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

to start. They knew that before the doors could open, the automated system would first release the 32 latches that secured the doors for flight. Sixteen latches held the doors to each other along the centerline. Eight additional latches per door secured the doors to the forward and aft bulkheads. Six rotary gear actuators would power the doors open on 13 Inconel-718 hinges, eight of the floating type and five of the nonmoving shear type, until the doors reached their stops 175½ degrees later.

“Do you have your iPod ready?” Garrett asked.

“For what? Why?” Mullen replied.

“I always expect to hear the Blue Danube or some John Williams movie soundtrack to start playing as the doors open. You know, the sunlight starts streaming in, the doors moving in slow motion. I think it would add to the effect.”

Mullen shook his head. They waited silently for 30 seconds or so, watching the starboard door open past its halfway point.

“Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Mullen said, breaking the silence. “We’ve got warm sunshine, an essentially empty payload bay dressed in brilliant white, and Colombia hovering upside down just twenty feet above us.”

“Atlantis, Houston, Garrett’s gettin’ some amazing video out the aft flight deck windows for you folks back home.”

“Roger Atlantis, we copy. Look forward to seeing it!”

Chapter 65

In Space, Rendezvous Station

Approximately 178 statute miles above Earth

39 degree inclination to equator

TERRY MULLEN PULLED in a deep breath of cool suit air, savored it. Then he glanced up once more at the sight of Columbia through the 4-inch window of Atlantis’s external airlock door. He knew two Columbia astronauts were ready in Columbia’s airlock with suits on, pre-breathe done, and airlock depressurized.

Mullen let his breath out all at once, like a sudden burst of tension, of apprehension, as if he was just about to step off a 20-foot cliff and plunge into ice cold water. He hadn’t been aware that he’d been holding his breath. Truth was, there wasn’t a cell in his body that didn’t understand what was riding on the work he was about to do.

“You ready?” he asked Garrett.

“Are you?” Garrett responded, sure that Mullen was almost sick with nervousness, and was likely in need of a kick in the ass.

Mullen said nothing. He simply reached up and pulled the actuator arm of the external airlock door, then floated back slightly to accommodate the door as it opened down and into the airlock. Preoccupied with the job at hand, Mullen vaguely recognized this as just another clever design feature of NASA’s; when the airlock was pressurized, the doors would be forced into a closed position, thereby helping to seal the airlock.

“Atlantis, Houston, we’re on our way out.”

“Roger that, Atlantis, we’re watching you from the cam. Just a reminder, tether in ASAP.”

“Copy tether in,” Mullen replied.

Mullen and Garrett spent the next 30 minutes or so in Atlantis’s payload bay, setting up for the first transfer. With the help of Mullen, Garrett got himself up onto a fixed and elevated standing station, then fastened his boots down tight so that he’d have a firm platform on which to work and assist Mullen. Next, Garrett took hold of the carabiner fastened to one end of the 23-foot transfer rope and connected it to his suit tether buckle. Mullen took the other end of the rope, which also had been fixed with a carabineer, and fastened it to his suit buckle. To another suit buckle, Mullen fastened a bag containing three spare LiOH canisters for use on Columbia.

Mission control carefully watched every step the astronauts made from a camera mounted in Atlantis’s payload bay.

“Houston for Atlantis EVA crew, no need to rush things. Make several trips as planned, no deltas. Everything must be tethered or stowed. Carry nothing by hand.”

“We copy, Houston,” Mullen said.

Garrett noted but did not remark aloud about how eerie things appeared. He himself was standing several feet up above the floor of Atlantis’s payload bay, his boots fixed to the work platform. Mullen was out in front of him. Because of the effects of microgravity, the long transfer rope floated between them in a haphazard way. Columbia was overhead, and two fully inflated but empty EVA suits were tethered to Atlantis’s slide wire, buoyed up like parade balloons on New Year’s Day.

“Houston, I’m on my way up to Columbia,” Mullen said. Using his hands against Garrett’s standing platform, he rotated himself so that his boots contacted the floor of Atlantis’s payload bay. Then, aware it wouldn’t take much power he bent his knees slightly and pushed off gently from the floor of the payload bay. Mullen rose; two seconds later, his boots passed in front of Garrett’s helmet.

As Mullen flew, Garrett let the rope course through his open gloved hands. Mullen had aimed well, had applied force through his center of mass, and now was headed on a straight path to Columbia without a hint of rotation. His hands were out to stop his motion and to catch the bright-yellow grab bars mounted to the roof of Columbia’s SpaceHab module. As Columbia grew larger in front of him, Mullen felt he might be moving a little too fast, and called to Garrett. “Garrett, how about a bit of braking on the rope.”

Garrett knew instantly what Mullen meant, and began lightly closing his hands around the rope to slow Mullen’s ascent.

“And we have contact, Houston. The Mullen has landed,”

Garrett said, watching out for Mullen above while leaning back in his foot restraint.

“Man, this is weird,” Mullen said.

“Yes, indeed. Nice jump by the way,” Garrett replied. “Now let me get these suits up to you.” Garrett fought to keep Mullen focused. He knew how Mullen could get to thinking about things and start to freeze up like a skier looking down from a precipice. Garrett could not afford for Mullen to get “the grip.” Nor could any of the others.

As