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

“Right, so point-oh-eight feet per second,” Pollard said. “That means in sixty seconds she’ll have moved almost five feet.”

Levy rushed a hand to his mouth to make sure it wasn’t gaping open. He’d never been a numbers guy, never would be, but his fascination with those who were never faltered. “Okay, so Columbia’s not going to rocket across the sky, but I still want Mullen and Garrett way the hell away from Columbia when the sidehatch blows.”

“They can wait in Atlantis’s airlock,” Pollard said.

“How far away from Columbia does Atlantis need to be when Columbia’s sidehatch is blown?” Gaines asked. “I mean, if we knew for certain that the sidehatch would come straight out from the orbiter, we wouldn’t need to move Atlantis at all. But we can’t take that chance. The pyrotechnics may malfunction and send the hatch off with a dangerous trajectory.”

Levy raised a finger, looked at Pollard. Something was still bugging him.

Pollard nodded.

She’d said she wanted to hear all ideas and concerns. Levy thought he had one, so he continued. “Since Columbia’s c of g is well aft of the centerpoint, and the sidehatch is so far forward, won’t that moment arm rotate Columbia clockwise in the Y plane? I mean, won’t we see more rotation than linear translation?”

“Yes, Tim,” Pollard said. “And since we have to bring Atlantis back to Columbia after jettisoning the sidehatch, the rotation is more worrisome than if it were linear motion.”

“Well, then, before we blow the sidehatch,” Howell said, “we’ll need to have Columbia’s commander and pilot restore local control of Columbia, take it back from Mission Control. The interior of Columbia will instantly be exposed to extreme temperatures. Who knows how long the electronics will continue to function. As soon as the sidehatch blows, we’re gonna want the commander on the hand controller to null out any residual velocities.”

“Right, good point Eric,” Pollard said. “We’ll reestablish local control of Columbia as a precaution.”

“I’m afraid we might be getting ahead of ourselves here,” Gaines said. “Do we know for sure that the commander and pilot can manipulate everything they need to manipulate inside Columbia while wearing EVA suits?”

“Go on,” Pollard said, interested.

“I think they’ll be able to get out of the airlock and back into the mid-deck without too much trouble. And they should be able to pull the cabin depress and the sidehatch jett T-handles okay. But is it reasonable to expect one of them could fit through the interdeck passageway, get up to the flight deck, and manipulate the hand controller to stop Columbia’s rotation?”

“Good question,” Pollard admitted, although she wasn’t convinced it was a deal breaker.

Senca reentered the room and caught the last of Gaines’s concerns, something about the astronauts slowing Columbia’s rotation. Senca’s face twisted up.

“Everything okay?” Pollard asked, wondering whether his expression was a result of something he’d heard on the phone or something he’d heard in here.

“What are you guys talking about?” Senca asked, ignoring her for the moment.

“The effect blowing the sidehatch will have on Columbia,” Gaines said.

“What effect?”

“We calculated what motion would be imparted to Columbia with sidehatch jettison,” Gaines said, slightly smug.

Senca’s face contorted some more. He thought a second, then finally understood how they’d gotten so far off course. “Columbia does not shoot the sidehatch off. If it did, your calculations might be relevant. However, the thrusters that move the sidehatch away from Columbia are on the sidehatch itself.” Senca looked at Pollard. “There will be so little effect on Columbia with jettison that I’m willing to say it will be zero.”

Pollard’s face registered nothing. After all, she wasn’t the systems expert. Her job was to arrive at a solution. And now with help, they were closer to that objective. She didn’t care who was right or wrong.

“Levy, you have Internet access in here?” Pollard asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “What do you want?”

“Get us exact dimensions on the interdeck passageway, EVA suit, airlock, et cetera. We’ll come back to this.”

Pollard took a beat. “Alright, so we have Commander Avery move Atlantis down and back from Columbia by a hundred feet or so. Then, after the sidehatch is blown, Avery flies Atlantis back to a clocked position twenty or thirty feet from Columbia. We’ll have Columbia’s commander and pilot wait in the doorway for extraction. Now Howell, how do you want to do the extraction?”

“Not with ropes that’s for sure,” Howell said. “I want Mullen to use SAFER from Atlantis to Columbia, take them one at a time that way, leave Garrett in Atlantis’s payload bay for airlock assist.”

“You sure you want to go with jetpacks on this?” Gaines asked.

“Sounds hairy, I know,” Howell said. “But remember, there are no exterior handholds anywhere near Columbia’s sidehatch. The only handhold is just inside the sidehatch doorway, high on the left side, uh, sorry, low and on the right side—Columbia’s upside down. Anyway, we’ll have the commander and pilot tether off inside using that grab bar and wait for Mullen to pull up to the doorway. We can discuss the best way for them to hold onto Mullen for the transfer.”

“We’ll keep Atlantis lower than we did for the transfer of the other five crewmembers,” Pollard said. “That’ll give Mullen a little more room to work with, fly out any errors in his jetpack. I guess we’ve ruled out that Mullen won’t have to chase down Columbia’s sidehatch opening due to rotation, so that makes the final rescue less complicated.” Pollard glanced at Senca, communicated a thank you. “It’s definitely doable.”

She looked around at the group of engineers. “Anything else?” The engineers shook their heads, said nothing. “Alright then, Tim, get your list ready for review. We’ll look at those dimensions, add details and half-steps to the transfer procedure as we read back through it. I’ll go out and tell Warner our preliminary plan.”

Gaines waited until Pollard had left the room. “High-tech jetpack saves the final two Columbia astronauts, story at eleven,” he said, shaking his head and laughing lightly. “Man, I’d