The Throne of Saturn, page 56
“Good morning, children,” Bob Ellison said cheerfully at 5 am. “This is Kennedy Launch Control. Rise and shine! Drop your clocks and grab your socks! We are about to take you to Mars, courtesy of Planetary Fleet One. Stay with us and you will see it all in real, live, better-than-natural Technicolor.
“We are now at T minus 4 hours, 3 minutes, and counting. The count has progressed without a hitch during the night—‘night,’ what am I saying!—these last few minutes when we have all been catching forty winks—or somebody.
“Press buses will be leaving shortly from the News Center for those of you wishing to witness the walk out, which is now definitely scheduled for 6:30. Come one, come all.
“Excuse me if I sound a little exuberant, friends and colleagues, but this is the day.
“This—is—the—day!
“T minus 3 hours, 55 minutes, and counting.”
“I must say,” Pete remarked, “these are among the best scrambled eggs I have ever had.”
“Among the last, too,” Jazz told him. “At least for a while. What’s the time, Conn?”
Connie smiled.
“It’s on the clock on the wall. Also, your wristwatch.”
“I know,” Jazz said cheerfully. “But I won’t believe it until I hear it from you.”
“It’s time to be going,” Connie said. “That’s what time it is.”
“Yes,” said Jayvee, and they were all suddenly somber as they stood and prepared to move along to final medical checkup and from there to the suiting room.
“This is Kennedy Launch Control,” Bob Ellison said. “The crew has been awakened after a good night’s sleep and has had a breakfast consisting of orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee. They are now undergoing medical check and will then suit up. First press buses are leaving right now from the News Center. Please hurry if you wish to witness the walk out at 6:30 am.
“Work on the pads is proceeding satisfactorily. A minor glitch on the Santa Maria has been corrected. Oxygen tanks and power systems on all three spacecraft are undergoing final safety inspection. Other systems are performing as planned. The countdown continues with all systems GO at this time. T minus 3 hours and 15 minutes, and counting.”
“I don’t really mind these ungodly early morning walk outs” the Chattanooga Times remarked to the Guardian, “because it gives us a chance to see sights like that. Isn’t it spectacular?”
Off to the right as the long line of press buses rolled along NASA Parkway from Cape Canaveral to the Space Center, bathed in spotlights that crisscrossed one another against the pre-dawn darkness, looming quite large from this vantage point, the three white candles were almost unbelievably beautiful. One Saturn V awaiting launch had always been overwhelming enough. To see three was to approach the border line of what the mind could grasp.
“I wonder,” the Chattanooga Times said softly, “what old Tycho Brahe and the rest would say now, if they knew we were going to Mars.”
“What would the ancient Chinese say?” the Guardian responded. “They invented the rocket. A lot of ghosts are riding with Planetary Fleet One today.”
And so they were: the Babylonians who first decided Mars was a planet; Lucian of Samosata, who wrote in ad 160 the first rudimentary tale of a voyage to the Moon; the Chinese, who developed the first rockets in ad 1232, using them against the Mongols to raise the siege of Kai-Fung-Fu; Nicholas Copernicus, who published On the Revolutions of Celestial Orbs in 1543; Tycho Brahe, who made many observations of the positions of Mars in the later 16th century; Johannes Kepler who based his On the Motions of Mars on Brahe’s work in 1609; Galileo Galilei who published Messenger of the Stars in 1610; the Englishman William Congreve, who in 1801 began to experiment seriously with rockets as weapons; the Frenchman Jules Verne, who wrote A Journey to the Moon in 1865; the German Hermann Ganswindt, who designed a primitive rocket-propelled vehicle in 1891; the Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky who in 1903 published, Beyond the Planet Earth in which he visualized colonization of the other planets; the Romanian Dr. Hermann Oberth, who in 1923 published The Rocket into Interplanetary Space, proposing liquid-propellant vehicles; the American Dr. Robert H. Goddard, who first studied a liquid-propellant rocket in 1920 and on March 16, 1926, flew the world’s first such successful rocket which was approximately three feet in length, flew two seconds at 60-miles-per-hour and reached an altitude of 40 feet; the Germans, who formed the Society for Space Travel in 1927 and began conducting serious experiments; the Germans who created the V1 and V-2 rockets in World War II; the American and Russian governments, who employed their captured German scientists to greatly expand and develop rocketry after the war, and so began their race for space; the brave men who flew in Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, and in the Russian cosmonaut program; the many dedicated and hardworking American men and women since who had devoted so much time, energy and skill to the proposition that at some point not too far off, Planetary Fleet One or something like it should stand ready at the Cape to leave for Mars; and the American people, who paid the bill.
From dreams and beginnings, some of them lost in antiquity, some as immediate as yesterday/today/tomorrow, had come the three bright candles, so majestic in their beauty, so awesome in their power. In the face of the Saturn V, a sight that sobers even the most flippant, wisecracks and sarcasms died in the press buses and upon the occupants an intent and brooding silence fell. This was indeed the day, and now at last its full import and implications were with them, unrelieved and inescapable.
Five minutes later they arrived at the training quarters, debarked, clustered in their jostling hundreds in the wide driveway under the enclosed passageway that links the two buildings on the second-floor level. Now they were talking again, the laughs and jokes and gossip rattling back and forth in a dozen languages. To their right as they faced the lighted hallway and the ramp down which the crew would presently come, the van that had carried so many to the pads in the great days of Apollo stood backed up to the entryway in its accustomed place. Engineers and technicians wearing fireproof dust jackets fussed around it and uniformed guards patiently shooed back the over-eager who tried to come too near. Television crews sputtered angrily at one another; individual reporters tried to find vantage points from which to use their personal cameras. Above, early-rising NASA employees looked down from their office windows on the brightly lighted area below. Moment by moment the tension grew.
At 6:15 there was a stir inside the hallway where important-looking people came and went. A familiar figure appeared. Bert Richmond stepped forward to the microphone that had been set up at the foot of the ramp. NBC, as representative for the pooled media, stepped forward.
“Bert,” he said, “you’ve just been with the crew. How are they feeling?”
“They’re feeling just fine. Everything is GO. They couldn’t be better.”
“Did they really get a good sleep?”
Bert smiled.
“I don’t know. I didn’t sleep with any of ’em. But,” he added into the laughter, “from what I’ve seen of them in the last few minutes, I’d say they were well-rested. They look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to me.”
“Anybody show any sign of nerves, would you say? Are they calm as they prepare to start this great adventure?”
“They look just fine.”
“Nobody showing any sign of nerves at all?”
“Well,” Bert said, a trifle tartly, “you can’t expect them to feel the same as though they were about to go down to Galveston and go swimming. Naturally, I’d say, they’re feeling a little tension. Who could help it? But these are trained and experienced men, they’ve got a job to do, and I wouldn’t say they’re any more worried than you or I would be. In fact, I’d say a damned sight less. Speaking for myself, anyway. I don’t know about you guys.”
Again, there was laughter and after it, NBC put his last question in this standard pre-launch ritual.
“Bert, we know you’ve got to get back in to help with the suiting-up, but one final question before you go: are you fellows in the Astronaut Office satisfied in your own mind that everything is going to go all right?”
“We’re satisfied,” Bert said firmly. “Piffy One has had a lot of problems, but they’re all straightened out now and we anticipate a very smooth mission all the way to Mars and back. Does that answer your question?”
“As much as it’s going to be, I guess,” NBC said with a smile. “Thanks very much, Bert. You’ve been a real help.”
“Thank you,” Bert said, grinned, waved, turned, and went back in.
The pushings and shovings, the jockeyings for position, the outcries in foreign tongues, the gossip, chatter, tension, began again and steadily increased in volume for the next eight or nine minutes.
Suddenly there was a bustle and stir in the hallway, the television floodlights went on, the chatter abruptly stopped. A tensely waiting silence fell. New figures appeared near the doorway, formed a line on each side. Heads turned, looking back along the hallway. From somewhere inside came a burst of applause. People began to smile. Bert Richmond again appeared, walking briskly down the ramp.
“Here they come!” somebody shouted, and everyone stood on tiptoe, looked, craned, strained.
“It’s Trasker!” someone else shouted, and almost before they knew it the white-suited figures appeared, twice as large as life in their bulky suits, wearing their bubble helmets, smiling, waving, walking quickly down the ramp and into the van. The press burst into spontaneous and prolonged applause that continued until the door slammed firmly shut and the van started up and rolled away, the emblem of Planetary Fleet One on its rear glittering and receding in the floodlights.
“That’s quite a spectacle, too,” the Guardian said to the Chattanooga Times as they walked back to the waiting bus that would take them to the Press Site. “They looked reasonably calm and happy, I thought.”
“It’s a job,” the Chattanooga Times said.
“They’re really quite remarkable, you know?”
“They have to be.”
“This is Kennedy Launch Control,” Bob Ellison said, his voice booming across the rapidly filling Press and VIP sites. “The crew is in the van on the way to Pad A of Launch Complex 39, where Colonel Conrad H. Trasker, Jr., commander of Planetary Fleet One, will debark to enter the Santa Maria, which carries the Mars Landing Vehicle of which he is also commander.
“The van will then proceed to Pads B and C to discharge the remaining members of the crew at their respective Saturn vehicles. We will report their arrivals to you.
“We are informed that the president has arrived at Patrick Air Force Base and will telephone the crew to say goodbye when they are assembled at Pad A, approximately 15 minutes from now. We do not know yet whether their conversation will be broadcast. If it is, we will bring it to you.
“We have a very light overcast, as you can see, but it is expected to dissipate within the hour, giving us excellent visibility for all three launches.
“It looks like a perfect day coming up.
“It is now T minus 2 hours, 23 minutes, 35 seconds, and counting.”
Above, a photographers’ helicopter recorded their progress as they rode swiftly along through the scrub: and though the van was accompanied by the unusual precaution, duly noted by the media, of a four-motorcycle police escort, it looked curiously small and lonely as it traversed a billion television screens around the world.
It felt lonely, too.
“Somebody say something,” Pete suggested finally, opening his visor with a fair attempt at his usual cheerful grin. But the suggestion, though appreciated, did not get very far.
“What’s to say?” Jazz inquired, staring at the palmettos, the cirrus clouds, the drainage ditches stagnant and placid along the road. “Hey, there, big bird!” he called out to a Great Blue Heron, standing gravely in the mud. “Happy landings!”
“Do you realize,” Connie asked moodily, “that it will be eighteen months before we see one of those things again?”
Jayvee grunted.
“Or longer.”
“Any longer would be never,” Jazz pointed out.
“Yeah,” said Jayvee, and there was a silence.
“Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t get us all to singing,” Pete remarked with a rueful smile. “God knows, I tried.”
“Don’t try,” Connie suggested, kicking his foot across the aisle. “Just let it bubble up naturally from inside us.”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “That’ll be the day.”
And they all were silent again.
On the world’s television screens the white van rolled steadily along. At the Press Site, where a big screen down in front of the stand brought the filming of their progress, the hum and bustle mounted steadily in intensity and volume as more and more buses arrived to disgorge more and more reporters. There were the usual greetings by old friends, the usual short, tense, and sometimes bitter tussles over reserved seating space, the usual air of picnic and festivity. An electric excitement, an almost hysterical undercurrent of tension, steadily grew. The clicking of a hundred typewriters, the murmur of a hundred dictating voices, provided sibilant accompaniment.
To their left, a quarter of a mile away, the VAB towered alongside. In front, three miles away, the three Saturns stood on the pads, touched now by the growing light of the sun coming up out of the Atlantic. For a moment, a sort of reverse sunset touched the clouds, a great pink flush suffused the sky. Against it the missiles looked white, glimmering, ghostly. Then the sun broke through, the clouds began to drift away, visibility swiftly increased. The missiles emerged sharp and clear, glistening in the dawn, little puffs of liquid oxygen venting from their sides to blow slowly away in the soft, cool wind. Santa Maria was closest on Pad A; to her left stood Nina; then Pinta, still further left and farthest away. For a moment, a hush fell over the Press Site, before the babble of sounds and voices resumed. Suddenly the enormity of what was being here attempted made its own unchallengeable statement against the quiet Florida sky. “Unbelievable!” the Guardian said softly to the Chattanooga Times; and so it was.
On the other side of the VAB, at the VIP and Dependents Sites, the hush also fell. Among the VIPs the members of Congress, the foreign dignitaries, members of the president’s Cabinet, members of the Supreme Court, the military, chatted and visited with a busy, excited socializing. They too watched the van proceeding on the television screens, they too were awed by the majestic missiles as they came into full view. And to their ranks, too, more hundreds were added every few minutes as new buses rolled up and deposited their cargo.
Among these were many of the famous and influential of the world and many of the powerful of America. The newsmen who had been assigned to cover the VIP Site reported them as they arrived, noting with some puzzlement that Percy Mercy, who might normally be expected to sit with the press, had chosen this time to accept the VIP badge offered, with a certain irony, by the administrator of NASA. Along with him came Senator Kennicutt Williams, Clete O’Donnell, and the publisher of the Post. Other Right-Thinking folk hovered near. And everywhere throughout the stands, as Clete could see when he stood up for a moment and surveyed the gaily dressed crowds to his right and left, were others, by whom his presence was noted with a little private stirring, a secret electricity through the stands.
But presently Clete sat down. He and Percy embarked upon a long and earnest conversation. The moment passed. At the empty presidential box, two sections over, police and Secret Service stood warily at ease, eyeing the crowd. Nothing they could see gave them cause for worry. The clouds continued to dissipate, the three stately spires of Planetary Fleet One gleamed ever more brightly in the sun. From time to time, the liquid oxygen vented and blew gently away.
“This is Kennedy Launch Control,” Bob Ellison informed the world, and conversation muted to hear his words. “As you can see from your television screens, the van has now arrived at Pad A. First man out is Dr. Halleck, followed by Dr. Balkis and Commander Weickert. There is Colonel Trasker, just getting out … The crew is greeting members of the launch group at Pad A … In just a moment they will go into the bunker where they will be placed in Picturephone contact with the president of the United States. This conversation will not, repeat NOT”—there was a loud, indignant groan from the press stand—“be broadcast. This is at the direct request of the president. We do not know yet whether a transcript of their remarks will be available at the News Center after the launch, but since the president has requested privacy, it would seem likely that no such transcript will be available.” This time the groans were mingled with boos. “Here in the firing rooms, the launch vehicle test teams are keeping a close eye on the status of propellants aboard the three vehicles. All look good at this time. All systems remain GO, in some cases we are as much as ten minutes ahead of countdown in procedures on the pads. Everything looks very good for the launch of Planetary Fleet One, starting at 9:03 am today. It is now T minus 2 hours, 8 minutes, 46 seconds, and counting.”
“Well, gentlemen,” the president said. “Here we are.”
“Yes, sir,” Connie said with a smile. “Ready and waiting.”
The shrewd, intelligent eyes examined them slowly and carefully: they felt for a moment like little boys in school. Then he smiled too.
“You seem quite relaxed about it. I wish I were.”
“We aren’t completely,” Jazz said, “but one of our classes at MSC is ‘Outward Calmness, Apparent Fearlessness, and Graceful Dissembling.’ We all passed with straight A’s.”
