Chapter-20: 'A day in the life'-co-pilot on the Penelope

Chapter-20: OUTPOST
For Tom Luong Films
By Julian Phillips
2010-03-18

On their flight in 2077, that year with the conflict over the Mars-base, Rob Cowan and Guy, in charge of the Penelope and her cargo, anticipated upon departure, no conflict, war, or hostile Russian astronauts. Both of them were experienced enough to realize that yet another passage to the Mars-planet, would hold various demanding duties, challenging, and dynamic challenges, and dynamic circumstances. It was always that way, and there was nothing new they felt might happen, although the politics back home regarding Asteroid 5726b, were present to their thoughts like a looming dread. And that was really nothing new by the year 2077, either. So when they launched, circumstances were mostly ‘normal’, like an infant-child setting forth into life itself, into the womb of the cosmic Mother---in this case a space-ship, just like in the movies. But the child is un-troubled, peaceful, not crying.
Life on board the ship, during the passage, was boring, and this was far preferred. Each crew member had a set of duties allotted in regular 24-hour periods. Each knew his function, and was highly motivated, trained and ready, if only for the survival of them all, in the most hostile of all possible environments, that of outer-space. The ship’s interior was Spartan and efficient. But they kept themselves emotionally happy and positive with games, jokes, decorations, exercise and minor recreations. The all male crew mostly refrained from sex, and the passage was almost a year in time, roughly nine or eleven months, again, variable according to the position of the planets, and their relative speed. None of the men on the Penelope engaged in homosexual activity, and they were all as fit as any athletes.
So the big attraction as far as enjoyment or pleasures, were meals, music and ‘magazines’, or other reading and recordings. Like an Earth-sea cargo ship, the crew was provided with the best of everything, in each category.
The Penelope was much like a large Earth ocean cargo ship, in both size and character. It was quite large, easily five or eight times the size of the 1990’s NASA space-shuttle, and never intended for atmospheric re-entry at all. It was almost like a super-size space-shuttle. So, it was easy to build these ships, or easier, being constructed in weightlessness. The Monsanto-Dupont Local Planetary Cruiser (the Condrum-21) was very massive and strong, and operated for its entire lifetime in null-gravity. Although space was airless and void of life, with extremes of cold and heat, it was a low-impact environment as far as weight-stress on the high-stress ‘new’ metals and alloys, and material surfaces. As the engineers had learned, it was just as easy to move 20-million tons, as to move half-a-thousand, in null-gravity. Throw-weights were essentially equally mass-heavy, though overall density, or total mass-weight, would effect the rocketry. With all the science and technology, under control of routine systems and established practices, life on-board the Penelope was simpler and more comfortable for the crew, than a non-astronaut may have imagined. But it was no picnic.
Rob Cowan’s main function was that of back-up commander. Standard for any such flying machine since the days of the jet-aircraft, it only meant that Rob would take over if Guy was disabled for any reason. They all could actually pilot the ship, any one of the crew, even the Life-Sustain Specialists, who worked only on life-support systems during the voyages (including the toilets). This only made sense. But for Robert Lavern Cowan, II, he was required to second for Guy Reisling during each 24-hour period, in-shifts, and was basically second-in-command, for the entire flight.
What were those duties? In planetary orbit, entering orbit, docking to passenger-shuttles and moving people from shuttle-to-ship, or at Molinari, the mid-way space-dock, and also when leaving orbit and tracking early navigation for long-haul passage, the tasks were very demanding and came in fast-paced sequence. Errors or flawed moments of decision, were critical, so these maneuvers could be intense, much like a large rocket ‘lift-off’ into orbit from the planet-surface, but not quite.
The two men, and other crew, operated like a precision-team, pushing buttons, monitoring engines, communications, handling momentary decisions based on current flight-data, adjustments and off-ship controls or instructions from Vandenberg. They were in charge of an astonishingly powerful machine, the first of its kind for human travel to another planet, local to the Earth’s solar system. Each step for each procedure was scheduled and well-mapped, so to accomplish orbital re-entry, for example, or to leave orbit on the proper track to Mars, with all the delicate navigations involved. It was like a sublime dance---man, mind and machine, and 5,000-years of science advances. Rob and Guy only did their jobs as well as possible, and would sigh with relief when each action was successful. Failure was not an option, but sudden death and great loss, were an ever-present factor. Such was space-travel in 2077, and probably would ever-be.
Rob’s first shift was from 0300 to1000-hours, or seven hours. Guy typically retired, after a brief conference. His first role was to check and re-check all the ship’s most essential functions, from the pilot’s deck, or helm, which had lines to all the data-flow monitors that kept track of each vital part of the entire machine. This took at least an hour. The ship had four main engines, using the hydrogen fuel for much of the flight. It had been established early in the space-program, that by tuning the engines to a consistent thrust-energy emission, the vessel would arrive on Mars at a certain date and hour. To keep this going, because the energy levels were intense, the engines had to be carefully maintained and cycled through cooling and cleaning, and then re-started. Working with the ship’s engineer, who coordinated his hours for that routine job, Rob, or Guy, would work through the needed ‘off’s and on’s’, the shut-down sequence, the re-start, and also the ‘rest’-period, when the engine up-keep was tended. This work could take almost the entire seven hours of Rob’s shift, and was somewhat tedious.
There were other mundane duties. Once in the inter-planet corridor, the flight-path was simple and rarely changed at all. So, there was no ‘steering’ involved, or loop-de-loops. On a good night, Rob, or Guy, on their respective shifts, could do the essential tasks, and kick-back while the machines did the work. Star-gazing was a favorite past-time. On a bad shift---well, you never knew what would happen, or how demanding it would needs-be to save their lives.
Rob could recall some of the flights he had made with Guy, and how things had happened. If there was any structural-integrity violation of the ship’s hull, such as they might encounter with a shower of tiny meteor stones the size of marbles, or smaller, it could mean many hours or even days of in-flight repairs or damage-control. Obviously they could lose life-sustain very quickly with an outer-breach. Or, with the data-antenna and communications, and also solar-energy collection panels, and other external apparatus, if there was a problem they recognized, it would call for a space-walk, and all the tools and know-how needed, to get the systems up again.
On one flight, three years past, such a thing happened that Rob would never forget. It was an antenna-array part that had somehow vibrated loose, but it was too important for them to ignore. Communications were compromised with Earth, Molinari and Mars, for a short time, meaning they could easily get in trouble, especially with tracking and Molinari’s up-dates on Earth-Mars corridor conditions, such as solar-flares, meteor-showers, other ships, planetary movements or the unknown and unforeseen. So a space-walk was needed to repair the part.
Given the relative speed of the Penelope, it was just as easy to conduct a space-walk with the ship in motion, as it would ever have been to drop-speed to a dead stop. But it was somewhat un-nerving. The ship was moving faster than a bullet from a gun, perhaps 1000-miles an hour, approximately, for reference.
Rob was the most experienced at that time, as far as space-walks. He and another man, the communications-expert on that flight, named Peter Frigalle, would do the work. After reviewing the procedures, they suited in their outer-void suits, the same type of heavy, cumbersome and uncomfortable life-suits the program had used for generations---‘old reliable’, never-failed, and also improved somewhat over many years.
“A pain in the ass,” Rob commented, working to prepare in the ‘ready-room’ for external pace-walks, and other purposes. They also had to get the tools they needed into the kits, with tether-lines for everything. Peter grinned beneath is mask, a light-reflective orb that hid his features. He was a fine-looking astronaut, now like a faceless droid intending some fantastic effort, that would involve shielding both their faces from the Sun in its raw-glory.
“Mine’s fine,” said Peter, linked by an inner-radio to both men and the helm of the ship, where Guy would monitor the excursion, along with another crew-member. At this point, on that particular journey, which Rob recalled was about 2073, they were between Molinari and the planet Mars, closer to Mars, but still two months out from Mars-orbit. The situation was not life-threatening. But the void is the void. For a space-walker, it was mind-blowing.
Into the air-lock, the door to the inner-ship closes. Hisses and whispers of air-pressure as the atmosphere was equalized, or created to vacuum. Within moments, Peter and Rob were in a totally airless space. Seals and locks were checked, then the outer-door opened.
“Watch your step,” said Peter. “It’s a doozy.”
As Buddhist philosophers have observed concerning the reality of being-ness in the space-time continuum, there is no real sense in looking for ‘up-or-down’ markers, in the depth of the void. Infinity below, infinity above, infinity in every direction, endless, meaningless. Like on the Martian surface, the Sun was now much more distant, at that position, but there is no ultra-ray atmosphere filtering you would have on Earth, or even on Mars, so it was alternately very hot, about 130-degrees, on the sunny side of the street, and rather cold, about 20-degrees below, on the shadow side. Indigo, the Mother Night, held its wonders as well---the stars, and among them the familiar planets, both home, and Mars, distant twinkles, Mars now closer, reddish. But the men could not enjoy the view at all. They had a job to do. Dreaming was their enemy, or the heady rush of emotions.
“You got it, you got it,” said Guy, from the helm. He could follow their actions with a simple external viewer-camera, rigged easily for the situation. “You’re drifting aft, towards the engines. Use the suit-thrusters, and tether to the fourth-tier array binding cells. Each cell has holder-hooks.”
The Penelope’s main-engines were turned off, but it didn’t mean they weren’t in motion. If the engines had been left burning, a fried astronaut or two could certainly happen by some accident.
For just a moment, maybe as in the life of any astronaut, Rob had a giddy sort of self-awareness, wondering, inwardly---what the heck am I doing here? Local boy makes good, he thought, but it’s a long way from Montana.
So, it was this sort of event that made each voyage unique. They repaired the antenna, did the needed work, then found their way back into the ship’s safety, back inside. The systems were checked and re-checked, and the communications link was re-booted. The ship’s engines were successfully re-started, and they reached Mars with no other problems. Their cargo was mostly supplies. But the space-walks, and other sudden terrors, were not for sissies, there in space.
As his shift for that period ended, Rob was feeling good about himself, and the flight, and even the news about the Russians. Whatever happened with that, would happen on its own. Their part was small. It was only by a fluke that the Penelope was now the lead-ship, on approach to Mars, during the apparent Russian-Islamic-Eastern Ukrainian incursion. The meteor was a ‘what-if’ as far as he was concerned. They’d figure it out. They had a lot going on for that sort, in 2077. Big Baby Bertha was being tracked constantly, and was still maybe four years out---he hadn’t reviewed the current day-date-hour-minute of the End of the World. It could be diverted from a collision with Earth, maybe even fairly easily, or maybe it would miss. They had time.
Guy soon appeared to take over, and they exchanged formalities.
“Anything on the bad guys?” Guy inquired.
“The program is keeping track. There was an up-date at 0830-hours. Nothing new. We’re a month ahead of their lead ship. There are five ships. Eight US ships are two months behind them, roughly, maybe more. Winton Berle is commander of the lead US-ship and the US-group. We’re under orders to do nothing. Our mission hasn’t changed. I guess the only new item is that there was a big conference in Europe about the meteor and the space-program in general, three days ago, or about that,” reported Rob.
Guy took over the pilot’s helm, and Rob retired until his next duty.

--Julian Phillips
2,206-words