His image vanished and was replaced by an animated drawing of Prometheus and the attached core body orbiting the Earth.
“Our hearts go out to these six brave astronauts who are, literally, trapped in orbit. Until means are found to fire the booster, Prometheus cannot rise up to its proper place in the sky, to the fixed position in space above the Earth where it is to begin this mighty project of supplying solar energy to a power-hungry world below. Not only can they not go higher, but they cannot return to the safety of the Earth in Prometheus, which was designed to remain forever in orbit. It does not have either the correct engines, the power or the fuel for this task. It is a prisoner in space, in orbit, and the six men and women aboard are prisoners as well. What their fate will be we cannot determine at this moment.”
Cortwright reappeared on the screen, and sitting next to him now was a small man in an ill-fitting suit, his long hair carefully combed into place by the make-up girl. This was obviously not its normal condition because, as he moved his head nervously, a long hank detached itself and hung in front of his eye. Cortwright nodded to him.
“With me in the studio now is Dr. Cooper, the Science Editor of the Gazette-Times. I have a copy of the morning edition of your paper here, Dr. Cooper, and the lead story is a very startling one, I might even say a very frightening one. If I might just read the headline. It is in very large type and says BOMB IN THE SKY.”
He held up the newspaper so the screaming red words, covering half the page, could be seen.
“That is strong language, Dr. Cooper, as is the story that follows. Do you think it is true?”
“Of course, it must be, facts…”
“Could you please tell us just what are the facts behind this extra edition of your newspaper?”
“It's obvious, there in the sky above us!” He waved his hand over his head, then dropped it, started to worry his finger, then dropped his hand guiltily back to his lap. “Prometheus is up there, passing over our heads about once every hour and a half. Not just the satellite itself, but the attached booster that won't fire. Prometheus at this moment weighs slightly in excess of four million pounds. We must guess at the weight of the booster, but since it must contain a great deal of fuel, in addition to its own mass, I would say that its weight must also be in the region of a million pounds. There are five million pounds up there, three thousand tons of metal and explosive fuel. If that should fall…”
“Hold on, please.” Cortwright raised his hand and Cooper stammered to a stop and instantly had a quick nibble on one nail. “If I remember correctly the space scientists have been telling us for years that it takes energy to change anything in space. It took a lot of energy to get Prometheus up there into orbit, and it will take a lot of energy to get it down as well. It will stay in orbit until it is pushed out.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Cooper vibrated in his chair with the intensity of his feelings. “That is for an orbit well outside of the Earth's atmosphere. But Prometheus has not reached that altitude yet, there are still traces of air at that height. Air that will slow her down, more and more. It is what is called a decaying orbit.”
“I would like to kill that hairy little son-of-a-bitch,” Bandin muttered.
“As you know, altitude is speed in a satellite. The faster it goes the higher it rises, like a stone on the end of a piece of string, swung in circles. The string is the bond of gravity, the speed is what maintains the orbit. As Prometheus slows it will drop lower, as it drops lower it will hit denser and denser air and will be slowed. Its speed will drop so much that it will lose its orbit and will fall back to Earth.”
“Where it will burn up by friction in the atmosphere, as have all the other satellites and boosters that have fallen back to Earth,” Cortwright said calmly.
“Why should it?” Cooper jumped to his feet so abruptly that his head vanished for an instant and the image jerked as the cameraman hurried to follow him. “Smaller boosters, yes, burn like meteorites. But meteorites have hit this Earth before, we can see them in museums. Meteor Crater in Arizona is where one enormous object penetrated our atmosphere and dug that immense pit in the landscape. In 1908 the Tanguska meteor in Russia wiped out an entire forest, killed…”
“But, Dr. Cooper, Prometheus is not as big as these.”
“Big enough! Big as a destroyer. Big enough to stay in one piece when falling back through the atmosphere. Do you realize what would happen if a steel destroyer, a battleship, with this mass came hurtling out of the sky and struck this city…”
“That seems far fetched.”
“Is it?” The camera moved again as Cooper rushed to a large globe of the Earth that stood behind him. “Look here, at the track of that bomb in the sky. It's over our heads right now, cutting across the United States, over New York, over the ocean, hurling along, getting lower and lower over London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow. Cutting a path through the sky like this. “ With a red marking pen he slashed a line that connected these cities. “A bomb with all the kinetic and explosive energy of the atomic bomb that blew up Hiroshima. If it should fall and strike one of these cities — what do you think would happen?”
There was silence in the Presidential office at these words, silence broken by the softly spoken words of General Banner-man.
“It's in the fan now, it really is.”
16
GET 02:37
They were all in the crew compartment, sharing the rations, eating for the first time since takeoff. Nadya had opened the lockers and unstowed the meals, because the others had gone to the flight cabin as soon as they unstrapped. There were no ports in the inner compartment and it had been claustrophobic for them strapped in place and helpless. They returned to the compartment one by one, silently, the undescribable sensation of looking at their home planet from space so overwhelming that they forgot their predicament for the moment.
“The photographs, they don't do it justice,” Coretta said. “It's unbelievable.”
Gregor was babbling enthusiastically at the Colonel who nodded his head in agreement. The sight of the Earth from space was no novelty for Colonel Kuznekov, he had logged countless hours in space, but it was a view he had always enjoyed. He had also gone along to aid the others who were inexperienced with the weightless conditions of free fall. They were all still gravity-oriented despite the conditions around them and had returned to sit on their bunks, clipping themselves into place. They found it disconcerting the way the Colonel floated with his head next to theirs, but with his feet in the air above, calmly kneading a plastic tube of creamed chicken dinner.
“I enjoy your American space rations, such variety.”
“A real boondoggle,” Ely said, removing the lid from a can of Russian salmon. “While we spent a fortune developing space foods and special containers and all that rigmarole — you people just stuffed a lot of commercially packaged and canned food in your ships. This salmon is better than that muck.”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” the Colonel said, sucking happily on the tube.
Patrick finished his meal in the flight cabin, then drifted back in as they were cleaning away the remains. Ely watched him intently as he floated to a bunk and secured himself.
“Any news?” Ely asked, and they all fell silent on the moment for there was really only one thought at the back of all their minds.
“Nothing they can do to change the situation. They've pinpointed the problem but can't do a thing from Earth. Here, look at this diagram.” He unrolled a large print and held it before them. “Here, here, and these over here. The exploding bolts that secure us to the core body. That name is not quite true. They don't really blow up since gas and particular matter released during separation might damage the nuclear engine. The explosion is confined within the hollow steel of the bolt so they deform, sort of blow up like a balloon. This shortens the length of the bolt which moves the release mechanism at the end. Then these pistons, here, are actuated which push the two structures apart. Simple and theoretically foolproof.”