Red Hope (7 page)

“What do you mean the Russians won’t take us to the Space Station anymore?”
asked President Jennings incredulously. He plopped down into his desk chair in
the Oval Office before continuing his rant.

“We’ve been renting seats on the Soyuz from them ever
since the space shuttle was axed. That’s the only way to get our guys up to the
International Space Station! We’re paying them $70 million a person! How are we
supposed to get our people and supplies up there for the Mars mission? Why did
they change their minds now?”

During Chris’s trip home from California, he received
a phone call from the Russian Minister of Space Exploration. The Minister
explained to him that they would no longer provide Americans with access to
space. Now Chris was sitting in the Oval Office trying to explain the situation
to an upset President Jennings.

 “Well, it turns out that Mr. Murch made a deal with
the Russian Defense Bureau to sell them his entire production of MM10 motors.
Then right before he signed a contract with NASA, he backed out on the Russian
deal. Oh, and he didn’t bother to refund their money.”

The president squeezed his eyes shut in irritation.

Chris continued, “It doesn’t help that Mr. Murch has
been on every talk show to discuss his new collaboration with NASA.”

“So, the Russians are mad at one American and for that
reason they’re going to derail my entire Mars program?”

“Yes, pretty much. Except there is one compromise
they’ve offered up to us.”

The president’s eyes shot open with hope.

“What is it?”

“They said they would reconsider if we included one
Russian Cosmonaut on the mission. If we do that, then they’ll let us use their
Soyuz rocket to get our people up to the Space Station.”

The president considered the idea and then asked
Chris, “Can we afford the extra weight of the person on this mission?”

Chris nodded his head and answered, “Yes, we can
handle it. However, there is one more
tiny
problem.”

“Oh crap, another problem?” asked the president.

“They’ll let us use the Soyuz, but they won’t let it
launch from Russian soil.”

“But what if we have a cosmonaut on board?” asked the
exasperated president.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that. The Soyuz only
holds three people and if we take the extra cosmonaut, we’ll have four. That’s
one too many. So, we’ll have to modify the Soyuz and they don’t want that blood
on their hands if things go badly,” explained Chris.

“Are there any
other
gotchas from them?” asked
the president.

“No, that’s the deal they gave us. Include a cosmonaut
and
launch it from US soil,” explained Chris.

“The Russians are getting on my nerves. We may need to
teach them a lesson somehow.”

Chris deflected that strange rhetorical threat.

“Anyway, we’ll use the Soyuz to get our astronauts up
to the International Space Station. But, there is still the question of getting
all of our equipment and our heavy ship modules to the Space Station.”

The president asked, “I’m guessing that won’t be the
Soyuz?”

Chris answered, “No, the Soyuz is great for lifting
people, but we can’t use it to lift the heavy space equipment that we’re
planning.”

At that moment the butler came into the room and asked
the NASA director, “More coffee, sir?”

Chris waved away the offer politely.

“So what exactly is the plan anyways?” asked the
curious president.

Chris said, “Well, the plan as you know is to make all
the big launches from the International Space Station. It’s too hard to send
everything we need from the launch site in Florida directly to Mars. Using the
Space Station as an orbiting launch platform will really help us out.”

Chris looked at some papers in his hand and continued,
“The mission will be made up of two vehicles, or modules as we call them. The
Science Module which is very large. It will be sent to Mars and stay there. Then
there’s the smaller Transport Module which will carry the people with extra
food and water to Mars and then back home again.

The president asked, “So the two modules won’t go at
the same time?”

Chris answered, “No, we’ll send the Science Module to
Mars in advance and then send the Transport Module a few weeks later with all
the people and additional supplies. Again, launching from the International
Space Station will really help us out on rocket fuel resources.”

The president looked confused and furrowed his
eyebrows.

“I thought you said those Murch Motors were going to
get us there with fuel to spare?”

Chris answered, “Oh, they will. The Murch Motors are
good for applying a constant push for long periods of time. However, they don’t
have enough oomph to get the Transport Module off of either planet. That short
launch phase will use standard rocket engines. The Murch Motor MM10’s will kick
in right after the Modules leave the Space Station and will push us all the way
to Mars.”

“You know, Chris, that still leaves one big question.
If the Soyuz is too weak to lift the Science and Transport Modules into orbit,
how will we get those huge pieces of equipment from here on
Earth
up to
the
Space Station
?”

Chris smiled and said, “Actually, we are in luck. I
had a long talk with the CEO of Whittenberg Space Launch Systems. He was
willing to let us be the first official customer for their brand new Viper9
heavy lift rockets. It has nearly the same payload capacity of the Saturn V
rockets they used on the Apollo Moon missions. It’s huge.”

“Really?” asked the curious president.

“Yes, their CEO was reluctant at first due to the
high-risk nature of this mission, but I talked him into it. Patriotic duty and
all. The Viper9 is a very powerful rocket; seriously, it could launch a fully
loaded school bus into orbit.”

The president laughed.

“Fortunately, we aren’t launching a school bus. I’ll
send a note to the Whittenberg team to thank them for saving our butts on this.
I may even personally sign it.
That
should impress them.”

A moment of quiet settled over the awkward
conversation. The president broke it with his final statement.

“I really do appreciate the details, but when it comes
down to it, I don’t care
how
it gets done. Just make it happen.”

Adam Alston woke up every morning marveling at the fact that he wasn’t
dead. His life had been filled with dangerous experiences, mostly brought on by
his own curiosity and stupidity. In the back of his wallet, hidden under a
flap, he kept a written list of situations where he should’ve died. The
instances tapered off after his teenage years, but every once in a while he had
to take out the tattered paper and add yet another life lesson.

The memories of the first item on his list were
starting to fade now, but he could never forget the upsetting details. During
the first grade, Adam and his friends walked past an open field every day on
the way to and from school. On the weekends they used this field for kites and
boomerangs. In September of that year, the field gave way to construction
equipment and a new apartment complex began growing from the leveled dirt.

By Halloween it had reached the stage where it looked
like a collection of raw lumber in the shape of a three-story building. On the
weekend after Halloween, Adam and two of his friends dared each other to sneak
into the construction site and write their initials somewhere on the top floor.

When they reached the second floor, they heard
mysterious thumping sounds coming from the floor above them. The entire site
was supposed to be empty.

The three kids ran into the nearest unfinished
apartment and stood perfectly still far away from the stairwell. Adam, however,
leaned on a two-by-four and it fell over with a loud clunk. The sounds from
above stopped immediately. They heard heavy footsteps running across the
ceiling and then coming down the stairwell. Adam and his friends froze in
complete fear. They peered out the empty window opening to judge how painful a
jump from the second floor would be.

A man wearing a flannel shirt and corduroy pants
walked into the doorless opening of the apartment. His hair was disheveled, he
was breathing heavily, and he wore tennis shoes instead of construction boots.
The man walked toward them while holding something behind his back.

“Hey, you kids picked the wrong day to sneak around.
Get over here right now!”

Even though they were young, the kids instantly knew
that obeying his command would be a fatal decision. Adam leaped out of the
empty window opening and landed in a construction dumpster. His wrist snapped
with a sharp sprain. However, he was so scared that he made no sound as he
rolled out of the dumpster and sprinted toward the edge of the field. He paused
and looked back. His two friends had followed suit and were not far behind. The
man stood in the opening staring at them, but then turned around and
disappeared back into the darkness of the unfinished apartment complex.

Adam stopped at the far edge of the field to wait for
his friends to join him. They were terrified and couldn’t decide what to do
next. Smoke appeared from the third floor where they’d heard the sounds coming
from. The three friends watched as fire consumed the top floor. They ran home
when they heard the sirens coming. Adam told his parents that he hurt his wrist
falling off his bike. That night Adam took a piece of paper and started his
list. The first entry said, “Lesson #1: Avoid people who wear corduroy.”

That old memory raced through Adam’s mind as his phone
call with NASA progressed. He unconsciously flexed his sore wrist and then ran
his fingers through his graying hair. The conference call with NASA was a
surprise since the group interview had happened several weeks earlier. It
started this morning at 9:00 a.m. It was now past 10:00am and people were still
talking.

Chris Tankovitch was just one of five people on the
call, but he did 90 percent of the talking. As the director of NASA, he was
trying to convince Adam that he was the only man to lead the Mars Mission. His
name had bubbled up as an out-of-the-box thinker after the desert trailer
interviews.

Chris added, “Molly is also being invited. Honestly,
she was also a candidate for mission leader as well, but your shuttle experience
won out.”

Somebody on the conference call was clicking their pen
incessantly. One of the voices on the call yelled, “Will somebody please stop
clicking that pen!”

It stopped. Anonymously.

Adam had written books about his space shuttle
experience and his predictions for Mars exploration. These writings had made
him a celebrity among the Mars Society membership. Even with that niche fame,
he remained quite broke.

Although he had degrees in aerospace engineering and geology,
the one quality that NASA truly desired was his tight focus on mission safety;
he had exercised it many times on the space shuttle flight back in 2008 and
written about it in his book. If Adam didn’t think the mission should launch,
he wasn’t afraid to point out exactly what was wrong and how to fix it.

Admittedly, Adam’s ego had already launched when he was
contacted about the mission before the president’s press conference. When NASA
first contacted him to attend the desert interviews, part of that conversation
involved seeing the still-confidential photos from Mars; all except Photo D.

After all of the prodding and prying had been
surgically applied to Adam’s ego, Chris let loose one more carrot to help him
take charge of the mission.

Chris said, “Adam, you are the guy. Think about it and
get back to us. And, um, to help you consider it, we are paying a bonus of $1 million
regardless of whether you return or not. If God forbid you don’t make it, your
family will still receive the money. Take some time. Talk to your family. Then
decide. Call me either way, okay?”

The phone call ended and Adam carefully hung up the receiver.
He sat there for ten minutes thinking about the mission and doodling a picture
of a rocket crashing into Mars.

The future arc of his life was at stake here. Regardless
of how safe the rocket would eventually be, he felt the chances of making it back
home weren’t good. Adam didn’t take missions with risks this high; it wasn’t in
the nature of his grown-up self. However, the monetary bonus weighed heavily on
him.

That night after dinner, Adam sat out on the patio
with his wife Connie overlooking the scrub brush fields of North Texas. They
were only a mile from the school where his wife used to work before her car accident.
They sat in old Adirondack chairs attached together at the arm rest; the red
paint was bleached pink by the Sun and flaking off. The breeze still blew in
warm gusts. The smell of mountain cedar filled the air.

“NASA wants me to lead the mission to Mars, but that
means I’ll be gone from you and the kids for almost half a year. Maybe even more.”

Connie smiled gently and said, “Yes, but we both know
your real worry is that you may never come back.”

She leaned toward him and whispered, “That’s my only
worry. My
only
worry.” Then she leaned back against the angled
Adirondack chair. His hand found hers.

He looked off into the distance at an old cedar tree
blowing in the breeze and said, “Yah, that’s about right. I want to see Cody
and Catie grow up. Anything that gets in the way of that is, well, of no interest.”

“No interest?” said Connie with a raised eyebrow.

She put her coffee down and said reluctantly, “You
know. This is a big deal. Like, a
really
big deal. You’ve said it
yourself, nobody born
after
1935 has ever walked on the Moon. This
generation has no space heroes.”

She looked out over the field and gathered her
thoughts.

Connie continued, “Whoever they get to put that first
foot on Mars; that person will be more famous than the Wright Brothers. They
will scratch Neil Armstrong’s name out of the history books and write ‘Adam Alston’
there instead.”

She held her hands up in the air framing the imagined
text.

Adam interrupted, “And Missus Alston too? She’ll be
famous too?”

“Hah, unlikely,” she laughed. “But I will wave and
smile in the tickertape parades.”

Connie continued, “After Mars, nobody will remember
the Moon landing. But if this mission is not safe on a level that you find
comfortable, then don’t go. If you die, then I die too. You’ve always said it
yourself, the worst thing a Dad can do is die a foolish death while he has
young kids.”

He leaned to her and said, “There is one more thing.
Regardless of whether I make it back or not, NASA will pay us a bonus of one
million dollars. Hazard pay of sorts. Hah, perhaps hush money.”

His eyes welled up and grew bloodshot.

“We’ll be able to call Dr. Sanders and schedule that
experimental stem cell surgery on your back and get rid of those awful leg
braces. You deserve it.”

She tilted her head and said incredulously, “Oh come
on!”

He interrupted her, “No, no, listen. I’m serious about
this. You could get rid of those for good.”

She laughed. “Get out of here! You’re making me sound
like Tiny Tim! I’ll be fine, okay? Don’t do this to pay for some crazy surgery
that might not work. Do this for yourself. Don’t make it about me.”

Adam was suddenly overwhelmed by the memory of being
on the space shuttle and learning about Connie’s car accident. Her lower spine
was mangled. She could still walk, but not without leg braces. Since that time,
she’d been raising two kids nearly all by herself as Adam pursued his career at
NASA and writing his books which brought in very little money. He’d always felt
guilty for not being there when the car accident happened and the only surgery
that had any chance was deemed
experimental
; insurance would not pay for
any of the nearly half-million dollar price tag.

Adam knew the Mars mission would be dangerous. He knew
it would be tough. Regardless of what happened to him, his wife would walk
again without braces and they would dig themselves out of their money hole. All
he had to do was say yes to Chris Tankovitch.

Adam whispered to himself, “I don’t really have a
choice.”

His mild fame among engineers never translated into
financial freedom. He was a poor hero to the nerds. But now he could save his
family and get truly famous; the kind that fixes all your financial woes. This
would be especially true if he was the
first
person to walk on Mars.
That was the key. Nobody remembers the second guy. This was the biggest
decision of his life and it kept him awake late into the night.

At midnight he was just drifting off to sleep when he
felt somebody staring at him. He opened his eyes and saw a head floating just
two inches above him; he jerked completely awake and yelped in fright.

“
Daddy, I can’t sleep
.”

Adam grabbed his heart to show his surprise. He sat up
in bed.

“Sure thing, champ, let’s go back to your room.”

Adam got out of bed, grabbed his son Cody’s hand and
walked him down the hallway to his room. He tucked him in and sat down on the
floor next to the bed. This was a regular routine when his son couldn’t sleep. Usually,
once Cody drifted off to dreamland, Adam would sneak back to his own bed.

Instead, Cody asked, “What were you and Mommy talking
about tonight about some space trip?”

Adam looked surprised.

“Oh, you heard that huh? Yah, that’s a job I’m
thinking about. That’s all. It’s kind of the final step in the Space Race.”

His son looked puzzled.

“What’s the Space Race?”

Adam searched his memory and said, “Well, think of it
like this. You know how there’s all that space junk up there floating around
Earth? Well there was a time when there wasn’t
anything
there. It was
the unexplored frontier,” said Adam wistfully as he waved his hands in the air
for effect.

He continued, “I mean, there was
nothing
up
there. No weather satellites. No astronauts. No GPS. You had to use
paper
maps
back then. Can you imagine that? Then one night in October of 1957, there
was an object floating around the Earth going
beep, beep, beep
.”

Cody leaned up on his elbow to listen. “Well, what did
we launch?”

“That’s the problem. We didn’t launch anything. The
Russians did. They launched the very first satellite. It was called Sputnik and
it floated around the Earth up in outer space sending out a signal that
basically said, ‘
Nah, nah nah nah na. You can’t beat us
.’ They really
surprised us with Sputnik.”

“So that was the Space Race?”

Adam continued, “Well, that was the start. After that,
we raced to put a person in space. But we lost that battle too. The Russians
launched a guy up there first. He was named Yuri Gagarin.”

“Yoo ree grug aran?” said Cody as he tried to repeat
the new name.

“That’s pretty close!” said Adam. “So we were feeling
really bad and really behind technologically.”

Cody looked very curious now. He asked, “So did we
ever do anything right?”

Adam patted his son on the head and said, “Yes, of
course we did. So, the Russian guy popped up into space for one trip around the
Earth and then he came back down. The year after that, we put a guy named John
Glenn on a rocket and shot him so far up and so fast that he went around and
around and around the Earth.”