Planetfall
Lt. James Brown was sitting in the sleek cockpit of his mark four Ravenspear spaceplane, the Akagi, awaiting take-off orders on the runway of Cape Canaveral. His mission was to dock with the Russian space center, Юрий Гагарин or Yuri Gagarin, where he would receive further instructions. He had been told by this mission’s commander, Gene Krantz, that a spaceplane from the fledgling Chinese space program would be joining him at the Yuri Gagarin. The Ravenspear mark four was an untested modified version of the Ravenspear mark three, a scientific spaceplane meant for orbiting and collecting data. Suddenly, Gene’s voice crackled in on the radio, “Alright, James, the Akagi is cleared for take-off.” James punched the throttle, completely forgetting that the plane he was in was experimental. The Akagi’s main engine hummed to life and began to accelerate down the runway. The plane accelerated from 0 meters per second to 150 m/s in the course of thirty seconds, and made it to the middle of the runway and started to list. The plane tipped so far to port that James thought it would hit the runway. He eased back on the throttle and tugged the joystick that controlled the roll of the plane. He retracted the landing gear and pulled up mere seconds before the plane began to flip in circles. James regained control of the Akagi.
He radioed back to Gene and mission control, “I am clear of the runway.” He listened to the shouts of triumph coming from mission control and smiled. He pulled up toward space, and toward the Yuri Gagarin. The sleek, space shuttle-like design of his craft deflected the wind with little to no resistance. James accelerated straight up, gaining vertical speed as fast as he could without stalling. He climbed toward the stars at mach 7, rising in altitude. When the Ravenspear reached an altitude of 10,000 meters, he began to tip his plane east, in a gravity turn 2. His apoapsis 1 rose toward 70,000 meters, when he would be clear of the Earth’s atmosphere. He glanced down at the Earth that was beginning to round and took in the beauty of the sight. He saw mountains, and oceans, and rivers.
His view was cut off abruptly when the radio turned on, “James, don’t get distracted by the view! To quote someone great, You're off to great places, today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so GET ON YOUR WAY!!!!” James laughed and returned to piloting his craft. He was almost in the eternal vacuum of orbit, and the Yuri Gagarin was in view.
The station was composed of two arms extending from a main fuselage, which had solar panels extending from it. Docked to the bottom of the Gagarin was a behemoth space ship. James gritted his teeth in jealousy at the behemoth, and reminded himself that a spaceship’s a spaceship, no matter how small. The behemoth had ten massive engines that were connected to a wide array of fuel tanks that likely had 100 times as much fuel as James’s plane. The behemoth had docking ports all over it, connected to a cockpit large enough to fit ten people. What irked James the most was the large Russian flag painted on the main fuselage. He reached orbit with some fuel to spare, which he used to navigate himself toward the Gagarin. As his space plane ran out of fuel, he slowly glided toward the space station. He opened a radio channel to the Gagarin and asked, “This is Lt. James Brown from NASA, requesting permission to dock,”
A young voice with a heavy Russian accent responded, “Welcome to the Gagarin, lieutenant! This is Mikhail Sturmovik, you have my permission to dock!” James closed the radio channel and turned on his RCS (Reaction Control Systems) and fired thrusters toward the airlock, where mission control had told him he would dock, toward the top of the Gagarin’s Main fuselage. As he moved to dock, something moving below him caught his eye. He looked through the windshield of his inverted spaceplane, and saw the Chinese spaceplane docking on the outer arm of the station. He turned his attention back to docking. As he carefully maneuvered via thrusters toward the docking port, the Chinese plane docked successfully. He fired his thrusters one last time and heard the satisfying clunk that meant he was docked. He got up from the seat of the space plane and walked back two feet to where the airlock was, checked for confirmation that it was sealed, and when he got it, opened the airlock and crawled down the narrow tube that connected his plane to the Gagarin. There was a note at the end of the airlock that read, “Dear Lt. Brown, I am currently greeting the Chinese spaceplane pilot, Ming Xiong, you have brains in your head, and feet on your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you choose, and in this case, I ask that you go to the kitchen, which is down the main hatch, and to the left.”
James found the main hatch and said to himself, “Well, I guess it’s off to the kitchen!” He floated through the tubes comprised of metal rings and a substance that was like aluminum foil. He reached the bottom of the hatch and walked to the left along similar materials with a grated floor that had some sort of gravity generation, into a fairly spacious kitchen and sat down at a small table with four chairs nailed to the floor. The kitchen was pretty normal for a modern space station. It had a small slot with the buttons Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. There was a note on the machine that said, “Help yourself to the food.” James shrugged, and tapped the lunch button. The slot opened to reveal a light blue bowl of clam chowder that had just been rehydrated. He picked up the bowl, and the small spoon that was sitting next to the bowl, and dug in. He had barely taken three bites when a young man, whom James presumed was Mikhail Sturmovik entered the room, followed by an asian man, whom he presumed was Ming Xiong.
Ming sat down at the table where James was sitting and Mikhail walked over to the food slot and asked, “James, I see you got yourself some food, so Ming, can I get you anything?”
Ming replied, “Sure, why not…” Mikhail smiled and pressed the lunch button twice. The slot opened to reveal more clam chowder, which he brought over to Ming.
Mikhail said to them, “So, as I was just explaining to Ming, this station is unique. As you both probably noticed when we walked into the kitchen, there is gravity in here.” The two other men nodded. Mikhail continued, “That is because of a small gravity ring that surrounds this room and the room below it, the conference room. We will leave for the conference room shortly where we will be briefed about our mission. The gravity ring should make conference calls a little less… awkward, for lack of a better word. I hope you enjoy your stay and blah blah blah, and all those other things that babushka told me to say…” This made everyone laugh. Mikhail finished up, “Great, now that I see you’re just about done, let’s go to the conference room!” Ming and James looked down at their bowls of clam chowder and realized that they had nearly ate the whole bowl. They followed Mikhail into a large, dark room with five chairs, and each took one of the chairs.
James watched as Mikhail walked over to the control panel on the fairly large viewscreen and turned it on. A korean man was sitting in a room that was dominated by a screen with a RADAR display on it. The man said, “I am Ban Ki-moon, head of the United Nations. I am here to brief you on your mission. Recently, the United Nations found out about a large asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Only you can control your future, but we hope that you will go on an extremely dangerous mission to redirect that asteroid. You all saw the Titan VI spacecraft, the massive Russian spacecraft docked at the station. That spacecraft has enough fuel and thrust to get you to the asteroid and back, and it almost has enough thrust to redirect the asteroid. Your spaceplanes will need to assist Titan VI in moving the asteroid. The journey will be two days long. During those two days, your space planes will remain docked on Titan VI until you reach within 1000 km of the asteroid. You may have noticed that your governments have equipped your space planes with grabbers that will grab the asteroid and push it away. If this asteroid hits Earth, all life will be wiped out. Thank you.” The viewer went dark, and they walked out of the room.
Ming noticed that Mikhail was smiling and asked, “Mikhail, why are you smiling? The world could be destroyed!”
Mikhail responded, “Finally, a high stakes mission! Hey, why fit in when you were born to stand out? I’ve certainly noticed more of the world around me by being different… I mean, you’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.” James and Ming laughed as they headed to their spaceplanes for their interstellar mission. James jumped back into the cramped cockpit of his spaceplane and, with a micro-explosion, undocked from the Yuri Gagarin for the last time. He activated his RCS and piloted his ship toward the small docking port on the side of Titan. He heard the magnetic clamp that told him that he was sealed to Titan. James opened the airlock, and crawled, not floated, down the corridor. When he came out of the docking tube, he saw Mikhail standing in the middle of a gigantic room painted blue, with a pool table, a coffee machine, a TV, and multiple comfy-looking chairs. He called to James and Ming, who had just exited the tube, “Isn’t it great here? I’m afraid I couldn’t convince the Russian government to give us cable, but whatever!” James and Ming smiled.
James responded, “How much money does the Russian space agency have to build this?”
Mikhail snorted, “Just enough to sponsor an Earth-saving mission,”
James walked around and found that the entire room had gravity. He asked Mikhail, “Does this ship have full gravity everywhere?” Mikhail nodded. James turned to look at Ming, who had been silently admiring the room. The young Chinese pilot was wandering mindlessly around, turning things on and off.
Mikhail asked, “Are you ready to go?” The two other men nodded distractedly. Mikhail walked into a room in the front of the room they were in that appeared to be the control room. He flicked a few of the hundreds of glowing switches, buttons, and levers. The ship rocked as it began to depart the Yuri Gagarin. Once they were clear of the station, Mikhail began to fire the Titan’s thrusters.
James sat in a chair. He said, “What happens if our mission fails… what happens to Earth. It gets destroyed, but what about US?.”
Ming replied, “Do not cry because it is over, smile because it happened.”
James nodded and said, “Want some coffee?” Ming laughed, and muttered something about the American obsession with caffeine.
“Sure, I’ll have some.” Ming said.
Mikhail yelled, “We’ve accelerated to 5000 m/s. Now that we’re on course to rendezvous with the asteroid in two days, I’m going to cut the engines.
James glanced at a chronometer on the wall. It read 9:56 PM. James realized how tired he was, so he shouted, “Hey Mikhail, where are the beds?” Mikhail, who was sitting in a spinning chair, swirling around, pointed to a door near the left of the room James was in. James walked through the door that separated the main room from the bedroom. The bedroom had metal walls, and grated flooring. Three beds lay about a foot or two apart from each other. James took the bed on the far left and lay down to prepare for the big day ahead.
When James woke up, the chronometer on his wall read 11:00 AM. He got up, and put on his flight suit, an olive green jumpsuit with more pockets than he could count. He glanced at the patch on his left shoulder, a sea-gull carrying a fish over the water, and smiled. He was ready for the big day ahead of him, so he decided that today he would behave as if this was the day he would be remembered for. His normal morning routine, except that today was a day that he would be remembered for. He walked into the main room of the Titan. Mikhail and Ming were playing pool. They greeted him as he walked past them.
Ming pointed toward a door and said, “The mess hall’s over there, if you’re hungry,” James thanked him, and walked over to the door Ming had pointed to. He opened the door and walked into a small room that was painted white. There was a small table in the middle and a food slot built into the wall. James realized that it was exactly the same as the kitchen on the Gagarin. He walked over to the food slot and pressed breakfast. James heard a slight electronic humm, and after a few seconds, the slot opened to reveal some sort of remodulated green slop that made him think of green eggs and ham.
He muttered to himself, “I do not like green eggs and ham.” and threw the food away and tried again. This time, there was no humming, and the slot opened to reveal a few bacon strips with eggs. He smiled to himself and dug in. The bacon tasted real, as did the eggs. He finished quickly and walked back into the main room.
As Titan glided through the stars, slowly decelerating, life continued on the ship. As their destination approached, tension began to rise. “We’re five hours away from the target!” Mikhail shouted. They had been sitting around, talking and playing games for the past two days and finally, the big moment had come.
James and Ming scrambled for their spaceplanes. James climbed through the hatches and into the cockpit of his spaceplane. He looked through the windshield and saw the biggest asteroid he had ever seen in his life. It was at least 13 km by 13 km. The asteroid had a strange greenish glow to it. He radioed to Mikhail, “That asteroid looks a lot closer than five hours away.”
Mikhail responded, “You’re right. I misread the scanners. It’s ten minutes away.” James undocked from Titan and guided himself away with RCS. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ming doing the same thing. He fired the engines on the Akagi, which had recently been refilled by Titan’s reserves. As he burned, slowly approaching the asteroid, Ming finished detaching from Titan. James noticed that the Akagi had an extra stage labeled, “Asteroid-buster” he shrugged and pressed the button.
James muttered to himself, “James, you’ll move mountains.” As Titan, the Akagi, and Ming’s space plane approached the asteroid, James saw that thousands of small pebbles surrounded the asteroid. He reasoned that, while they would not harm Titan, they could destroy the space planes. James turned on his RCS and radioed for Ming to do the same. Ming turned on his RCS three seconds too late. A small pebble slashed through his engine and the space plane exploded. much to James’s relief, the young pilot had donned a vacuum suit prior to boarding the space plane and he managed to eject in time. The Akagi’s nose rammed into the asteroid a few seconds after the explosion. Titan, with it’s engines roaring, hit the asteroid seconds later. Both ships were docked with the asteroid, pushing. James checked his mobile HUD and saw that the asteroid wasn’t going to be out of the way. They needed just a few more newtons of thrust.
Suddenly, the asteroid’s course adjusted. James looked out of his window to find what had changed and saw Ming pushing, EVA from his destroyed craft. Over the radio, Ming announced, “The asteroid is now on an escape trajectory from Earth!” The two ships and Ming broke off from the asteroid. Ming managed to open the airlock and climb into Titan.
Two days later, Titan glides into orbit around Earth. James, who was going straight back to NASA instead of docking at the Gagarin, waved goodbye to his newfound friend. As James glided down the runway at NASA, he remembered what Ming had said to him, “Do not cry because it is over, smile because it happened.” He stepped out of the plane and was greeted by a crowd of reporters from thousands of newspapers. Gene was at the head of them, beaming at James. Hours later, when James was finally able to return to his flat in a city near Cape Canaveral, he turned on NBC news, which featured him for the next twelve hours.
