“Ready, Jack.”
Enright looked over his right shoulder as he aimed the sealed fruit tin at his captain. The AC caught the sailing tin with a hand between his knees.
“Low and inside, Number One.”
Parker caught the tea container with his outstretched left hand.
“Outside. I’ll take my base.”
As Endeavor flew at five miles per second into the forty-first minute of her eighth hour aloft, the white sun exploded into Enright’s portside window which faced east as Shuttle cruised upside down over the ocean 1,600 miles south of the southern tip of India.
Enright stopped sucking the plastic tube in the tea. He inserted the tinted, transparent sunshades on the frames of his forward window and two side windows. His fruit and tea floated motionlessly over the center console while he worked. Karpov pulled three sunshades from beneath his right seat and snapped them on his center and two starboard window frames.
“We have — had — these in Soyuz, too.”
The two Americans said nothing.
Below, overhead as seen from the headsdown ship, the sea remained night as the white sun rose swiftly taking the stars with it.
Parker floated out of his rear seat toward the forward cockpit four feet away. The seated pilots handed him their empty containers. Stuffing the trash into a small bag, the AC went down the floor hatch to the mid-deck.
Below decks, the AC floated to the forward lockers where he put the garbage and then to the sleep berths along the starboard wall. His bunk looked inviting to his weary boJy and to his brain fogged by horse medication which no longer worked.
Parker leaned into the top bunk and his mesh-covered legs floated well off the floor behind him. He tightened the bunk straps around his reposing orange ascent suit. He did likewise to Enright’s pressure suit worn during launch. From there, he floated to the nearby airlock against the mid-deck’s aft Bulkhead No. 576. With a slow flip, Parker turned upside down such that his stocking feet were close to the ceiling, 6 feet 8 inches high. With his face near the floor, he pushed the inside hatch of the airlock closed. With one hand on a hand rail, his other hand cranked the hatch seal tightly closed. The hatch inside the airlock leading into the payload bay was already locked.
Still upside down, the command pilot surveyed each corner of the mid-deck: Storage lockers closed, galley switches off, ascent suits and helmets secured, biffy door and privacy curtains closed.
As the AC popped through the access hole, he flipped off the mid-deck lights on a ceiling panel. His mother raised him right.
Topside, flying headsdown at 08 hours 47 minutes 39 seconds, Endeavor approached her first landfall in 11,000 miles over Sumatra, the 150-mile wide principal island of Indonesia. Early-morning daylight warmed the island which Shuttle crossed in half a minute.
“Ascending node, Rev Seven, Skipper. Home stretch. Secure below?”
“All set, Jack.”
Endeavor in burning daylight sped over the South China Sea with Malasia out the inverted right window to the north and Borneo to the south.
“Let’s get the doors, Number One.”
“ ’Kay.”
Parker floated to the aft station. Up front, Enright powered up the crackling UHF radios for a call to the network on Okinawa in five minutes. The island itself would not come under Shuttle for another eight minutes. After this pass, the next time they would see the island they would be parked there at the end of Runway 23, and its 12,000 feet of concrete.
Parker floated to the aft Mission Specialist consoles on the starboard side wall behind Karpov. He plugged his headset into the wall jack.
“Comm check.”
“Gotcha, Will. Flash evaporators on-line.”
Enright in the forward left seat worked the controls on Panel Left-1 near his left elbow. He powered up the evaporators to cool the ship’s two freon loops during the descent down to 140,000 feet on the re-entry. He also activated the warm-up plumbing and electronics for the two ammonia boilers which would cool the ship below 120,000 feet. The water spray boilers for cooling the two surviving Auxiliary Power Units in the damaged tail would be activated for re-entry shortly before the de-orbit OMS firing an hour away.
Parker floated upright behind Karpov at aft panel Right-13.
“Radiator latch control, System A to release. Radiator control to stow.” The AC scanned television screen Number Four at chest level. “Six radiator panels in motion, Jack.”
“I can see it.” Enright watched his center television as green video graphics depicted the radiators on each bay side rising from the open doors.
“Got ’em by eyeball.” The AC looked over his right shoulder to the aft wall windows. In the sunlit bay, he could see the radiators climbing over the bay walls. The units slowly rotated upward over the rim and then downward toward the inside walls of the payload bay. He could not see the bay doors below the sides of the bay.
“Colorado, Endeavor by Kadena.” Enright called the ground as Endeavor crossed Manila. Her next landfall was 13,000 miles away over South America.
Flying nose forward pointing northeast, Enright and Karpov had an upside-down Philippine Sea out the front windows. Beneath the inverted open bay, Parker could see a dazzling South China Sea through the overhead window above his face.
“Endeavor: Colorado with you by Kadena at 08 plus 54… What the hell is your situation up there? We’ve been holding our breath worldwide for 25 minutes down here!”
“Enright here… We’re bent, but right and tight. AC been packin’ it up in the bay. We’re burning-in this rev. Alert Okinawa for company. We aligned the IMU’s 20 minutes ago. We’ll do a single engine de-orbit burn this rev. Port OMS and RCS stack are dead. TIG at 09 hours 55 minutes 12 seconds at about 38 degrees south by 007 degrees west. Wheels on the numbers at 10 plus 47… Radiators now stowed. Evaps on-line and in the green. We don’t foresee much problem running the re-entry on the forward RCS and right-only RCS aft. Have the backroom run a sim on partial, aft-RCS stabilization. Figure we can go to control surface, aerodynamic steering a bit early on the descent.” The thin airman paused and he sighed so deeply that his breath activated the ship’s intercom. “And, Flight, Soyuz has been destroyed by the same laser burst which crippled us up here… Negative survivors. Please advise Kalinin Control Center. It has been such a very long day, Colorado.”
“Understand, Jack. Get back to you on elevon evaluation. Try to do a complete data dump by California in 26. We’ll only have 3 minutes with you after California via Botswana at 10 plus 01. That means your brief California pass will be it for a pre-burn status call. At least Botswana and Indian Ocean Ship at 10 plus 13 will both be solid acquisitions before the comm blackout inbound. We would predict entry interface at 10 plus 17. Should be able to pass along reliable state vectors and approach trajectory data.”
“Countin’ on it, Flight.”
“Roger that, Will. One more minute here… We copy the loss of Soyuz… And our deepest condolences to Major Karpov. Uri was one good man, a credit to we who fly… That comes from all America, Major.”
Shuttle flew with Okinawa 300 nautical miles to the northwest. Although the island was only one-third of the distance to the horizon, Enright and Karpov could not find it in morning fog.
“Endeavor: Kadena WX will be scattered clouds at 30,000 with wind out of 220 at 08 knots. Visibility 12 for the approach. Runway 23 is the active—12,000 feet with displaced threshold. At final approach, sun will be about 36 degrees high at bearing 153 degrees True.”