John Nance - Orbit

He sighs as he buttons the coat, wondering for the millionth time if he should have tried to get into test pilot school right out of F-15s instead of taking the fast-burner track to the Pentagon, and now CINCNORAD, his official title, Commander in Chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Back then the path to being an astronaut seemed to wind through Houston. Lately, the dawn of private spaceflight had shifted the possibilities, and now this.

The small team of senior officers and one very nerdy captain are waiting with the patience and respect appropriate to being in the presence of four stars, and Risen retakes his seat at the end of the coffee table, mindful that once again his first challenge is to get them sufficiently at ease to talk openly.

He fixes the young captain with a smile and gestures to the papers he’s clutching.

“Sammy, go ahead and tell me what you found.”

“Yes, sir. As you know, we reran the tapes of everything and downloaded NASA’s images to take a close look at the gyrations around the end of Orbit Two. We assumed he had a control problem, but what we’re seeing is all the reaction jets firing in staccato sequence. As the sequence continues and the craft stabilizes, the patterns calm down, as if the pilot is learning.”

“She’s not on automatic, in other words? The astronaut is on the controls manually?”

“Someone is. I mean, we’re not trying to be NRO analysts or anything, sir, but if you want a guess, mine would be that those reaction controls were being manually fired by a person who did not have the training of an astronaut.”

There is silence as Chris Risen glances at the two other officers present, a colonel and a brigadier.

“Bill Campbell is the pilot up there, right?”

“Yes, sir,” the one-star answers.

“And you’re saying that… like listening to a telegraph operator’s patterns in the old days, you can tell that isn’t Bill?”

“Not quite, sir. More like just saying that whoever’s on the controls is an amateur with a very steep learning curve.”

“And… that would be the passenger?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, shit. Which means that Campbell is hurt or worse.”

“You know him, sir?” the colonel asks.

“It’s a small fraternity, our service. Yeah, I know Bill. But what’s important here is not who’s alive up there but that someone is. And here’s our challenge. There’s a renegade rescue going on at NASA now that’s already gotten the chief astronaut fired, but one of the other space programs will probably try to launch and save whoever remains. We’re going to provide full support up to and just short of revealing any classified capabilities. I don’t care whether it’s the Russians, NASA, ASA’s other little ship, or even the Chinese, whoever wants our help in this gets it full bore.”

The chorus of “Yes, sirs” fills the room as they get up to disperse. When the office is empty, Risen pulls out his own cell phone and dials a number in Houston, dispensing with the formalities as the circuit is completed.

“John, I’ve got some bad news about Bill Campbell’s situation.”

Even after three terms in the U.S. Senate and countless visits to the White House, Mitch Lipensky still feels the rush of history and power when he walks into the Oval Office. He supposes it should always be so—never should he become complacent about the responsibility bearing down on anyone in this place.

The greetings and smiles befitting a white-haired committee chairman and member of the President’s own party lubricate his passage through the hallways to the east entrance and the waiting President.

He’s had thoughts of running for this office, dreams of being the leader of the free world and making the tough decisions. But in truth, the fire has never been hot enough in his belly, and the brutality of the campaign and the compromises which stand like huge peaks before any contender are simply beyond him.

He greets the President like the old friend that he is, refusing to call him anything but Mr. President, and they settle onto opposite sides of the coffee table before the fireplace, the Chief of Staff taking a side chair. There are only so many chits even a senior senator can call on for an immediate audience, and this one has been costly but necessary. NASA is his committee’s responsibility, and the disturbing call from a man in Houston he considers an American hero has triggered a telephoned explanation and now this.

He knows Geoff Shear all too well, and sometimes even respects Shear’s iconoclastic invulnerability to even the strongest congressional pressure.

But an order from the President would be a different matter.

“NORAD is telling me the pilot may be hurt or dead, Mitch. Is that what you have?” The voice is distinctive, tinged with the Virginia accent of his youth, and it’s met by the equally familiar warm growl of the senior senator from Texas.

“Yes, sir. I have the same report. But the important thing, to my mind, is that someone is alive up there with a few days of air left, and he apparently can’t fire his engine and get out of orbit.”

“Understood. So no self-rescue. But is this something we have the ability to do?”

“We don’t know, Mr. President, because our esteemed NASA administrator has rejected even the most rudimentary attempt to find out.”

“You made it clear you want me to order John Kent reinstated.”

“Yes, sir, I do. He’s the best man to spearhead any attempt we might make. But there’s a good reason beyond that. Way beyond that. All through the cold war, all through the space race, all through our history of manned—sorry, I mean human —spaceflight, our nation has maintained a steadfast consistency on the value of even one human life. For God’s sake, even Stalin said the loss of one life is a tragedy.”

“Yes, and the rest of that quote is that a million deaths is a statistic. Terrible thing to quote in part.”

“I’m a doddering old senator with a selective memory. Sue me.”

“Go on. I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Mr. President, we’re the nation that refused to let the Apollo Thirteen crew die. The Russians killed dozens in their space program and refused to be moved. I submit we not change that now just because the stranded human is in a private spacecraft and is not a certified NASA astronaut. He’s an American, and…”

“I get it, Mitch. That’s an eloquent speech, but you can stop now. I get it.”

Mitch’s hand is out. “Let me finish. We need to have these words ringing in our minds. The business of America is business. Calvin Coolidge said that and we should be teaching it in every elementary school. Are we going to let a bureaucratic bureaucrat like Geoff Shear reject a rescue only because it involves someone shot into space by a mere American corporation and not our mighty government? Not to mention his personal animus against Richard DiFazio. If this was a current NASA astronaut up there, would there be any question? Aren’t we dedicated to encouraging our companies, including private spaceflight ventures?”

“You know my stance on that.”

“Then, dammit, Mr. President, you have to rein in Shear. He’s out of control.”

“Mitch, he’s defending our ability to carry anyone into space. How long have we been operating with only two shuttles? Six years?”

The senator chuckles with a knowing smile. “He’s already called you, hasn’t he?”

The President is smiling back, almost embarrassed. “Well… you know Geoff. He’s a Beltway pro. He got to me before Kent got to you.”

“That’s unimportant. The order of contact, I mean.”