Len Cullins and the other three men were still running on the adrenaline from the launch, yet nausea was becoming more than a nuisance and would soon impair them all. Videos and practice aboard NASA’s converted Boeing 707 Vomit Comet could not prepare them for what it truly felt like to be in perpetual free fall. Sitting grim-faced in the pilot’s chair, Cullins promised himself that he would not be the first to throw up the steak and egg breakfast prepared for them in Florida.
“Atlantis, Ground, prepare for transfer to Vandenberg for payload deployment.” Vandenberg Airforce Base in California was in charge of the satellite in the shuttle’s cargo bay, and its safe deployment was the principal mission for the shuttle’s launch despite NASA’s official press release about a communications satellite.
“Roger,” Cullins said, and swallowed quickly, his stomach roiling just a few inches below his throat, his salivary glands on overdrive. “Vandenberg, go ahead, this is Atlantis.”
“Atlantis, this is Vandenberg. We show green across the board for payload deployment.”
“Roger, Vandenberg, we are go for payload deployment. Deployment is eighteen minutes.” Cullins knew the window for launching the satellite from the cargo bay was very narrow due to the bird’s particular mission. He switched to the internal radio net. “Dale, you’ve got eighteen minutes. How you doing back there?”
“Breakfast wasn’t nearly as good coming up as it was going down, but I’m about ready,” Markham replied.
Markham and the other payload specialist, Nick Fielding, were standing at the aft crew station, and until the satellite was safely away from the orbiter, total control of the shuttle had been turned over to them. Fielding would work the orbiter rotational controller that affected Atlantis’ pitch, yaw, and roll, while Markham’s specialty was the Canadian-built manipulator arm. Theirs was an exacting task due to the delicacy of the orbiter and payload and the effects of microgravity. Both men had heard the rumor that the Defense Department satellite, code-named Medusa, had cost two and a quarter billion dollars, and now its safety was their responsibility.
“Screw up this one, Dale, and we’ll never see a tax refund check again,” Fielding quipped as he used the joystick controller to lift the manipulator arm out of its storage rack.
“Atlantis, this is Vandenberg. Ground track has you nearing position, payload release in eleven minutes.”
“Roger that ground, eleven minutes,” Markham replied. He felt as though he was about to be sick again.
“You okay, Dale?”
“Never better.” Markham belched wetly. “What’s our attitude?”
“We’re on the marks, nose down at 90 degrees,” Fielding said.
“I still don’t like this. The original mission planned for a full day of systems checks and practice with the manipulator arm before deploying the payload.”
“We would have had it if the launch had gone off as planned yesterday. Blame Mother Nature for a windstorm, not the Air Force for bending their rules,” Markham replied. “Besides, I don’t mind saying I’ll be relieved when this thing is out of the cargo bay. Have you heard what it can do?”
“Stow it, gentlemen, and get on with the task at hand.” A gruff voice came from behind them. Colonel Mike “Duke” Wayne was the shuttle commander and had the ultimate responsibility for this flight. Unlike the rest of the crew, the bristle-haired colonel had been in space before, on an early mission aboard Challenger also run by the Air Force in coordination with the National Security Agency.
Watching a video monitor and occasionally peering through the window, Markham twisted the manipulator arm until it had grasped the Medusa satellite’s grapple, all the while aware of Wayne’s steady gaze. Looking out over the cargo bay, the shuttle’s vertical stabilizer was just a thin white line against the blackness of deep space.
“Four minutes, Lieutenant Markham,” Wayne said.
“Roger,” Markham replied without taking his eyes off the video feed from the manipulator’s elbow camera, showing the satellite’s orientation within the sixty-foot cargo bay. Until the Medusa was deployed and its solar panels and transceiver dish extended, it resembled a large, dark ice cream cone. Even with the cargo bay floodlights at full power, the satellite’s skin appeared to be a darker shade of black than the space beyond, its radar-absorbing material seeming to consume light like a man-made black hole. The tip of the one visible sensor looked like the barrel of a large-caliber cannon, but was composed of intricately woven wires of what appeared to be gold.
Working the joystick like a surgeon, Markham lifted the Medusa out of its cradle. On land, the manipulator arm had less strength than an average man, but in the void, it could easily handle the eleven-ton satellite. Like the appendage of some monstrous insect, the fifty-foot arm eased the satellite upward so it hung suspended over the floor of the cargo bay.
Markham sucked in a breath in an effort to calm his churning stomach. A slight twitch on the controller could slam the Medusa against the side of the shuttle or launch it on an unstable orbit, and he was about to be sick. He safed the arm by locking it into position, reached for a motion sickness bag, and vomited.
“I’ve got the Medusa launch,” Nick Fielding said, quickly taking over.
Markham smiled a weak thanks, his deep Florida tan faded to a sickly shade of green. As soon as he floated away from the aft crew station, Colonel Wayne stepped onto the variable-height work platform situated before the manipulator arm controls. “Vandenberg Control, this is Atlantis. We are prepared for payload separation on your mark. Attitude match confirmed.” Wayne’s brusque competence was like a steadying hand to Fielding, who didn’t particularly want the responsibility of the launch.
“Atlantis, this is General Kolwicki. “Is that you, Duke?”
“Affirmative, sir. Atlantis standing by for countdown. We’re all ready for our vacation.”
Normally, NASA’s tight budget called for orbiter crews to carry out scientific experiments after completing their primary mission objectives in order to maximize time in space and justify the staggering cost of launching a shuttle into orbit. However, the launching of the Medusa was deemed so critical that for the four days the shuttle was to remain in orbit, the crewmen were nothing more than sightseers, free to use their time as they saw fit. NASA had insisted that the crew remain in orbit for the extra days in order to perpetuate the deception about this military flight.
“Atlantis, this is Vandenberg Control. One minute from my mark for payload release… Mark.”
Markham, Fielding, and Cullins might have heard rumors about the Medusa but only Wayne knew its true capabilities. Medusa wasn’t just the single satellite in the cargo bay; it was an entire system, five platforms in total, four of them already in orbit and bearing down on the Atlantis. The final component, the satellite they were about to launch, was the crux of the system and had cost almost half of the $2.25 billion budget.
Designed to be the eyes of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the Medusa was unlike any spy satellite ever built. Military planners knew that Soviet doctrine called for several silos and hardened bunkers for each of their nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. They could use these sites at random, secretly moving the missiles on trucks in an attempt to foil American targeting. Thus, a Russian launch could come from any number of places, many of them unknown or untargeted. It was a horrifying version of a card shuffle. Even with an unlimited budget, the Pentagon could not build enough laser defenses to cover all possible Soviet and Eastern European targets. In order for Star Wars to be successful, the U.S. needed to pinpoint the actual silos and bunkers where the rockets were housed at the time of launch. This way, if a launch ever occurred, the space-based lasers would already be locked on at the moment of liftoff and not waste precious seconds trying to acquire their target. To accomplish this, the Pentagon needed a new type of spy satellite that could look down from space and see through the rock and concrete and steel shelters and reveal Russia’s most closely guarded secrets.