He stares at the joystick, a tortuous, diabolical little tool that in the hands of a qualified astronaut is a singular thing of interfaced beauty, giving the ability to move in all three axes by just turning the wrist and hand.
But to an amateur, an invitation to spinning disaster.
I’m not touching that thing! he thinks, testing the words.
The spacecraft is still not turning. He thinks about entering the numbers a third time, but he’s already done it correctly twice. It’s already acknowledged his entries twice. And yet nothing automatic is happening.
I’m only on Orbit Two. I’ve got time to figure this out. I don’t have to force it right now.
The logic of waiting is impeccable, but it’s no match for his massive urge to get home now!
And without thinking he succumbs, adjusting his hand over the joystick and consciously punching the red button on top that reverts the spacecraft to manual attitude control.
He can hear his breathing rate increase, but nothing much is happening. There is a little drift now to the left, just a few degrees, and maybe a bit of roll, but he’s not sure.
Okay, time to try it.
He knows the controls are sensitive. The watchword will be moving in only one axis at a time, and he reviews the basics without moving his hand.
Push forward to pitch forward, pull to pitch up. Twist left to yaw left, right to yaw right. Nudge the entire stick left to roll left, nudge it right to roll right. Okay, which way first?
The Earth is still passing along above him, and it’s easy to see the horizon, the Earth’s curvature. So maybe he should take care of the main event first and just turn around backward before turning planet-side down.
Yaw right a full one hundred eighty degrees, putting the tail into the line of flight. Then I can fine-tune it to exactly the right numbers.
Slowly, carefully, he begins rotating the stick to the right, a millimeter at a time it seems, his muscles protesting until he suddenly feels and hears the hiss of the reaction jets yawing him in the right direction.
He releases the rotational pressure on the control stick, impressed at how smoothly Intrepid has begun to rotate to the right around its center of gravity. The rate is steady, and he doesn’t seem to need any of the other two axis controls, at least not yet. He’s turning, through ninety degrees at last, finally completing a full reversal, and he leads his arrival at the right coordinates by twisting the control back to the left until he fires another small burst to stop the turn.
But it’s a bit too much, and the turn now reverses, very slowly at first.
He tries a tiny burst back to the right, but it, too, is overdone. Once more he’s turning right, passing through the one-hundred-eighty-degree point and continuing on around, this time beginning to pitch up, the nose heading toward Earth.
He pushes the stick forward for a small corrective burst and tries to arrest the yaw at the same time, and suddenly he’s turning back left slightly, pitching down away from Earth’s surface, and beginning a left roll, all at the same time. He can feel the sweat beading on his forehead as he tries to steady his hand and oppose the motions one axis at a time, but each burst is too much, and the memory of what happened in the simulator returns like a nightmare, as Intrepid begins to tumble, slowly at first, then faster, the Earth beginning to gyrate and roll in front of his eyes.
Somehow he manages a glance at his watch. Four minutes left before he has to be rock-steady for retrofire.
The chirp of her car alarm system arming behind her is all but unheard as Diana races through the front door of ASA’s building and accelerates toward Mission Control in search of Richard.
Sleep had been difficult after returning home from her trip to see Kip. Nevertheless she’d had every intention of being on the tarmac as they taxied out and grossly overslept instead.
Her cell phone is ringing and she curses quietly as she yanks it to her face, hearing a familiar name from the small list of aerospace reporters. She comes to a halt in the corridor and pulls the cell phone back for a moment, staring at it as if she’s discovered a pipe bomb in her hand.
So now it begins, she thinks. She had dreamed of being an astronaut and always thought she had ice water in her veins. Now she’s going to be tested.
“This is Diana Ross, ASA’s PR director,” she announces sweetly, as if it was a routine day in the office. Suddenly she’s working hard to dredge up any information from her memory on this particular reporter.
DiFazio has emerged from Mission Control down the corridor and is walking toward her with a grave expression, and she waves him to be quiet. He joins her silently, listening to her end of the conversation as she tries to convince the reporter in the calmest of tones that nothing in ASA’s world is amiss other than a nasty communications glitch.
“Really?” is the skeptical reply from the Beltway. “Then why am I looking at a live picture of your Mission Control and seeing absolutely no data streaming down from the spacecraft on any screen?”
“That’s what a communications glitch sometimes entails. We’re working on it.”
“I have a source who tells me it’s far more serious than that.”
“Really? Could your source call us? We’d sure like to know what he knows, because we’re not aware that the problem is any more serious than any other problem in spaceflight.”
The reporter is sighing, well aware she’s sparring with a pro. “Okay, look. I understand you’re in damage control mode and probably you don’t know yourselves what’s happening, but let me at least get some vitals on who’s up there.”
“I’m just getting to work and I need some coffee,” Diana says. “Give me your number and twenty minutes and I’ll get back to you.” The agreement is reluctant, but she ends the call and looks at Richard, taking in for the first time the depth of worry on his face, the hopelessness in his eyes.
“Richard?”
“Yeah,” he sighs, nodding slowly, his eyes on the floor as he chews his lip.
“Lord, how bad is it?”
“We don’t know anything new yet, but we’re praying that Bill is okay and getting ready to retrofire in a few minutes. We’re coming up on the end of the second orbit.”
“But we can’t talk to him?”
Richard launches into a quick and tense briefing that ends as they reach the entrance to Mission Control. He moves back inside with her in trail and Diana can feel the tension thick as summer humidity in Houston. The risks of making a business out of spaceflight she’s long understood. At least intellectually. She can talk about it for hours, marshaling details and numbers and even orbital mechanics. She knows Intrepid and its grounded sister ship are tiny bubbles barely sustaining human life after being shot to impossible speeds and altitudes and brought back against incredible forces. But they’ve been doing it almost a year now, week after week, without fail. The thought may be silly, but it’s echoing through her head: Since we know how to do this perfectly, it simply can’t end badly.
A sudden burst of activity flutters into view at the flight director’s console and she sees a receiver pulled to Arleigh Kerr’s ear. He speaks quickly and turns toward the rear, spotting Richard and Diana and motioning to the boss with a staccato movement. There is no smile on Kerr’s face, no deliverance in his expression, and Diana follows, feeling ill.