Back to the Moon-ARC

Chapter 31

“Go, baby, go!” was once again all that Paul Gesling could utter as he alternated looking out the window at the landscape of Earth receding below him and the LCD display that showed the status of Dreamscape’s onboard systems. All the systems were reading in the green, and the ship was cruising past Mach 2—twice the speed of sound—at the moment. He held the flight-control stick gently with his left hand and went through a continuous ballet of tapping the control screen with his right.

It had only been a little more than a week since the Dreamscape was rushed through refurbishment, refueled, and rolled out on the runway in Nevada before they had restarted the countdown for the launch. It all seemed rather quick to Paul, but Gary Childers had given him the last say. Had Paul said “no-go,” then Gary would have abided by that decision. At least that is what Paul liked to believe.

Just less than two weeks ago, the little ship had flown a crew of space tourists around the Moon and done so flawlessly. In fact, they had done more than just fly around the Moon on the most expensive and dangerous vacation ever. They had also acted as a search-and-rescue mission. They had detected Chinese taikonauts stranded on the Moon and had been instrumental in saving their lives. It was clear that the Chinese government had had no intention of telling the public of the stranded taikonauts and had Dreamscape’s crew not found them, the world might have never known they were ever there. But they did find them, and that was the first step. NASA did the hardest part of going to the Moon and getting them. But Paul was in the process of flying the Dreamscape back into space to help bring them home. The final part. It was fitting in Paul’s mind that the rescue started with the Dreamscape and would likely end with it. Of course, they had yet to run any of this by NASA or the Chinese, but drowning sailors will swim to the nearest lifeboat. Besides, once the Dreamscape made it to the right orbital altitude, it would take a day or more to crank the inclination to the same angle as the space station. After you added another a day or so to chase it down, it just made sense to get into space as soon as possible.

“Control, we’re go for scramjet separation.” Paul could talk through the procedures in his sleep by this point, but he wasn’t about to give it a try. He kept his focus on the job at hand.

“Roger that, Paul. Go for first-stage sep.” Then the stage-separation icon flashed and the Bitchin’ Betty chimed at him.

“Prepare for stage separation in five, four, three, two, one.”

Paul felt his pulse quicken in anticipation of the stage separation as he waited for the five explosions that would soon sever the bolts holding the two parts of Dreamscape together. This portion of the flight always scared the living daylights out of him. But he also knew that the technology for such accurate pyrotechnic timing was well understood. It always amazed him how it never sounded like five explosions at all. It simply went bang, and that was that.

Bang!

“We’ve got good separation,” he radioed to control.

“Copy that, Dreamscape. Scramjet separation is complete.”

“Now preparing for main-engine ignition in twenty seconds.” Gesling was nearing the point at which the powerful main rocket engines would fire, giving him the final acceleration needed to attain the seventeen thousand miles per hour required for orbit. Escape velocity was just that one stage away. Orbital altitude and velocity were one main rocket burn away.

“Roger that, Paul. Main burn in fifteen…ten…five, four, three, two, one.”

“We’ve got good burn on the main engine, and all systems are go.”

Never in the history of aerospace, or humanity for that matter, had a single spaceship flown an orbital mission, a month or so later flown around the Moon, and then just a few short days later flown back to orbit. The Dreamscape was truly being pushed to the limits of space-technology capabilities and reliabilities. Paul tried not to think about quality control, workmanship, parts and materials fatigue. After all, Dreamscape had been designed to fly with a rapid turnaround. Paul wasn’t quite sure if this was the type of rapid turnaround planned, especially while the rocket was fresh off its first mission and practically just out of the test-flight phase.

“Just fly the plane,” he told himself. The first and foremost thing all pilots trained themselves to do was to learn to fly the plane no matter what the instruments were saying or whatever else was going on around them. Fly the plane. He gripped the controls and swallowed the lump in his throat, forcing it back into his stomach. It amazed him that he still got that lump. He was now quite the space veteran. But flying in space on a screaming, highly volatile, explosive rocket engine was indeed scary. Paul had every right to be at least a little bit nervous. He also had every need to overcome that nervousness and do his job.

The first stage, then fully separated from the rocket-powered Dreamscape, began its glide back to the Nevada desert. Operated by onboard automatic pilot and with constant monitoring by engineers in the Space Excursions control room back at the launch site, the first stage was on target for a landing back at the location from which its voyage began. So far the Dreamscape was doing everything just right.

The acceleration from the main burn continuously pushed Paul back into the webbing that secured him to his seat. He could feel the skin on his cheekbones being pulled back toward his ears. He could hear his heartbeat and feel the kick to his abdomen as the Dreamscape’s engine engaged at a little over twenty thousand feet. The whine of the engines was only momentarily loud before the cabin’s active soundproofing kicked in and diminished it to something just short of a deafening dull roar. The sound may have diminished a bit, but the g-forces slamming Paul into the seat were far from over. At the moment he was feeling over five gravities and would endure it for a few moments more. Paul grunted against the crushing weight of his chest and forced himself to breathe through it.

He was on his way to orbit. Once he got there, he’d circularize his orbit and then crank his inclination up to match the International Space Station. Then he would chase the ISS until he docked with it. Upon docking with the space station, he’d offer the rescued astronauts a ride home. At least that was the plan with which he’d started.