Six triple-pane flightdeck windows wrapped around the cockpit from the command pilot’s left shoulder to the copilot’s right shoulder. The night sky was the glossy and perfect blackness of space. One hundred thirty nautical miles below, the faint lights of Cape Londonderry on the north coastline of Australia’s King Leopold Mountain Range passed over the western horizon behind the Shuttle Endeavor’s white body. The two fliers rode heads up over the dark South Pacific.
“Thermal conditioning initiated,” the thin pilot in the right seat called out. Working the triple hydraulic systems’ switches two feet from his sweating face, the second in command directed warm hydraulic fluid through the spacecraft’s wings and tail. Without sound or vibration, the four aileron-elevators at the back edge of the wings moved slightly as the warm hydraulic blood pulsed through aluminum veins.
“Okay, Jack. Payload bay vent doors coming closed.”
Behind the roomy cockpit, the ship’s four primary computers sealed eight vent doors in the 60-foot long payload bay of the shuttle.
“Check, Skipper. Confirm forward RCS propellant dump, radar altimeters, and TACAN to standby.”
“Got it, Number One. Confirm TACAN landing beacon Number One mode select to receive and Number Two to mode GPC. And TACAN antenna select auto for One and Two, and upper for Number Three.” The commander studied the green glow of the left television screen at the center of the front instrument panel. His long fingers reached for an array of switches. “Forward RCS purge complete… Helium pressure, Loops A and B, talk-back closed, manifold isolation Loops One through Five, talk-back closed, and items 12 through 19: All forward RCS Reaction Jet Drivers off on panels Overhead Fourteen, Fifteen, and Sixteen. Forward jets configured safe.”
“Endeavor, Endeavor: Configure AOS by Guam. You’re Go at seven minutes to entry. We see you have trajectory plot One up on the CRTs. Your data dump is good. We show you 6,056 miles from landing, and velocity now 24,235 feet per second and rising.”
“Ah, rogo, Flight. All three televisions are Go. We have attitude hold in plus Z, alpha at 40.”
“Copy, Endeavor. Now you’re flying right: Heads up, feet down. Your APU’s are in the green. We’ll be losing you momentarily. Entry interface in 4½ at 400K, 4390 miles range-to-go, at 24,446 feet per second over the water. Confirm CDR’s entry roll mode select, Will.”
“Rogee, Flight,” the Colonel called. “We’re right and tight in the sky. Lookin’ for interface in about four minutes at 400,000 feet. My roll mode is lever-locked auto, Panel Left Four. Do you have a sunrise time for us?”
“Stand by, Endeavor… We show daylight in 15 minutes. We have S-band data dropout. Good…”
“And we’re on our own, Skip… Just you, me and Mother.”
“About that, Jack. Why ‘Mother?’ I’ve been meanin’ to ask you about that for about six months.”
“Easy: Calling it the General Purpose Computer is too damned cold and impersonal. The old GPC watches everything; it watches over us when we sleep, it tucks us in, it wakes us up, it monitors 3,000 parameters, it flushes the biffy; it does everything but wipe our noses… Only a Mother.” The small pilot in the right seat gently patted the glareshield atop the broad instrument panel. “Mother,” he smiled.
“ ‘Mother’ says entry interface in 30 seconds at Mach 24 point 6, Number One. Major Mode 304 is running.”
“I’m hangin’ on, Skip. EI in 5, 4, 3, 2, and we’ve hit the wall!”
The cockpit shuddered as the uppermost wisps of the Earth’s atmosphere 80 statute miles above the dark Pacific nipped at 100 tons of space glider. With all of her forward rocket thrusters shut down for re-entry, the shuttle is designed to come home from space without engines, hot and heavy, gliding in at 25 times the speed of sound.
A pink glow outside the large windows bathed the cockpit in cherry light as air friction seared the black belly of the shuttle. Outside, the re-entry heating is twice as hot as the melting temperature of the shuttle’s aluminum skin. Only the ship’s 35,000 heat-absorbing tiles of 99 percent pure glass fibers insulate it from incineration at Mach 25.
Mounting deceleration forces pushed the crew forward and their chest straps tightened as the Earth sucked fiercely at the glass-covered starship riding 40 degrees nose high across the nighttime Pacific Ocean.
Outside, air friction generated its glowing heat at the temperature where steel burns white. The cocoon of roaring fire in the sky enveloped the heavy vessel in a molten plasma sheath through which radio beams will not penetrate. The digital autopilot, DAP, flew the ship steadily eastward to her landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
“EI plus three. Elevons enable.” The airplane control surfaces on the broad wings were alive and flying along with shuttle’s small jet thrusters in her tail section.
“I see it, Skip. We have aerosurface amplifiers on line. ASA is Go, Channel One.”
Far behind the flightdeck, the great aileron-elevator surfaces at the rearmost edges of the wings were guiding the plummeting starship in concert with the Reaction Control System jets in the tail.
“EI plus 4 and 40. At Mach 24, out of 280,000 feet.”
“Roger, Number One. Out of 280K. Roll jets inhibited aft. Dynamic pressure at ten.”
“I see it. Lift over drag is a tad high, Skip. Traj One is right down the slot.”
“Roger, Jack.”
The blazing daylight outside turned from pink to apple red as the autopilot steered through the fiery shock waves.
A siren wailed mournfully through each pilot’s headphones.
“Master Alarm! Flight Control System! I got it, Jack.”
The commander pushed in the blinking Master Alarm light in front of his face to extinguish the alarm claxon.
“FCS Channel One to override… That’s got her,” the long pilot sighed deeply.
“Five minutes into the blackout, Skip. FCS has the con at Mach 24. Stand by for roll reversal.”
The cockpit rolled slowly into a steep right turn laying the pilots on their sides.
“Out of 263K, Mach 22 point 3, 80 degrees of bank, Number One. Hang with it,” drawled the tall commander lazily.
“Auto looks good in roll rate at five degrees per second, Skipper.” The copilot scanned his winking green television screen as a tiny, bug-shaped shuttle chased a small, square box down the television screen’s seven-inch-wide face. “Point 176 on G loading; drag at four; guidance internal. Range-to-go is 3,170 miles.”
“Mother is really flying hands-on today, Number One. Traj One looks super. Confirming aft pitch jets inhibited at 6½. How do the APU’s look?”
“All three purrin’ along. We’re running main pump pressure low on Number Two. They’re burning 1 percent propellant per minute. Temps and speeds all green.”
Outside, the brick-red glow ebbed to pink.
“Rog. At 12 minutes: Mach 21 out of 232,000. Standing by for equilibrium glide. Steady as she goes! Major Mode 305 is running.”
The Mission Commander counted off the minutes since entry interface when Shuttle began her plunge into the inferno over the Pacific at daybreak far below.
“Go at 15 since interface, Skipper. Mach 18 out of 220K. Range-to-go: 1,000 even.”
“Goin’ to Trajectory Two on the left CRT. Auto roll reversal left. Velocity 18,450 feet per second… We’re really hauling the mail, Number One.”
“SM alert, Skipper!”
“Systems management. You got it, Jack. Find the stinker.”
“Looks like the microwave landing system. Yeh, MLS. We popped breaker Main dc, Bus A on Number One receiver. I’m taggin’ the breaker, Row E, panel Overhead Fourteen. Bringing MLS Number Two up on the line… That’s got it. Lights out, Skip.”