Silver Tower

CHAPTER 6

Three hours later the crew of the Space Shuttle Enterprise stepped into the elevator in the service tower and rode it to the orbiter entry level. They walked across the service arm and into the "white room," where white-suited, surgical-masked technicians used vacuum cleaners to remove any bits of dirt and gravel off their boots and uniforms that could accumulate in the crew compartment during microgravity flight. Then, one at a time, they walked toward the circular side hatch into the shuttle.

When it was her turn, Ann stopped and shook hands with one of the techs. "Thanks," she said quietly. They barely knew each other, but the emotions were the same. No more words were necessary.

Originally, Enterprise had been built for landing tests. In 1977 it had been released off the back of a modified Boeing 747 carrier plane to test its ability to glide to a landing with no power. It was never intended that Enterprise ever be launched into space.

The Challenger accident in 1986 had changed that. It had been far less expensive to refit Enterprise for space flight than to build a new orbiter, so the refitting process began late in 1987. Enterprise inherited much of the new 1980s technology in space shuttle design. The first difference was obvious as Ann stepped towards the entrance hatch — the absence of the thermal protection system's insulation tiles. Instead, the shuttle used a smooth fabric blanket made of carbon-carbon — lighter, stronger and less expensive than the silica tiles on Columbia and Atlantis. Earlier, only the shuttle's nosecap and wing leading edges had the extreme high-heat protection of carbon-carbon alloys — now the entire surface had it. Whereas the old exterior had looked rough and scaly, like a lizard's skin, the new exterior was pure white, smooth and glassy.

Ann was helped through the entry hatch and into the middeck area of Enterprise's crew compartment, where she looked down at the storage compartments, personal hygiene station, and airlock hatch. "Weird," she said, "I'm standing on the wall, like Spider Woman. "

Captain Marty Schultz, the Enterprise's payload specialist, was just stepping up the ladder to the upper flight deck. "Wait till you get into orbit on Silver Tower," he said. "Walls, ceiling, up, down — all gone. Silver Tower is another world. "

She crawled up the ladder behind Schultz, who was now standing beside three seats on the flight deck, and looking high "above" herself, saw Air Force Colonel Jerrod Will, the mission commander, and Marine Colonel Richard Sontag, the Enterprise's pilot, in their seats. They looked "down" as she crawled into the flight deck and pulled herself up. "Crawl across the seats and take the right side," Schultz said. She maneuvered herself across the flight deck and onto the right-hand mission-specialist seat. A technician walking on marked areas on the payload control panel in the back of the flight deck helped her strap in and handed her a "Snoopy's hat" communications headset, which looked like an old college football helmet with wide ear cups. "Your portable oxygen system is on your right here," the tech told her as Ann strapped herself in. He talked her through a preflight of the portable oxygen system, POS, and her comm panel while Schultz and Kevin Baker, the grayhaired designer of the Silver Tower Thor interceptor missile system, crawled into their seats. Ann felt more normal after she was strapped in, but the sight of technicians standing sideways on the walls while she was seated facing up was still disorienting.

"I can see why some people get airsick on the ground," Baker said.

Marty Schultz gave the older man a reassuring look. "As I just told Ann, once they close the hatch we're in a new world. The first time I rode the shuttle the transition from earth-normal to space-normal was really bizarre. I felt like I was sitting on my back two hundred feet above ground."

Ann could feel her toes grip the front of her seat as Schultz went on. "But you get over it. Now I look forward to the switch. Everything's a lot freer in microgravity, including your imagination. "

Colonel Sontag glanced over his shoulder at the three mission specialists. "All strapped in back here?" he asked over interphone. All three said they were.

Sontag gave them a thumbs-up. A moment later: "Enterprise, this is Vandenburg Launch Control, radio check on a/g channel two. Over."

Colonel Will: "Good morning, Control. Loud and clear, channel two." The radio check was repeated several times on a variety of frequencies. "Enterprise, we are T-minus eight-zero minutes, mark. Launch advisory check."

Over Will's right shoulder Ann could see a large red light marked "ABORT" snap on, grow dim, blink, off. "Abort check OK, out."

Minutes later a white-clad technician flashed one last thumps-up through the entryway access, then ducked below, and the heavy main entrance hatch closed with a thump. "Enterprise, side hatch secure."

"Roger, copy," Sontag said. "Crew, cabin pressurization coming up. Pressure on your ears." Commander Will flipped switches, and Ann could feel her ears pop as the cabin pressure was increased to check for leaks or an unsecured hatch. "Control, this is Enterprise. Cabin pressure normal, one-six point seven p.s.i. Over."

"Roger, Enterprise. Out."

"Ann, you're cleared for power on your payload monitoring panel," the pilot, Sontag, said. "Check out your baby back there and report any problems when your check is completed."

"Roger." Ann flipped a guarded switch marked "PL MON ONE" and watched as the instrument panel to her right came to life. Except for a few miscellaneous supplies, the Skybolt laser she had developed was Enterprise's only cargo on this trip, and it was her job to check the systems on the forty-thousand-pound laser module to be sure there was no damage that might cause contamination or a hazard during launch.

The exhaustive check of the laser module's five separate sections took longer than she had expected. Finally she reported back. "Payload monitor power off, Colonel. Check complete. Everything's in the green. Ready for launch."

"Control, this is Enterprise. Ready to resume countdown. Over," Sontag reported.

Colonel Will, with six years flying space shuttles, turned to the computer keyboard, punched in "SPEC 99 PRO" and the computer monitor on Sontag's side changed from a blank screen to a pictorial representation of the Enterprise's launch trajectory. Will checked the display. In case of a malfunction of all three of the general navigation computers, the GNCs, he would fly the Enterprise manually into orbit using the computer display as a road map. He keyed his microphone. "Control, this is Enterprise. Flight plan loaded and checked. Over. "

The checklists ran faster and faster. From T-minus twenty minutes to T-minus five minutes, Will and Sontag worked furiously. Their main job was to start the three auxiliary power units, the APUs, which supplied hydraulic power to Enterprise. During launch the APUs would make sure the Enterprise's aerodynamic surfaces were in their streamlined launch position; during landing or during an emergency the APUs would supply hydraulic power to the surfaces to allow the shuttle to be flown like a conventional airplane.

After T-minus five minutes Will and Sontag could do little but watch the computers on Enterprise and acknowledge status checks from Vandenburg Launch Control. "T-minus two minutes," Launch Control reported. "H-two and O-two tanks pressurized, Enterprise. You are go for launch. Over. "

"Copy, Control. We're go for launch. " Sontag looked over his shoulder once more at Page, Schultz and Baker. "Here we go…"

"Put the pedal to the metal, Colonel," Schultz said and immediately regretted it. Pretty callow staff, he told himself. The others indulged him by ignoring it. Ann settled herself as far as possible in her seat and pulled her seat straps tight as she could stand it. The air felt electric-not stuffy or humid but super-charged with power. Far below she could feel the rumble of another piece of equipment — the solid rocket booster's ignition APUs. The thought of six million pounds of thrust about to be let loose made her eyes shut tight. "T-minus ten seconds… nine… eight… "

She nearly jumped out of her seat as she felt a gentle touch on her left hand.

"Relax."

It'was Marty Schultz, nodding. "It'll be fine, relax." She took a deep breath, feeling as if it was the first she'd taken in hours.

…Six… five… four… ignition sequence start… main engine one ignition … two ignition… three ignition…" Sontag wasn't talking over the interphone — he was screaming out loud cross cockpit: "… Manifold pressure good all three engines… three in the green…"

One hundred feet behind Ann, the three main engines were cranking out one-and-a-quarter million pounds of thrust, but almost no noise or vibration could be felt. Ann did feel a twang, the sway of the orbiter towards the external tank as the main engines moved toward full thrust, but even that wasn't too noticeable.

She knew from endless simulation what came next. She could just make out the ABORT light on the front instrument panel. It hadn't come on, thank God. When the orbiter realigns itself after the twang it meant—

It felt as if a freight train had just rumbled out of nowhere right beside her — from near-quiet to ear-splitting sound — as the solid rocket boosters ignited. She couldn't help letting out a gasp as the solid rocket boosters, the SRBs, exploded into action. In three seconds the thrust beneath her had been multiplied by a factor of five; now the fury of over six million pounds of thrust was alive, and Enterprise had not yet even left earth.

Suddenly a huge hand pressed against her chest, causing her to involuntarily expel air in a grunt. Stars clouded her vision, but she could see the launch service tower drop from view.

Airborne. "Enterprise, you have cleared the tower. Engines look good." Ann was surprised to see Will and Sontag reaching up to their forward instrument panels; she tried to raise her hand against the "g"-forces, found they were light but building. Soon even lifting one hand took effort.

"Control, this is Enterprise. Main engines at sixty-five percent. Over."

"Roger, Enterprise. Standing by for max Q."

Ann clutched the armrests of her seat. Here came one of the most critical moments of the launch moment when all of the dynamic pressures affecting the shuttle were—

"Max Q, Control. Main engines one hundred percent."

"Roger, people. Very pretty launch. Spectacular. Out."

That was it? No earth-shaking rumble, no squashed face, no blasts of Vulcan heat? The "g" forces were noticeable, but Ann had felt worse lots of times…

"Coming up on SRB burnout, Control."

The solid rocket boosters burned out and were jettisoned precisely on schedule, under computer control. Enterprise was now several hundred miles west of Mexico on its southern pole-to-pole trajectory. The SRB motor casings, each floating to earth under dime one-hundred-fifteen-foot-diameter parachutes, would be retrieved over the Pacific Ocean.

Enterprise's ride was somewhat different from other shuttle flights. First, Enterprise was following an eccentric elliptical polar orbit instead of a circular equatorial orbit. And second, Enterprise was climbing to an altitude of one thousand miles so that it could rendezvous with Silver Tower as it traveled in high orbit. Because of fuel limitations, previous shuttle flights had been limited to a maximum altitude of about seven hundred miles above earth.

It was several hours before Will finally announced: "Welcome to space, crew. OMS burn is complete. We are in orbit." Relief washed across everyone's face. "We're within a few miles of Silver Tower's orbit," Sontag reported over interphone. "We saved ourselves a few hundred pounds of fuel on that burn, so we have a small safety margin. I'm estimating linkup with Silver Tower in two hour — it's about fifteen thousand miles ahead of us, but we're gaining… Marty, you're clear to open the cargo bay doors, After that you'll all be cleared to unstrap to begin system checkouts. Kevin, check the middeck for any damage or anything out of place."

Schultz and Baker acknowledged Sontag's call and began to unstrap. Ann looked on as Schultz's straps began to float around his vacated seat before he resecured them. "Remember," Schultz said, "even though you're weightless up here in orbit, your body still has mass that you need to overcome, which means stopping yourself after you get moving."

"So I noticed," Baker mumbled after he'd unstrapped and promptly collided head-first with the ceiling.

Schultz watched as Baker maneuvered himself around and floated out of sight down the ladder to the middeck level of the crew compartment. "Now to get those cargo bay doors," Schultz said. With Ann floating beside him, he made his way to the aft flight deck instrument panel. Ann looked out the windows facing into the cargo bay but it was too dark to make out any detail. "Panel R13 has the door controls," Schultz was saying. Over interphone he said, "Check power levels for cargo bay doors, Colonel Sontag."

Sontag checked the power distribution panel near his right elbow. "Switches set. " Next he checked a bank of three ammeters, switching the monitor controls through each of the fuel cells to check their output. "Power's on-line, Marty."

"Rog." To Ann, Schultz said, "Okay. Electrical power nins the hydraulic motors that operate the doors. There are also electrical backups, plus the doors can be opened and closed by the remote manipulator arms and even with an emergency space walk if necessary. The radiators deploy after the doors are fully open." Then over interphone Schultz reported: "Doors coming open."

"Clear to open," Colonel Will said.

Schultz activated the controls. Instantly the payload bay was bathed in a brilliant blue-white light that reflected off the aluminum insulation covering the Skybolt laser module. The space shuttle Enterprise was flying upside down in relation to the earth's surface, so Enterprise's sky was the earth — and Ann was seeing this "sky" for the first time. "My God…"

The Enterprise was just crossing the dawn-line between Hawaii and Australia. It looked like a relief map being lighted from the side — each island in Micronesia, it seemed, was visible in stark detail. They could recognize the Solonions, the Samoas, even the New Hebrides Islands. There were a few puffs of clouds but otherwise it was like looking at a meticulously rendered painting of the whole South Pacific.

"Ann?"

"It's… beautiful… so immaculate," she said quietly. Schultz nodded. "I never stop being awed by it myself. If that sight doesn't move you, you belong in a rubber room." He turned to the interphone. "Bay doors open. Radiators deployed. No damage so far as I can see on the radiators."

"Copy," Sontag said. Will double-checked his readouts with Mission Control through a direct UHF radio and datalink originating in a station antenna farm at Yarra Yarra in western Australia. "Mission Control confirms clear for orbit and rendezvous with Armstrong. "

It was some two hours later when Ann peered out the forward windscreens into the gray-black void, but all she could see were a few stars too bright to be obscured by the brilliance of earth. "Colonel Sontag, you must have X-ray vision if you can see that station out there."

"It's still very faint," he said, "but it's there. Mostly it looks like another star."

She shook her head. "I'm going back to the aft console." The pilots nodded and continued scanning their instruments.

Marty Schultz had deployed the shuttle's remote manipulator arm and had scanned space for a few minutes with the Ann's closed-circuit camera at high magnification, but it wasn't until Enterprise was ten miles away from the station that he spotted it. "It looks like a toy, like a Tinker Toy, from here," Ann said. "When they first launched it they treated it like one," Schultz told her. "People, some people, called it a boondoggle, big waste of money that could better be spent carpeting the Pentagon hallways. A lot of us were afraid it would end up like Skylab — a blaze in the sky and a crash to earth."

Kevin Baker, still trying to get his balance in this world of microgravity, maneuvered beside Page and Schultz at the aft crew station, saying, "I remember that too well, and the argument over who owned the space station. The U.S. taxpayer spent billions launching it and a conglomerate of scientists, some of them not even from the U.S., managed to put a clamp on any military research aboard it. You would have thought the station was a broken-down tenement building the way they talked about it. The Silver Sausage… the space suppository… remember?"

Ann nodded, straining for a better view of the station.

"But this Brigadier General Saint-Michael apparently did a good job changing people's minds."

"That he did," Schultz said, "and everyone's taken the station very seriously since. That toy, Ann, weighs in at about five hundred tons. What you see is the product of twenty shuttle sorties over four years, plus another dozen unmanned supply rockets. Thirty billion dollars worth. The world's most expensive condo, you might say…"

As Enterprise drew closer to the station more details could be seen, and on the screen Ann pointed to a tiny dot just below the station. "Is that your Thor system?" Ann asked Baker. "Sure is, ten no-nuclear interceptor rockets, a laser decoy discriminator and a radar detector and tracker. The Thor is our first antiballistic missile defense system in thirty years. Simple, lost cost, and effective — if I do say so myself…"

Attention was soon diverted to the TV screen, filling with the image of the station, and the crew was ordered back to their seats for docking. Schultz stowed the camera and remote manipulator arm back into its cradle in the cargo bay and shut down the aft console. "Crew ready for docking," he reported.

Within a mile of the station the digital autopilot had reduced Enterprise's forward speed to one thousand feet per minute. A thin laser beam from the space station lanced out toward Enterprise, toward the two sensors on the forward and rear ends of the cargo bay. The forward sensor was a large lens that focused the laser alignment beam onto the aft sensor. The digital autopilot would make tiny corrections to the shuttle's course whenever the laser beam drifted off the aft sensor, in this way aligning Enterprise with the docking tunnel on Silver Tower.

With near-magical precision the computers controlling the Enterprise's reaction-control system thrusters positioned the docking adapter in the cargo bay within a few feet of Silver Tower's docking tunnel, which was then maneuvered over the adapter, and the two docking rings locked and sealed into, place. Next an open-latticework support beam was extended and locked into cleats in Enterprise's cargo bay. The support beam strengthened the union between the two spacecraft, effectively making them one unit. Finally the connecting tunnel between the docking module and Enterprise's docking adapter was pressurized to two atmospheres and checked. "Adapter leak check is good, Armstrong," Colonel Sontag reported to the docking officers on Silver Tower. "Docking complete. Over. "

"Checked over here, Enterprise," from the docking officer aboard Silver Tower. "Welcome aboard. You're clear for crew transfer."

"Roger. Thanks." On interphone Sontag announced, "Docking complete, crew. End of the line." Ann, Baker and Schultz sent up congratulations to Enterprise's commander and pilot, but Colonel Will waved them off. "The autopilot did most of it, and frankly it was a lousy job. I could've gotten us right on the mark." Will then directed shutdown of most of Enterprise's systems and began preparation for transfer to the station, with Sontag and the rest of the crew moving downstairs to the transfer area on the middeck.

Colonel Will pressurized the airlock and air space, and he and Sontag checked the pressure readouts. "Sixteen p.s.i. in both areas," Will said, undogged the first hatch leading to the airlock, then rechecked a second pressure gauge for the airlock itself. Satisfied, he opened the heavy steel door to the airlock. "See you," he said, checked a POS mask and rebreather in the airlock and strapped on the face mask. Sontag closed the airlock chamber door and sealed it tight, and Will checked the pressurization gauge leading from the airlock to the transfer tunnel, then undogged the upper airlock hatch. There was a slight hiss of equalizing air but no sip of leaks or damage. "Welcome aboard, Colonel Will," a voice said above him. Will looked up through the transfer tunnel to see a youngish Space Command airman smiling down at him.

Will unstrapped his face mask and glared at the technician. "You're supposed to wait until I open my airlock hatch, John."

"I was right behind you, sir," Airman John Montgomery told him. "Believe me, Colonel, I'm not going to let myself get sucked into your cargo bay."

"One day that's going to happen." Will turned and unlocked the airlock hatch leading to Enterprise's crew compartment. He wasn't smiling. "Clear for.transfer, crew."

One by one the crew of Enterprise floated up and out of the airlock and into Silver Tower's spacious docking-control module. Sontag, the last one leaving Enterprise, latched and double-checked each hatch behind himself; Enterprise would now be sealed up and apart from the station.