant pressure. Directly above her, a digital clock was mounted, its numbers counting the time backward. Ten minutes fifteen seconds. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, calming her heart as it threatened a frantic beat. Beneath her stood thousands of pounds of explosives, waiting for the spark of ignition. She reviewed the mission briefing and its simplified explanation of the physics behind liftoff, but her mind refused to let go of the notion that she was sitting on a very large bomb. If the engineers did their calculations right, and the fabricators built the rocket to specification, the explosion should be controlled, directed, launching Eileen and her crew upward and out of Earth's grasp.
The process had been refined somewhat since the early tests, but the fundamental danger was still present. Eileen would not be the first human in space, nor the first woman, but this would be the first voyage of the Hermes shuttlecraft. Hermes was designed to act as a single vehicle capable of docking with both the international space station and landing on the moon, ferrying supplies and personnel between the lunar base and the station.
Built on Earth with the intention of never flying in atmosphere, Hermes was a blocky, bulky thing. The only reason it was smooth at all was the cylindrical casing added to protect sensitive equipment on the hull from minor impacts. Hermes was currently cocooned in the nose of an Ares V rocket. Once in low orbit, the nose would split open and Hermes would fly free, but for now Eileen and her companions were separated from the sun by several layers.
She let her mind drift back to sunny days when she was a child. Every summer her parents would take her to Grandpa Lloyd's farm in the country. Lloyd didn't really own the farm, instead renting a small cottage on the property from John McCollough, who had owned and operated the farm since he inherited it from his father. Lloyd helped on the farm sometimes, when John was short handed, but his real reason for living there was simply that it was out in the country. Lloyd enjoyed the simple life, but especially the darkness of the nights. Before he retired, he was an astronomer, working at the Lowell observatory cataloging the heavenly bodies. He'd spent untold hours comparing two photographic plates, flipping back and forth between them, searching for any difference that would indicate movement.
The high points of Lloyd's retirement were the summers his son Conrad would bring little Eileen to the farm. Lloyd took great care in showing his granddaughter how to use his father's telescope, to identify not just constellations but their component stars, and how to navigate by them. When Eileen was learning to count, she'd lie on the grass with her grandfather and try to count all the tiny points of light in the sky.
"How come Grandpa has more stars than us?" she asked her father one night as he tucked her in.
"Because all the lights here in the city wash out the tiny stars at night. Grandpa's far away from the city, so his sky is darker and clearer," her father patiently explained then kissed his daughter on the forehead and bade her good night.
Eileen opened her eyes. Nine minutes, thirty seven seconds. She looked to her left and smiled what she hoped was a reassuring smile at Bill Scott, the crew's navigator. Eileen wondered how much clearer the sky would seem from up there, how different the stars would seem. She'd been training for months in the Hermes simulator, but this would be her maiden voyage as well. She was the pilot taking Bill's calculations, trajectories and course corrections and applying them to the ship. It was also her responsibility to make the minute adjustments while docking, compensating for any drift between reality and the calculations.
"T minus nine minutes," the voice of mission director Michael O'Connor crackled through their headphones. "Begin final checks."
If anything was routine on a test flight, it was the sequence of checking and rechecking the instruments and equipment. Everything for the Ares V checked out, and everything for the Hermes checked out as well. They had oxygen, water and food for seven days. By the mission plan, they would rendezvous with the ISS and deliver another crew member and some supplies. Hermes would take on a passenger bound for the moon and depart 18 hours after docking, allowing them a short trajectory to the moon. Hermes would stay on the moon for 72 hours then return to the ISS. Hermes would then stay docked with the ISS and Eileen and Bill would come back to Earth in a Soyuz craft.
The final count down came, O'Connor's words matching the display in the Hermes as it ticked down from ten seconds.
As the main engines fired and the towering rocket began its ascent, Eileen felt herself thrown back in her seat, gravity's pull apparently stronger as the rocket rose and her inertia tried to keep her from moving.
-- Carl Sagan
Eileen Avery lay back in the padded chair. Gravity tugged at her back with gentle, constant pressure. Directly above her, a digital clock was mounted, its numbers counting the time backward. Ten minutes fifteen seconds. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, calming her heart as it threatened a frantic beat. Beneath her stood thousands of pounds of explosives, waiting for the spark of ignition. She reviewed the mission briefing and its simplified explanation of the physics behind liftoff, but her mind refused to let go of the notion that she was sitting on a very large bomb. If the engineers did their calculations right, and the fabricators built the rocket to specification, the explosion should be controlled, directed, launching Eileen and her crew upward and out of Earth's grasp.
The process had been refined somewhat since the early tests, but the fundamental danger was still present. Eileen would not be the first human in space, nor the first woman, but this would be the first voyage of the Hermes shuttlecraft. Hermes was designed to act as a single vehicle capable of docking with both the international space station and landing on the moon, ferrying supplies and personnel between the lunar base and the station.
Built on Earth with the intention of never flying in atmosphere, Hermes was a blocky, bulky thing. The only reason it was smooth at all was the cylindrical casing added to protect sensitive equipment on the hull from minor impacts. Hermes was currently cocooned in the nose of an Ares V rocket. Once in low orbit, the nose would split open and Hermes would fly free, but for now Eileen and her companions were separated from the sun by several layers.
She let her mind drift back to sunny days when she was a child. Every summer her parents would take her to Grandpa Lloyd's farm in the country. Lloyd didn't really own the farm, instead renting a small cottage on the property from John McCollough, who had owned and operated the farm since he inherited it from his father. Lloyd helped on the farm sometimes, when John was short handed, but his real reason for living there was simply that it was out in the country. Lloyd enjoyed the simple life, but especially the darkness of the nights. Before he retired, he was an astronomer, working at the Lowell observatory cataloging the heavenly bodies. He'd spent untold hours comparing two photographic plates, flipping back and forth between them, searching for any difference that would indicate movement.
The high points of Lloyd's retirement were the summers his son Conrad would bring little Eileen to the farm. Lloyd took great care in showing his granddaughter how to use his father's telescope, to identify not just constellations but their component stars, and how to navigate by them. When Eileen was learning to count, she'd lie on the grass with her grandfather and try to count all the tiny points of light in the sky.
"How come Grandpa has more stars than us?" she asked her father one night as he tucked her in.
"Because all the lights here in the city wash out the tiny stars at night. Grandpa's far away from the city, so his sky is darker and clearer," her father patiently explained then kissed his daughter on the forehead and bade her good night.
Eileen opened her eyes. Nine minutes, thirty seven seconds. She looked to her left and smiled what she hoped was a reassuring smile at Bill Scott, the crew's navigator. Eileen wondered how much clearer the sky would seem from up there, how different the stars would seem. She'd been training for months in the Hermes simulator, but this would be her maiden voyage as well. She was the pilot taking Bill's calculations, trajectories and course corrections and applying them to the ship. It was also her responsibility to make the minute adjustments while docking, compensating for any drift between reality and the calculations.
"T minus nine minutes," the voice of mission director Michael O'Connor crackled through their headphones. "Begin final checks."
If anything was routine on a test flight, it was the sequence of checking and rechecking the instruments and equipment. Everything for the Ares V checked out, and everything for the Hermes checked out as well. They had oxygen, water and food for seven days. By the mission plan, they would rendezvous with the ISS and deliver another crew member and some supplies. Hermes would take on a passenger bound for the moon and depart 18 hours after docking, allowing them a short trajectory to the moon. Hermes would stay on the moon for 72 hours then return to the ISS. Hermes would then stay docked with the ISS and Eileen and Bill would come back to Earth in a Soyuz craft.
The final count down came, O'Connor's words matching the display in the Hermes as it ticked down from ten seconds.
As the main engines fired and the towering rocket began its ascent, Eileen felt herself thrown back in her seat, gravity's pull apparently stronger as the rocket rose and her inertia tried to keep her from moving.