Silver Tower

CHAPTER 7

It was a long thirty-foot journey along the four-foot diameter transfer tunnel. The crew members were met at the other end by technicians who helped them through and gave them sneakers with stiff Velcro "hooks" on the soles.

A man, with gold braid on his lapel stepped forward. "Welcome to Silver Tower. I'm Colonel Jim Walker, vice commander and deputy commander for operations around here." He shook hands with the newcomers, Ann and Baker. "I hope these pirates gave you a good ride."

Walker was another one of the so-called typical space-soldiers Ann had met in the Space Command, which was responsible for all space-based defense. He looked young for his rank, thin but not too tall, with a nearly bald head. His manner and appearance suggested quiet intelligence, not the old-fashioned domineering military presence, — a scientist or engineer instead of a soldier. Most of the members of Space Command, drawn from the ranks of the military's scientific elite, were like that. In college they might have been labeled "computer weenies" — on Silver Tower they were commanders, leaders, innovators. To Ann he said, "I'm looking forward to working with you on your project. "

"Thanks to you I have a project to work on. I've heard it was you who applied the pressure to finally get the Skybolt project approved."

"Thanks, but General Saint-Michael is the mover and shaker around here, He was the one who set things going."

"Is General Saint-Michael—?"

"You'll be meeting him soon. He's been occupied most of the day with repairs on our main data-link transmitter."

"I hope it's not serious," Baker said.

"No, but it needed the general's direct attention. He's like that. Nothing's too big or too small."

The deputy commander led Ann and Baker through the small docking module and then through an overhead hatch. At first it seemed all the eight main pressurized modules on Silver Tower were the same small size as the docking-tunnel connector or at most a larger version of the spartan working interior of the space shuttle. When Ann entered the first module, she found out she was wrong.

It was spacious and well lit. Two senior officers and four technicians hovered in front of control panels, sipping coffee and exchanging reports. Green plants and flowers — natural carbon-dioxide scrubbers — sat Velcroed to pedestals around the module. "This is the command module," Colonel Walker said as the group floated up through the small connector into the module. "All communications, earth surveillance and station operations are conducted here. The general's work area is over there." General Saint-Michael's work area, Ann noticed, was different from everyone else's in at least one respect — it had a chair. The men who served under the general were expected to stand, anchored to the deck by their Velcro sneakers or attached to variable-height work platforms. Fuzzy Velcro loops were everywhere — on the ceilings, walls, floors, even on instrument panels.

Baker pointed to the module's "ceiling…" "Instrument panels on the ceiling, Colonel? Why?"

Walker turned to Baker. "Tell me, Mr. Baker — which is the ceiling? Is that the ceiling…?"

Walker detached himself from the Velcro "floor" and floated up to the ceiling, hovering a foot above Ann's head. He anchored his feet to Velcro footholds molded into the "side" instrument panels. "Or is this the wall? In space, and especially on Silver Tower, conventional up and down don't exist — they mean something else. If we create a module with five hundred square feet of earth-conventional floor space, we can in effect triple that amount by mounting some instrument panels on the ceiling. The cost of building materials is cut by more than half. A few years ago we had a new technician on board who got so confused about which way was up — literally — he got real sick. This was back when Silver Tower wasn't any more than two tin cans. He'd gotten up a few earlier than anyone else and was walking on the walls for two hours before realizing that the floor was down there. We've now made a yellow-colored Velcro loop carpet for the 'floor' to end the confusion. Anyway, we keep monitoring and auxiliary controls up here. Someone using them keeps out of the way of people using the conventional control panels and we double or triple our work space. It all takes some getting used to but after a few days you'll be swinging around the cabin like you were born here."

Walker detached himself from the ceiling, floated back to the deck and motioned to a group of two technicians and an officer manning a large, multiscreened unit that looked like an air traffic controller's console. "The SBR, space-based radar, operators are there. They scan preprogramined areas of the Soviet Union and other countries for any missile-launch activity as we fly over them. The radars on Silver Tower can detect and track any object larger than three thousand pounds at almost any altitude — even on the ground or below the surface of the water. We also can tie in with geosynchronous infrared satellites for missile-launch detection. Right now the SBR is tied into Dr. Baker's Thor missile garage tethered beneath the station. Eventually we'll be in direct control with and have control of hundreds of Thor missile garages in earth orbit, directing the strategic missile defense of the whole damn northern hemisphere."

He turned to Ann. "Your laser system is what's got us really excited. If you're correct in your prediction that a one-minute laser barrage will have the power to destroy hundreds of missiles, we may have the ability to neutralize the whole Soviet nuclear arsenal."

"If it works, Colonel," Ann said. "The problems we need to overcome are still pretty huge… For now, I'd put my money on the Thor missiles."

Walker accepted that with a shrug, then led the way to the next module, which was like the command module except a bit less organized. Again, four technicians manned the module, two of them positioned in front of large banks of equipment. "This is the experimentation module," Walker said. "Personnel and equipment are moved in and out of this area on a weekly basis. Some weeks it's bacteria — others it's transformers or superconductive circuits. All of the equipment bays are temporary — we can remodel this entire module in half a day. Dr. Baker, this will be your office."

"Great, it's bigger than my lab at Los Alamos."

Walker led them through the side hatch into a long glass-lined connecting tunnel. "This leads to the second parallel column of modules. We've built each of these connecting tunnels with thick Plexiglas so that it can double as a sort of observation deck. The view is… well, see for yourself."

The view was breathtaking. The entire space station was spread out before them, a science fiction movie come to life.

Far below them the center open-framed keel stretched far out into space, almost out of sight. Nearly a thousand feet long and fifty feet square, the keel held large silverized fuel tanks, mounting and equipment housings for a variety of antennas, and miles of pipes and tubes snaking throughout. Beneath the keel were mounted the huge curved space-based, phased-array radars, their football-field-sized electromagnetic eyes continuously scanning planet earth beneath them. At the very ends of the keel were four solar energy collectors, each twice as large as the radars-massive, delicate, incredibly thin-looking sheets of glass aimed at the sun. "On earth those collectors would weigh eighty tons apiece," Walker said. "Up here, of course, nothing. We use a tiny, fifty-horsepower electric motor to keep them pointed at the sun. They supply enough power for two stations. While the station is in sunlight they provide direct energy. We also use them to recharge a bank of cobalt-hydroxide batteries for emergency use and to break down waste water to produce hydrogen and oxygen for our fuel cells and station thrusters. "

"Is that what you'll use to power Ann's laser?" Baker asked him.

"Unfortunately, no," Ann answered for him. "We need ten times more collectors for just one burst. We'll use a small nuclear MHD reactor to power the laser."

Baker pointed toward the very ends of the keel. "The station thrusters are also out there on the keel?"

"Right," Walker said. "Five small hydrogen rocket engines on each end of the keel. They fire automatically about two dozen times a day to correct the station's altitude, attitude, alignment and orbit. They're also used to move the station if necessary."

"And you get the fuel for that from water?"

"Right again. We use electrolysis chambers powered by the sun to crack waste water into hydrogen and oxygen gas that's collected and stored in those tanks out there. We bring up a shuttle full of water about once every two months, and we also get water from the fuel cells, where we recombine hydrogen, and oxygen to produce electrical power and water. In an emergency a full complement of twenty crewmen can survive up here for six months without resupply. "

They continued through the thick Plexiglas tunnel to the next module. Ann and Baker found themselves in an immense structure many times larger than the command module and laboratory modules they'd just left. "This is a complete Skylab module, the first component of the original NASA space station launched two years ago," Walker explained. "This segment of the station was first lofted before full-scale shuttle flights resumed. As you can see, it's as large as the third stage of a Saturn booster, sizable enough for the experimentation we were doing originally, but certainly not now. "When full-capacity shuttle flights resumed, we built the rest of Silver Tower using cargo bay-sized modules. We now use the Skylab section for living and recreation quarters. For those purposes, there's more than enough room."

"That must be your gymnasium over there," Baker said, pointing to one area of the module.

"Uh huh, everything today's astronaut needs to keep his body fit," Walker said, accenting his voice like a camy pitch-man. "Treadmills and Soloflex weight — you shall forgive the expression — machines here, exercise bicycles over there. At the other end a videotape and audio tape library, computers, television… We get two hundred channels from all over the world."

Baker examined one of the "weight" machines. "Clever," he said. "Using thick rubber bands to create resistance. Obviously a typical weight machine won't work up here." He studied the treadmill. "How does this work?"

"Same as a regular one except you strap on this bungee cord belt first. You can adjust the tension of the bungee cords to increase the resistance. The skipper — General Saint-Michael — practically lives on the treadmill. No one can keep up with him and he's forty-three years old."

They made their way to the sleep module, a series of small chambers that looked like curtain-covered horizontal telephone booths arranged like two-tiered bunkbeds. Each end of the module had two very large rooms, bathrooms.

Walker peeled back the sides of a sleeping bag in the chamber. "You can adjust the elasticity of the sleeping bag covers. We've learned by now that crew, sleep better if they feel at least a little of the sensation of gravity. Sleeping while floating around weightless isn't all that comfortable. We've begun using those zero 'g' vacuum showers like the Russians have, but they can be a real pain. By the way, the sleep module — actually the whole station — is coed. No separate facilities. We haven't had too many women on Silver Tower…

Ann wondered what it would be like bunking with a dozen men. They'd probably feel more uncomfortable than she would. A battleship commander's daughter, she'd grown up seeing men being men. She also liked men, too often more than they returned the favor…

The group moved down to the next hatch; this one double-sealed and leading up to another docking module like the one connected to the command module. According to Walker this docking area was better suited for transferring supplies and fuel from a shuttle or an unmanned cargo vehicle. He motioned to the lower hatch. "That leads to the storage and supply module, and below that is the MHD reactor. MHD, as Ann can tell you, Dr. Baker, stands for magnetohydrodynamics — a way of producing massive amounts of electromotive force in a very compact unit. We'll cut across here to engineering."

Engineering was much like the command center. "It's really the computer center," Walker told them. "The kitchen — uh, galley — is located here as well." He continued on, pointing to a hatch at one end of the computer module. "There is your office, Ann — the control module for your laser, Skybolt. Nobody's been in it except when it was connected and tied into the rest of the station last month."

They opened the hatches and entered the module — or tried to. Unlike all the other pressurized modules, the Skybolt control-and-experimentation center was choked with equipment, wiring, pipes, conduit and control consoles, with a lone work space tacked in a far corner. "Wh— where do I work?" Ann said. "I mean, where's my lab, my instruments, test gear? It's—"

"It's all there," Walker said, trying to sound upbeat. "But it's been compacted to fit into this one module. Your control console is over there, plus a few other panels on the ceiling." He understated, Ann thought. The main control consoles were on the module's ceiling, surrounded by built-in handholds and footrests. She forced a smile in Colonel Walker's direction, but she was getting dizzy just looking at the overhead console. "Welcome to Silver Tower."