Delta-v, page 29
Removing the power and data links took more than an hour. Once he got the power lines removed, he started loosening the superstructure bolts with a meter-long socket wrench, which was exhausting and took another half hour.
Clarke’s voice came in over the comm link. “We chased down those airlock alarms. Ghost alerts. I reset the panel, and they went away.”
Tighe struggled with a bolt. “So the upper airlock’s operational?”
“Affirmative.”
Chindarkar’s voice came in over the comm link. “One hour until the terminator comes around again.”
“That sounds ominous.” He looked up at Morra. “You ever see those movies?”
“What, The Terminator?”
“Yeah.” Tighe reached down to turn a loosened bolt.
“I’m not really into sci-fi.”
Tighe laughed. “You hear that, Priya? He’s not into sci-fi.”
Tighe placed the last bolt in a cinch bag on his belt. He then turned around and held on to one of the ARS’s maintenance handles as he began to kick the frame at the base of the huge robot’s trapped leg.
Morra came over and joined him, and they both started stomping on it while holding tight to the ARS’s body.
Chindarkar’s laughter came in over the comm link. “You look like a couple of astronauts beating the shit out of a robot.”
Tighe went with it. “You pay . . . on the first of the month . . . like everybody else!” He kept kicking.
The leg finally slipped loose from its mounts.
“There we go.”
After they’d climbed back aboard the mule, Chindarkar popped thrusters to pull the now two-legged ARS robot away from the surface, scattering a modest amount of regolith behind it.
Tighe and Morra turned to see the second ARS unit coming in.
Clarke’s voice came over the comm link. “Dave, J.T., good job. Return to the ship.”
“Copy that.”
As Chindarkar piloted the mule back to the Konstantin, Tighe and Morra took in the impressive view of their ship, silhouetted against the question-mark-shaped red nebula of Barnard’s Loop and the diagonal sprawl of stars that was the Milky Way.
Tighe couldn’t help but laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“When Nathan pitched this job to me, he said it came with one hell of a view.” Tighe stared forward. “He undersold it.”
* * *
—
After catching some shut-eye, Tighe and Morra were back at their cubicle workstations at four a.m. Earth UTC to join the others watching the second ARS attempt to pull Boulder 4 from Ryugu’s surface. Mission control managers stood by on transmission delay.
As the first rays of sunlight touched the ARS’s mouse-ear solar panels, the robotic legs tensioned—and then the huge machine sprang away from the surface.
The crew broke out in applause as the ARS, clutching Boulder 4, rose into the sunlight, 100, then 200 meters above Ryugu’s surface.
“I’ll be damned, that Rube Goldberg contraption actually worked.”
The ARS still rose, its main legs slowly curling around the boulder. At 400 meters’ altitude the ARS began slowly tumbling. The sheer mass of its cargo overpowered the intermittent puffs from attitude control thrusters.
“Aww, fuck’s sake . . .” Morra lowered his head onto his desk.
Adisa’s tense voice came in over comms. “We’ve got a 200-ton boulder tumbling out of control. It could collide with us.”
Clarke spoke over the comm line. “Ade, we need to arrest Boulder 4’s tumble immediately.”
“The software seems to be miscalculating.”
On-screen the ARS’s thrusters were still stabbing in various directions trying to stabilize the craft.
Chindarkar’s voice cut in. “Nicole, if the ARS runs out of thruster gas before that boulder stops tumbling, we’ll lose the robot, too.”
In the virtual display before them, cameras on the Konstantin zoomed in to track the ARS in orbit. Its thrusters fired plumes of gas frantically.
Clarke sighed. “Why the hell is it making it worse?”
Adisa’s voice: “I suspect it is trying to calculate the boulder’s precise center of gravity.”
Chindarkar’s voice: “Thruster gas at 23 percent.”
On-screen the ARS and its boulder shifted erratically. However, after a couple of minutes it began to slow its tumble, and finally, with a few last thruster blasts, it stabilized.
Morra slumped.
The ARS was finally able to place Boulder 4 in a terminator orbit 5 kilometers from Ryugu. It then released its legs and managed to get within a few meters of the ship’s robot dock before its cold-gas thrusters were exhausted. It took hours of EVA work for Tighe, Morra, and Jin to nudge the two ARS robots back into their docking ports—one robot still missing a leg.
With Boulder 4 now in position in orbit around Ryugu, mission control cleared the crew to deploy one of the four Honey Bee optical mining robots to bag the rock.
The Honey Bee was not a small robot, with twin sunlight-focusing thin film parabolic reflectors—each 15 meters across—a central propulsion module, and resource containment bags spanning 5 meters in the center.
With a 3D model of the boulder programmed into the Honey Bee, it automatically cinched its containment bag open, fired thrusters to bag the rock, and cinched the bag closed again.
After high-fives among the miners, a series of glitches plagued the start of the optical mining process. There were freeze-ups with the centrifugal sorter, hiccups with the software that mission control had to patch and upload.
Finally, they partially pressurized the boulder containment bag with CO2 so that blowers would be able to direct the volatiles and other materials into the centrifugal sorting unit.
By the time they’d gotten everything set up, Jin, Tighe, and Morra had spent nearly seventy-two hours on space walks, leaving just three days before their return window to Earth closed.
The countdown in their visor display weighed heavily on them all, and Lacroix gave Abarca approval to issue the crew what Tighe could only assume were amphetamines to keep them working around the clock as the deadline approached.
Eighteen hours later, when the revised software finally rotated the Honey Bee’s optical mining lenses toward the Sun’s light, a white flash guttered from within the containment bag, and searing heat spalled the boulder’s surface in millimeter-deep blasts. It was the first time the machines had ever been used in deep space.
Tighe, Morra, and Jin clung to their mules half a kilometer away as they waited in fatigue for the readings to come back from the mining rig.
It was several minutes until they heard Clarke’s voice.
“The Honey Bee is harvesting large volumes of water vapor, ammonia, and nitrogen!” Cheers were audible in the background back on the ship. “This is gonna work.”
Tighe, Morra, and Jin exchanged weary smiles.
Tighe said, “We did it.”
Morra nodded. “So it appears.”
Clarke’s voice again. “Dave, Jin, J.T., return to the ship. You’ll need to get some rest for what comes next.”
“What comes next?”
“We have an important decision to make.”
CHAPTER 29
Go, No-Go
For the first time humans had harvested—in fact, were still harvesting—life-giving resources from a celestial object. Tighe knew this moment was historic. Now that they’d proven asteroid mining viable, the plan was for Catalyst Corporation to publicly announce their expedition to the entire world. Tighe wondered how that would change his life and the lives of his crewmates.
In the meantime, the entire exhausted crew of the Konstantin, along with mission control managers on Earth, hugged one another in joy. Gabriel Lacroix remotely unlocked one of the reward lockers in both habs to reveal a bottle of actual French champagne. Clarke opened Hab 1’s bottle, and they cheered as the cork ricocheted off the carbon fiber ceiling tiles. Tighe had become so space-focused that he reflexively estimated the delta-v of the champagne cork.
Cups were poured, and Clarke raised her glass for a toast. “To the first of many firsts.”
“Hear! Hear!”
Suddenly a familiar—and very relieved-looking—face appeared on the videoconference screen. Nathan Joyce looked tired and unshaven—but all smiles. After a transmission delay he said, “I won’t deny that up until now I was trying hard not to think about what would happen if I was wrong.”
The crew and mission control team laughed—although the delay made interaction with their boss slightly awkward.
Joyce waited before he said, “What you have achieved is monumental. It will change everything.” Joyce then raised his own glass of champagne. “To the crew of the Konstantin. The greatest explorers who ever lived.”
Mission controllers raised their glasses.
The crew bumped plastic cups again.
After they finished the champagne and cleared their respective galley tables—Clarke, Tighe, Morra, and Abarca in Hab 1; Jin, Chindarkar, Tsukada, and Adisa in Hab 2—both groups placed a clear plastic pitcher of cold water on the table in front of them.
Asteroid water—harvested the previous day and purified through Tsukada’s refinery. She had tested the water in her lab overnight and found it potable. Trying it—yet another first for humanity—Tsukada decided it even had a pleasant taste.
Clarke lifted the pitcher and poured a cup of water for each of her crewmates. In Hab 2, Adisa did the same.
Lacroix, mission managers, and Joyce observed the proceedings via videoconferencing windows.
Clarke looked to the crew. “The purpose of this meeting is to arrive at a go, no-go decision for this expedition.” She gestured to the countdown timer that every crew member had in his or her own crystal display. “In twenty-five hours and twelve minutes we will lack the delta-v necessary to return to Earth until February 10, 2038—over four years from now.”
Several crew members took a deep breath upon hearing it said out loud.
Clarke looked up at Lacroix and Joyce. “Witnessing this discussion, we have mission control manager Gabriel Lacroix, Catalyst CEO Nathan Joyce, and Catalyst Corporation legal counsel. They are also recording this meeting for posterity.”
Morra looked to the virtual screens. “The decision is ours, not theirs.”
Clarke nodded. “You’re right, David . . .” She muted the Earth feed so mission control could hear the crew but would be unable to speak. “Per our employment contract, the decision to stay or to leave is ours to make. Not theirs.” She studied the faces of her team. “Do we remain at Ryugu for the next four years and prove the long-term viability of commercial asteroid mining, or do we return to Earth before the transfer window closes? That’s the question—and any decision to stay must be unanimous.”
Tighe looked up at Joyce and Lacroix, who were not yet aware they would be muted a hundred seconds from now. He turned back to Clarke. “I wasn’t aware it had to be unanimous.”
“Did you really not read your contract, J.T.? In compliance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, no one can be held here against their will.”
Chindarkar spoke from Hab 2. “So one vote against and we leave?”
Clarke nodded. “That’s the only way this is going to work. We all have to agree that we’re staying—because every one of us will be needed to make sure we succeed.”
Morra examined his half-full cup of water. “Mr. Joyce up on the wall there spent twenty-four billion dollars getting us here, but I don’t give a damn about that.” He held up the water. “Look at this. It means Earth isn’t the only place humans can be. Right here is a future for my children’s children. We’ve been here nine days. Think what we can do in four years.” Morra looked over at Tsukada. “Does Ryugu give us everything else we need to survive?”
Tsukada considered the question. “Water, nitrogen, ammonia—we can provide fertility to plants. Restore atmospheric pressure for the N2 lost in the habs. We can restore losses from CO2 scrubbing and electrolysis. We can make methalox rocket fuel, manufacture metal parts, create polymer plastics, radiation shielding. And we have construction materials—millions of tons.” She nodded. “Yes, everything we need.”
Morra nodded to himself. “Plus our production bonuses—based on the sale price of whatever we produce over the next four years. A few thousand tons of resources at the top of Earth’s gravity well would be worth a fortune. Are we really going to just turn around and fly away from that? Joyce is right; we could jump-start an entire new economy in space, and we’d all be worth a hundred million when we return.”
Clarke looked around the table. “I want to make certain everyone is heard before we vote on this.”
Tighe sat up. “Is the vote final?”
“No. We keep voting until—”
Chindarkar interjected, “Until what? Until you get the outcome you want?”
“It’s like a jury, Priya. We keep trying to come to a unanimous decision.”
“A decision for, you mean.”
Abarca leaned forward. “Priya—do you not want us to stay?”
There were several seconds of silence as Chindarkar stared at the table.
Morra looked stunned. “You’re takin’ the piss . . .”
Clarke frowned at him. “Keep it professional, Dave.”
Chindarkar said, “I haven’t made a decision either way.”
Tsukada stared. “Priya, seriously?”
Everyone started talking at once, and Clarke waved everyone to silence again.
Jin interjected, “I am not certain about staying either.”
The other six groaned and threw up their hands. Tighe actually pushed away from the table for a moment to pace nearby. He narrowed his eyes at Jin. “This better not be about your ‘duty’ to—”
“What would you know about duty?”
The others howled.
Clarke waved everyone to silence again. “Han, help me understand. What do you mean, you haven’t decided?”
Jin sighed. “Getting rich is not why I came here. I came to prove that this was possible. And we have done that.”
“Oh, you got what you wanted, so everyone else can fuck right off, is that it?”
Clarke called out, “David.”
Morra leaned in but spoke more calmly. “Not everyone thinks money’s evil, mate. Joyce is right; it’s financial opportunity for investors that will open up space—not another Apollo landing. And there’s nothing wrong with me wanting to leave behind something for my girls. You think I came all this way just so I could cruise down King’s Road in a Lambo?”
“How do you know we will be able to keep what we earn?” Jin turned to Clarke. “You speak of human rights law, but I have been thinking about all the laws Nathan broke in sending us here. Do you really think we can just do as we wish without consequences?”
Tighe sat back down. “You knew this before we left. Returning now accomplishes what, exactly? What does it fix, Han?”
Tsukada glared. “As if governments follow laws.”
Chindarkar said flatly, “We’re all going to die if we stay here.”
Everyone turned to face her. There was sudden silence.
Chindarkar continued. “I just thought most of you felt like I did. That we’d give this a try, achieve some firsts, and then . . . go back to Earth.”
Morra looked closely at her. “Bollocks.”
Tsukada said, “Screw Earth.”
Abarca asked, “What’s going on, Priya?”
Chindarkar stared at the tabletop. “I found a golf-ball-sized hole on an EHD cooler enclosure last week—outside the upper airlock. Spotted it with a mule. Whatever hit the enclosure struck with enough velocity that the metal wasn’t even deformed—it was just a hole, clean through the panel. In one side, out the other. No alarms went off either. If it had hit a structural support or a fuel tank or a piece of critical equipment, we’d all be dead.”
She looked up at the images of Joyce, Lacroix, and now mission management psychologists on the virtual screens trying to get the crew’s attention with their mics muted—holding up written signs demanding attention.
“Look at them. They have almost no idea what they’re doing.” She turned back to the crew. “We’re getting critical alarms constantly. I can feel the hab shake—literally shake—when people hop onto the deck above me. The Konstantin is about as solid as a tent.” Chindarkar took a deep breath to steady herself. “We’re going to die if we don’t take this one last chance to get back to Earth. We’ve already made history. Isn’t that enough?”
Morra said, “No. It isn’t.”
“We’ll be famous when we get back to Earth. You can make—”
Tsukada shouted, “How does that solve my problem?”
Clarke once more held up her hands for silence. “Why didn’t you report that meteor strike, Priya?”
“What difference would it make? It didn’t hit anything critical. I didn’t want to freak everyone out, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more it’s freaking me out.”
“That’s why you report it.”
“Why, so the shrinks can tell me to meditate—or pop an anxiety pill? That enclosure was supposed to be shielding, Nicole. It might as well have been tissue paper. I did the math. Something hit us going at least 40,000 kilometers an hour.”
Adisa shrugged. “I would say we were lucky.”
“We’ve been out here for two months, Ade! What do you think is going to happen over the next fifty months? What if we encounter a micrometeor storm? And what about cosmic radiation?”
