“Hold on, Paul, we’re looking into it,” was the reply from the engineer in the Space Excursions control room.
“Warning, ACS system failure imminent.”
“Well, check it faster!” Paul replied.
Unlike their NASA counterparts, Space Excursions had no big control room full of specialized engineers. Instead, their mission control consisted of five people, each cross-trained in multiple engineering disciplines. At this time, all five were working frantically at their computer stations, looking at their status screens and a large replica of Paul Gesling’s screen prominently displayed on the wall at the front of the room. They saw what Gesling saw in addition to the next level of detail, available at the touch of a button. Having only five people running the mission saved the company a lot of money. And the automated systems now monitoring the health of the vehicle, though costing the company a load of cash to develop, were working flawlessly, reporting the status of every major and minor system to mission control. Any significant issues that could affect the flight were flagged and brought to the attention of the people who controlled it.
“I’m still waiting.” Gesling tapped the red icon on his screen again.
“Warning, ACS system is offline.”
“Oh, shut the hell up,” he shouted to Bitchin’ Betty.
It seemed to him that an intolerable length of time had passed, but to the flight controller, and to any external observers not impatient for a launch, barely three minutes had gone by. Paul chewed at the inside of his mouth, certain that he would have to wait a bit longer, quite a bit longer, before Dreamscape would make its full-scale test flight to space and back.
“Damn.”
“We have a technical problem with one of Dreamscape’s systems that I am sure will be resolved momentarily,” Gary Childers said to the VIP guests in the room with him. He scanned the readouts of the test from an observation room just outside his personally funded, high-tech, and oh-so-expensive mission-control room. Not that he understood all the data—Childers was a businessman. What he understood was that delays cost him money.
Childers was clearly impatient, yet at the same time he remained firmly in charge. In his mind, VIP stood for “valuable investment people.” Childers had invited several potential investors to attend the test flight, with full expectation they would be so impressed with his operation that they would commit to helping him fund his next entrepreneurial space endeavor—a charter cruise to the surface of the Moon. Once Dreamscape was making routine flights around the Moon, Childers’s marketing surveys indicated that many of the world’s ultrarich would be willing to put up at least one hundred million dollars each to actually walk on the Moon. And he was ready to offer the service.
Despite his sizable wealth, even Gary Childers didn’t have the money required to finance the construction of a spacecraft that could take people to the Moon and back. After all, the same mission was costing NASA billions of dollars. He had invited ten of his most promising investors to the test launch; seven accepted. And now he was in the position of having to explain to them what was going on and why the launch had already been delayed two hours.
“Folks,” he began, nodding and smiling, “we’re experiencing some problems with one of the Dreamscape’s many systems, and my team is telling me that the launch will at best be delayed another hour or so.
“I’m needed in the control room for a few minutes. Ms. O’Conner will take care of you until my return,” he said as he motioned for Caroline O’Conner to join him. As he moved toward the door, he lowered his head and softly said to O’Conner in passing, “I just hope it isn’t longer than that.”
“The wolves look hungry,” she whispered back to him. Gary only raised an eyebrow at the comment and hurried to the main control room. The real control room.
Childers entered the room just as Gesling’s voice once again came over the loudspeaker. “Control, the pressure is starting to drop again. We need to scrub. This whole thing is going the wrong way.”
Not uttering a word, uncharacteristic of Childers in a business meeting, seemed entirely appropriate as he waited to hear the response from the experts, his experts, hired at considerable expense to make this whole venture happen.
“Paul, we concur. Prepare to save onboard systems and stand down” was the only reply from the engineer responsible for the test flight.
“Damn!” This time it was Gary doing the cursing. “Shit!” He promptly turned on his heels and began walking back to the VIP room. Now he had to explain this mess to his potential investors and hope that they would be willing and able to hang around until the problem was resolved and the Dreamscape could take flight. Childers was too smart to ever try to overturn a technical decision from his team. They were the experts; he paid them to make technical decisions, and he trusted them completely. That didn’t mean, however, that he was happy with them or the situation.
But when he had started out on this venture, he had hired a company to complete an extremely detailed analysis of the space industry and why NASA was not economically viable. The space shuttle program had been designed to offer cheap access to space but turned out to be a money pit. The analysis showed that when NASA managers started putting pressure on the program to fly more missions to improve the cost efficiency of the shuttles, that was when the major accidents had occurred. Gary hadn’t paid heavy for the analysis just to ignore it. That was their job. He’d just have to find a way to make the day’s lemons into lemonade. That was his job.
Aboard Dreamscape, Paul Gesling began the ground abort procedures with the skill of a trained pilot, always glancing at the checklist of required tasks and procedures as it scrolled across the LCD screen, checking each item off as required. In the back of his mind, he was frustrated. But he was a professional, and professional pilots knew that procedures saved their lives—taking out his frustration would have to come later. He was thinking about a bottle of scotch and a punching bag.
The press was having a field day. Soon after Childers returned to take charge of his guests, Caroline O’Conner had the unpleasant task of going to the press observation room and telling the assembled reporters that today’s flight would not happen. She didn’t yet know when it would happen, and she didn’t exactly understand the reason for the delay, but she knew enough to provide the media with the immediate facts.
O’Conner took up her position behind the podium and microphone at the front of the room and said, “May I have your attention, please?
“Today’s maiden orbital flight of the Dreamscape has been scrubbed due to a pressure leak in one of the ship’s propulsion systems. Our experts are looking into the problem, and we will let you know soon when the next attempt will take place.” O’Conner, as usual, sounded knowledgeable and self-confident as she made the announcement.
“Ms. O’Conner, Ms. O’Conner!” shouted the reporter from Space News, the major online news outlet covering all things space. “How will this affect your schedule? Your schedule shows that you’ll be taking paying customers around the Moon in just a couple of months. Do you expect to keep the schedule?”