Launch on Need by Daniel Guiteras (small books to read txt) 📗

where the kids are watching the Disney Channel. She calls out something to them—something like: “Fifteen more minutes and then I want you to turn that thing off.” My kids respond with a solitary grunt.

And here I am floating just 175 miles from home, less than three hours by car. It is hardly an insurmountable distance, and yet my separation from them seems final—I’ll never be able to close the distance.

The engineers at Mission Control and throughout NASA are about to find out things aboard Columbia are worse than they feared. A lot worse.

I clear the sentimental lump from my throat, then speak, hesitating like an engine thin on fuel.

“Houston, ah, it’s not good.”

“Ah, Steve, say again, we did not copy your last.”

“Houston, ah, we’ve sustained catastrophic wing damage.”

“Steve, describe for us what you see,” the CapCom replies in a tone devoid of concern, as if I have just said “space is black” or “the Orbiter is white.”

“Okay.” I pause, giving them time to prepare themselves. “There is some streaking over the top of the wing as Jan described, but that’s hardly the problem. RCC panel 8 is completely gone, like it was torn from the wing. Panels 5, 6, and 7 are also damaged. I can see deep into the wing… It’s not something the crew can fix … The wing’s a ragged mess.”

“Ah, Columbia, we copy. Ah…” I can hear a confusion of voices over the comm channel. I can’t discern one from another. Then CapCom comes back on.

“Columbia, ah…” The comm channel clicks.

“Columbia, stand by, over.”

Chapter 18

Johnson Space Center, Houston

Mission Control Center

“HOW WE COMING WITH the KU-band downlink from Columbia?” Reid Hamilton asked, while leaning over Allen Warner’s console.

“It’ll be down any…,” Warner paused to look at the progress bar on his computer monitor. “It’ll be down in 23 seconds to be exact, Reid.”

Hamilton sighed as he covered his face with his hands. “What a frickin’ mess,” he muttered quietly through his fingers. His impatience was growing as the minutes passed, minutes he knew they would never get back. The pressure on him had been building like a crushing vice; one side was the need to find out what was wrong with Columbia, and the other, what to do about it. Now NASA personnel were swarming the Control Center, promising to turn the crank some more.

The entire Mission Management Team flocked to the center, including engineers from every conceivable department, flight controllers and engineers from the night shift and, of course, Ken Brown. They filled every inch of floor space, adding heat and further tension to the already worried staff present. The room looked like a dream team roster of NASA heavy hitters.

The doubting Thomases had all come to see this video they had heard about, but found too terrible to believe without actually seeing it themselves. They thought about all their careful work, and the agonizing procedures and lengthy checklists they’d had to follow, even just to back out a simple screw. Managers from every department were now questioning their role in Columbia’s fate.

Two of the three huge screens at the front of the room flickered. Above the screens, illuminated in royal blue letters, was a reminder of where they were: Mission Control Center. To the left of the screens hung the American flag, respectfully lit with a single spotlight. The center screen continued to display Columbia’s orbital path, a sinusoidal wave superimposed over a flattened, digital map of Earth. Heads turned to face the giant screens. The Quicktime movie-window appeared on the left and right screens and on at least one monitor at every console. The computer began buffering the video for playback displaying 67, 79, 86, 97 percent.

The video started.

There was no audio track to accompany the video they were watching. The videocamera’s microphone had been dead in space; it had searched aimlessly for sound waves and had found none. But most who were watching now had heard Columbia’s live audio transmission of the wing-inspection EVA. They remembered Steve’s carefree comments as he struggled to get the camera working, his urging of Mission Control to use the camera in the first place, his encouraging words to Jan to hang tight and his boyish excitement to be out in space.

The initial minute or so of video was jittery and helplessly out of focus, as the camera’s lens struggled with a view of infinity. Earth, the payload bay, Earth, the payload bay, the wing, then Steve translating along the slide wire, and Jan lifting the visor of her helmet. The waiting was painful.

“Let’s get to it,” Brown blurted out to Warner in his not-so-subtle way. Brown was standing three feet from Warner’s console. Most heads turned to look back. It was Brown to be sure, his comment breaking the silence of the room.

Warner obliged by grabbing the mouse on his desk and moving the video playback slider an inch or so to the right. There was a re-buffering pause, then the video continued with a glimpse of Jan’s helmet, her backpack.

“Much better,” Brown said, still the only one in the room to speak. Hamilton nodded to Warner.

The video images now showed only an occasional shake, and the auto-focus lens had settled on objects less than three feet away. They watched silently, with no coughs, no talking, just the sound of the air-conditioning fan cycling above them.

Steve was slipping his hand through Jan’s ankle tether. They knew it was close.

When the camera on Steve’s helmet was in line with the wing’s leading edge, not much could be seen. The video image had grown dark, too dark to make out any detail, certainly too dark to see the damage. A few moments passed and then the four lights on Steve’s helmet came on, overwhelming the white-balance of the camera. The viewing screens at Mission Control now were an almost solid white.

Brown was pacing, ready to crawl out