John Ringo - Von Neumann’s War

“You see, Dr. Fines, this was required because Percival’s throw weight to Mars was on the upper limit for a long mission timeline. The half-meter diameter primary mirror for the telescope alone ended up being about eighty kilograms. And with the other instruments and spacecraft structure, there was just no way the Delta IV Heavy and three upper stages would get the satellite to Mars in the hoped for four-to-five-month mission time. Tom here came up with the idea of adding the solid strap-on boosters to the rocket for the added boost. This did it on paper.” Roger smirked, then added, “It took some doing and some expensive modifications contracts for Boeing to do it in reality, but they finally got the ball rolling and did it and on schedule.” Fines sat quietly and nodded in response without making any facial expressions whatsoever. Roger nodded back to John to take over.

“Above the CBCs we connected three modified and connected Pratt Whitney RL10B-2 cryogenic rocket motors to make up the second stage. Each of the modified engines will, hopefully, supply as much as 60,000 pounds of thrust over a burn time of 2250 seconds. Then above that is a single modified RL10B-2 making up the third stage. And finally, a standard RL10B-2 with half the burn time makes up the fourth stage.”

“Above that,” Roger stood and moved to the front of the room, “is the payload.” He pointed to the payload shroud section. “The reason we’re here is the payload, of course. It’s attached atop the fourth stage and housed via the aluminum isogrid payload fairing and shroud. Here is where Percival sits.” Roger nodded to John to click the slides.

“This project is a culmination of what mankind can do in a hurry if we really have to,” Ronny Guerrero added. He understood that it was a culmination of brilliant design, development, and manufacturing. It was also the culmination of less than five months worth of work that was completed by a small army of a few thousand men and women. Ronny wanted to make sure that the President’s advisor understood this.

“Let’s hope it’s a successful culmination,” the science advisor said, smiling faintly.

The Neighborhood Watch team sat quietly for the next hour and a half. John and Alan were in and out of the room checking with Launch Control to gather any good or bad news. The countdown was going as according to schedule. The men sat listening to the launch countdown protocols, anxiously awaiting the final countdown.

Finally, after four and half months of around-the-clock effort from thousands of the space community’s best and brightest, the culmination of that effort was about to go. The Neighborhood Watch was about to happen. Of course, it would not arrive at Mars for nearly another five months.

Tina and Charlotte sat at the Florida hotel’s beachfront with the water splashing at their feet as each breaker rolled in. Although school had started that week, they both were excited to miss a day or two of school, to sit on the beach and do nothing. Charlotte’s dad and Tina’s mother had insisted that the two of them make this trip. The parent’s of both of the teens seemed unusually touchy-feely to the girls and were acting as though they hadn’t seen their girls in years and might not get to see them again for years. Charlotte just chalked it up to the divorce and the amount of overtime her dad had been working. Tina didn’t say much about it other than that they were stressing her out.

“You know,” Tina dug her toes into the sand as the surf covered her feet. “I like this trip a lot better than the one to Hicksville.”

“Aww come on, Tina. The Mars ride was fun. And you nearly wet your panties on that Moonshot thing,” Charlotte added with a laugh. “And you gotta admit, flying the Space Shuttle simulator and driving those little Lego Mars rovers was kinda cool.”

“Yeah, but this is the beach,” Tina said, holding both arms out wide, cocking her hips to the left, and nodding to the ocean.

Charlotte smiled and nodded toward the two young men with about three percent body fat surfing just north of them. Just then one of the surfers wiped out and stood up, shaking the water from his long hair.

“I guess I’d have to agree with you on that one, Dingbat.”

“You said it, Astrogirl.” Tina acknowledged the two hunky surfers with a whistle.

“Uh huh.”

“So when is it going to be?” Tina asked, shielding her eyes and looking to the north as her mother had told them to do, but at the same time not taking her eyes off the two hunky surfers.

“It should be any second unless they had some kind of hold. You know what they’re launching?” Charlotte said as she searched the skyline for any sign of a rocket launch.

“Well, Mom just said it was classified. But I don’t get why she could bring us to see a launch if it’s classified.”

“Dingbat!” Charlotte said with a chuckle. “How they gonna hide from all the local people that a big, bright, and noisy rocket just fired off? My dad said it was classified and that I couldn’t ask him any questions about what is on it. But the fact that there’s going to be a launch isn’t classified.”

“You think it’ll be that bright in the day — look!” Tina stopped midsentence and pointed north-northeast.

“Oh wow! It’s really bright! And check out that smoke trail!” Charlotte was giddy and pointing at the modified Boeing rocket as it pulled upward from Earth’s gravity well. Both girls had seen smaller launches their parents had attended, but this one was different. The rocket’s rumble was a solid body blow, as heavy even as the shuttle launches. Others along the beach turned toward the sky to watch the massive rocket — one of the largest to launch from the Cape since the legendary Saturns. One of the surfers wiped out, but the girls failed to notice. None of them had any idea what was onboard, where it was going, or why. But, they were fascinated by the rocket, its bright glare and rumble going on and on…

“Congratulations, John.” Roger shook Dr. Fisher’s hand and patted him on the back. “Doin’ good, right?”

“That’s right.” John slumped in his chair in the VIP support room. “The launch vehicle functioned flawlessly and the telemetry reports so far tell us that the modified rocket system has pushed Percival into an Earth escape trajectory. Control tells me that the first stage combination of three kick motors fired and completed its burn, then separated. The second kick motor repeated the process from ignition to burnout with no problems. The third kick motor functioned likewise. The telemetry data downloaded from the star trackers to the main bus guidance and navigation computer tells that the software activated the algorithm to optimize the final thrust vectoring for the optimal burn vector to enter into the Mars incident trajectory. So, boss, my job is done. The spacecraft is on its way to Mars.” John grinned and loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. “I’m gonna go find me an umbrella out there on the beach somewhere and sleep under it for about two days.”

“Good job, John. That sounds like a really good idea.” Roger wished he could join him but there were payload checks that had to be run. But, all things considered, there was not really a lot to do over the next four and half months while Percival coasted toward Mars. Maybe the beach was a good idea.

It would be a little less than five months before Percival would fly-by less than a hundred kilometers from the strangely changing planet, but in the meantime the instruments and science suite began to come online for checkouts and operational status. What should we do now? Waiting sucks. Roger thought.