Administrator David Williams and Director General Arthur Pryor, of the British National Space Centre, BNSC, were both hopeful and dreading their meeting with the Prime Minister.
The sudden appearance the previous summer of the Equestrians, intelligent aliens from another world, had shaken their agency to the core. Proof positive that life existed elsewhere in the universe. That they appeared as normal people, albeit with unusual hair colours, threw everyone into a tizzy, at first.
The religious authorities were at a loss as to how to proceed. Some viewed the aliens as an afront — god had made humans the top of the heap, how dare these interlopers show up? Some viewed them as demons out to tempt humans from God’s true salvation. Others saw an opportunity to proselytize and save the souls of the aliens.
Many saw their human-like appearance as proof that the human form was the epitome of perfection as designed by their God.
There was a rumour that the aliens had their own gods, which, as scientists, the two men knew was to be expected. What was not expected was that the aliens claimed they could meet with and discuss things with their gods! Confusingly, they also said that their gods didn’t want to be called gods, or worshipped, and could get quite pissy about it if crossed on the matter.
Then it was discovered that they had the ability to become miniature horses, ponies, they styled themselves. That that was their normal form had cheesed off the fanatics — how dare they abandon the perfect human-form designed by the Human God? Obviously, they were mere farm animals and should be subjugated as such! Adding salt to the wound for those religious extremists was that the ponies had three tribes — normal, winged, and horned — and were so cute that prolonged exposure had to lead to diabetes.
Their technology quite clearly proved they were anything but farm animals.
That these aliens had used a “portal” to directly arrive had been a shock, as had been the revelations of their technology. That something without hands could produce railroads, tall buildings, and air ships had been stunning, and thrown-out all the theories about how intelligence developed — and that you had to have hands to do it.
That they were a prey species with bright colours that would easily attract the attention of predators was just plain confusing. According to most evolutionary theories, prey animals should be dull-coloured and capable of hiding in plain sight.
There were those who insisted the aliens were here to enslave mankind. Those proponents claimed that the aliens’ peaceful attitude was a sham to fool humans. When they had sufficient forces on hand, they would take over the world.
That the aliens only seemed interested in Britain’s deep culture and were freely sharing life-saving techniques — such as a cure for cancer — were merely facades in front of their ruthless drive to conquer Earth, according to those detractors.
Which brought them to today’s meeting. Was the entire BNSC a waste of time, effort, and money? Why bother with rockets when you can simply step through a door? Were they about to be informed of the dissolution of their agency?
Or, was this a meeting that would set off a new age of space exploration? After all, only a few months ago, incredible devices began to appear from five of the eleven partners in their consortium. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills unveiled a machine that could scan for and cure cancer, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with the Technology Strategy Board and the Natural Environment Research Council, had produced air-scrubbers for both heavy industry and road vehicles, reducing air pollution by over fifty percent.
Rumours abounded about other devices in development to recover raw materials from waste in rubbish tips, both reducing waste and decreasing the need for imported material. The dead silence from the military indicated that they had a few new toys, too, or they would have been front and centre demanding access to the technology these aliens had developed. There was a rumour that they even had a portal-like system for instant transport between two locations thousands of kilometres apart.
When the other participants began to show up, the twos’ confusion increased. They silently watched as Sir Patrick Walker, Director General of Military Intelligence five, and Sir Colin McColl, Director General of Military Intelligence Six came it, with their secretaries. Next through the door were the Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon. Douglas Hurd, and the Home Secretary, the Rt Hon. Kenneth Wilfred Baker, with their secretaries. With them was a military officer, a Major.
Last, of course, was The Prime Minister, John Major, with his secretary. He looked a bit harried, which was probably only natural with the upheaval the aliens had thrown at the government and their society.
John looked around as he sat down. “Good, everyone’s here.” He nodded and glanced at the two BNSC officials. “It has been brought to my attention that Britain has an unparalleled opportunity to jump to the forefront in the world’s efforts to explore space.”
The two officials exchanged quick looks. They weren’t sure if this would be good news or not.
“As well as keep an eye on our enemies.”
David and Arthur maintained attitudes of polite interest.
“As you know,” the Prime Minister continued, “The Equestrians have been generous with their . . . technology.” He sighed, “I’m sure you’re both familiar with Dr. Who and his ‘it’s bigger on the inside’ Tardis?”
They broth frowned and gave hesitant nods.
“The Equestrians have developed that technology.”
They gave him incredulous looks. The others in the room were all nodding.
“Another technology they have developed is a method to reduce the apparent weight . . . mass . . . of an object.”
Arthur leaned back in his chair with his eyebrows raised while David gave the Prime Minister a bug-eyed stare.
“Major Thomas, if you’d show them the demonstration modules?”
The military officer nodded and picked up his briefcase to set on the table.
“The Major is part of our new Special Technology division in the Army,” the Prime Minister explained, “who are attempting to learn and integrate the Equestrian technology to what we know and have.”
The Major opened his briefcase, then reached in far deeper than should have been possible, all the way to elbow in a case that couldn’t have been more than a hands-length deep — and that would have been with the case closed!
Both BNSC officials stood and leaned forward to look into the briefcase, astounded. They could see that it was deeper than the table.
Grinning at their gobsmacked expressions, the man lifted one side of the briefcase with his other hand so they could see underneath eh entire bottom of the case. There wasn’t a hole in the table, nor could they see his other arm, still buried in the briefcase. He set the briefcase back, flat, on the table.
Thomas lifted up a steel box and set it on the table, then lightly pushed it with one finger across to the two men.
“Pick it up,” he said smirking.
Mystified, Arthur picked up the box. It was about the size of a book, three or four fingers thick. It was much lighter than it appeared, so much so that he began to doubt it was steel, and that it had to be empty. There was a small latch on one side and a hinge on the opposite side.
He handed it to David and looked back at the Major, and the others, puzzled.
David handed it back to Thomas after inspecting it.
Still grinning, the military man walked around the table to stand beside the two. He set the box on the table, opened it, twisted a dial, then closed it. “Now try to pick up,” he said with a bit of a challenge.
Shrugging Arthur casually went to lift the box, but it didn’t budge to his loose grip. He tried lifting one edge to get a better grip and found it took a surprising amount of effort. It easily weighed four or five pounds. He put it back on the table with a thud that made David look at him with surprise.
He could only stare, glancing between the inexplicably heavy box and the others in the room, all of whom were hiding smile . . . or not.
Thomas reached into his briefcase and started taking out a pole, a pole that was longer than any of the dimensions of the briefcase it came out of. Ginning, he handed one end to Arthur. From its weight, Arthur guessed it was aluminium. Holding the other end, Thomas must have done something because the pole suddenly, and drastically, increased its weight, pulling itself out of his hand. His end crashed to floor with a heavy thud.
“Please be seated,” the Prime Minister prompted, knocking them both out of their daze.
“Can you imagine what we could do with an entire launch-vehicle’s worth of propellant in a tin that weighed less than your briefcase?” he said.
The two just sat there, stunned.
John’s secretary opened her briefcase, took out two folders, walked around their positions, and placed them in front of the two men.
“We’ve kicked around a few ideas,” the Home Secretary said. “We considered the idea of building something ourselves, but it would take years and take a sum ten times your budget, at the minimum.”
Kenneth gave the Foreign Secretary a sidelong look. “However, Douglas suggested we buy the Russian Buran Space Plane. Colin,” he glanced at the Director of MI6, “tells us that the Russian space program is pretty much dead in the water. Depending on who you talk to, it is either still in progress, or cancelled. In either case, all future flights have been cancelled and funds are rapidly drying up. He says that for the right amount, the Ruskies will be happy to unload their space plane and recoup some of their investment.”
Douglas, the Foreign Secretary, said, “I believe that if we were to offer them fifty million pounds, plus a half a million to rent the Antonov Mriya to get it here, they might settle for seventy or eighty million. With a bit of dickering, we might be able to get the Buran and the Ptichka for a hundred. The Ptichka isn’t complete, though.” He grinned at his colleague. “Still, a steal, since it’s estimated to have cost them close to four billion rubles for each plane, with inflation currently at a seventy-five-to-one and the rouble falling fast.”
Arthur looked at the Prime Minister. “And the launch vehicle? The Energia?” he asked, mouth dry.
“No need. From what my experts tell me, we can take off from ground.”
“But we don’t have room in our budget for such expenditures,” David tentatively ventured.
“The funds will come from some of the earnings produced by the medical devices we’ve developed and started selling. The yanks, alone, have put in orders for over a thousand of the machines. They’ve ordered double that of the industrial pollution scrubbers. Plus, there are other devices in development,” Kenneth put in.
In the room, only the Major, the Administrator, and the Director didn’t know that the government had traded a hundred tonnes of aluminium to Equestria in exchange for a hundred tonnes of gold. The Prime Minister had a rather large slush fund to back any Equestrian proposals on this side of the portal. Or projects he deemed necessary for the needs of the United Kingdom — without raising taxes!
“Major Thomas has been assigned to the BNSC to facilitate the integration of this new technology. One of the first tests will be the effectiveness of this technology with a decommissioned Bristol Bloodhound.”
There was silence for several seconds as the two officials looked at each other and the Prime Minister.
“Right, then,” John said, placing his hands on the table and standing. “That’s sorted.” He looked down at the two. “I expect weekly reports.” He nodded to them, then swept out of the room followed by everyone except Major Thomas.
“I think I need to have a bit of a lie-down,” Arthur said.
“You might be right,” said David, faintly.
Thomas grinned and pulled a bottle of something amber out of his briefcase, with three glasses. He poured the glasses and handed them to the two stunned officials.
“Gentlemen,” he said bracingly, “You’re about to become a part of history as presiding over Britain’s first space plane, and possibly putting Britain’s first astronauts on the moon.”
They stared at him, wide-eyed, then downed their glasses.
|
----(_)----
Williams, Pryor, and Thomas slowly walked around the modified Bristol Bloodhound Mark II missile and its mount. The technicians were giving it one final check-over before launch in just fifteen minutes. They were at the Otterburn Army Training Estate, Britain’s largest live-fire military training estate. It was in northern England, about eleven hours from London by car, and covered 60,000 acres — two hundred and forty-two square kilometres of vacant land.
No worries about hitting anything important should things go pear-shaped.
Thomas was impressed at the speed with which the BNSC had acquired the decommissioned system and modified it. The ramjets that powered the anti-aircraft missile in flight had been discarded. The ramjets’ fuel tanks in the core missile had been replaced with kerosene and liquid-oxygen thrusters, and its fuel tank. It could operate without a problem in the airless environment it would soon occupy.
The Major had been the one to “install” the “special technology” fuel tanks that allowed the missile to carry far more fuel than should have been possible. He had actually just brought in a shortened, newly-painted tank from another Bloodhound, supplied by his superiors, of course. It was shorter to make room for the new-engine placement. The non-magical technicians had then installed it. After the pressure test for leaks, he had cast a notice-me-not later that night, then cast the expansion spell on the inside of the new tank. It wasn’t permanent — a week, at most —they only needed the expanded capacity to last until an hour after launch when the tank would again be empty.
Fuelling the missile earlier in the day had required his constant vigilance in preventing the other technicians from noticing that they were putting in far more than would normally fit in the space occupied by the tanks.
The confundus was both a blessing and a curse.
While it made it easy to get the technicians doing the fuelling from noticing that the kerosene and LOX trucks were far too large, it also meant the technicians weren't paying as much attention to their jobs as needed when handling dangerous, explosive materials!
The other two were giving the missile and its launch rig a more critical eye. BNSC was using the original mount — no need, really, to change that. It made things much simpler. For the mount, the missile weighed just the right amount for a fully fuelled missile.
They moved over to the launch control vehicle.
The head technician looked up.
“Everything is green. We couldn’t ask for better weather conditions, and the airspace is clear.”
David and Arthur just nodded. The launch schedule wouldn’t be changed unless something went wrong. So far, nothing had.
The four solid-propellant boosters were unchanged from the original. They would fire for only three seconds, but in those three seconds they would push the missile to Mach 2.5, or eight-hundred and fifty-seven meters per second. It was an acceleration that would pulp a human, nearly twenty-nine times the Earth’s gravity.
The launch was spectacular. One moment the missile was on its mount, the next it wasn’t. Even knowing where to look, Thomas lost sight of the missile almost instantly.
“One point two kilometres down-range, three-quarters of a kilometre altitude, climbing at eighty-eight degrees. Boosters off. Main engine in nominal range. Boosters have dropped,” a flight technician said. “Everything is green.”
Thomas knew the missile would now proceed at a more sedate acceleration of eighty-seven metres per second, or 8.8 gravities. The guidance system would make sure the missile maintained that near-vertical attitude until the engines shut down for good.
Compared to the earth’s orbital plane around the sun, the missile was spot-on at perpendicular. That reduced the odds that they might hit anything — while the plane the planets orbited in was filled with comets, asteroids, pebbles, dust, and other junk, vertically had a substantial reduction of such objects.
It also dramatically reduced the odds of interacting with any of the junk put in orbit in the last fifty years. The space might technically be nearly empty, but that nearly was still very crowded compared to the space between planets.
As expected, the modified Bloodhound out-ran their on-site radar installation and they switched to a feed from the UK Air Surveillance and Control System in Fylingdales.
Then came the steady chant of altitude readings as the missile climbed. Ten kilometres, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy, a hundred.
“Time mark, coming on sixty seconds . . . mark! Altitude, one hundred and fifty-seven kilometres. Velocity, 5.2 kilometres per second. Course within one percent of projected.”
Soon, Thomas knew, the missile would outrun their radar capabilities. Fylingdales, after all, was oriented more towards watching known launches of hostile aircraft and missiles from over the horizon, not staring straight up into space.
“Switching to SPACECOM for continued tracking . . . established.”
It was an unfortunate fact that launching any missile that went high enough might be construed as a military ballistic launch strike. As such they had to notify the Yanks, Russians, and Chinese — didn’t want any misunderstanding, right?
Britain had never launched a potential ballistic missile from the island. As a result, he knew that all three would be closely watching this launch, the yanks, especially. BNSC had had to confide in them that they were testing some new technology and needed assistance in tracking it. Hence, the standby feed from America once the missile cleared their horizon.
“All systems green, engine nominal,” called out one of the technicians.
“Coming on two-minute mark . . . mark! Altitude 626 kilometres. Velocity, ten point four kilometres per second. Course on track.”
The yanks’ shuttle lost its solid-fuel boosters at two minutes, approximately, but they only carried the shuttle to forty-five kilometres. There would be some intense interest from them, the Russians, and the Chinese on seeing this performance.
At nine minutes after launch, Thomas’ cellphone vibrated twice, then stopped. His wide grin at the success, so far, of the rocket launch grew a bit wider.
While the other scientists considered this merely a proof-of-concept test, Thomas knew the results could dramatically change the scope of the BNSC plans for a space plane, and the program they would build on top of this test.
How far did magic extend in space? Would the spells fail in Earth low orbit? How about middle? Or high orbit? Was geostationary the limit? What about farther away from the planet, like the moon?
The scientists were very unhappy at being unable to put any experiments on board — there hadn’t been sufficient time to create any. There were two, however, Thomas knew, in what used to be the warhead. They shared that space with the radio transmitter that would help the scientists track how far the missile actually travelled. The scientists weren’t allowed to know that, though. The notice-me-not had prevented any questions during installation and any subsequent inspections.
The first magical experiment had six components. It would test how far a port-key could reach. They knew the minimum had to be 12,756 kilometres, the Earth’s diameter at the equator, its widest distance, because wizards had used portkeys to cross from one side of the world to the other. But those were always based on being close to the ground. What about much higher? Or even beyond that?
The experiment used a mechanical timer and six portkeys. The first portkey, triggered by a plunger at nine minutes after launch, would be at an altitude of about thirteen thousand kilometres, to verify the minimum distance a portkey would work in space, and if it would work that far away from the ground.
That was what the phone call was about. Receiving it notified him that the first portkey had, indeed, arrived at its destination back on Earth. That confirmed that portkeys could be used to transfer back and forth between the earth and a space ship or station in medium orbit.
“Coming up on ten minutes and engine shutdown, on mark! . . . Mark!” A second technician announced, “Engine had shut down. Altitude verified as fifteen thousand kilometres, velocity according to doppler is fifty-two kilometres per second.” The engine had exhausted the twelve tonnes of fuel in its expanded fuel tank, and was now ballistic. There would be no problems when that spell failed some time tomorrow.
This was when the second experiment came into play. It was more important than the first. There was a bomb on board that was held from exploding by a small spell. Should the ambient magic fall to the point where it couldn’t maintain the spell . . . BOOM!
The abrupt cessation of the radio transmission would give them an exact distance to that failure.
Which would put a real damper on deep space exploration.
That it hadn’t failed, yet, meant there was hope.
David went to his car and pulled out a big bottle of champagne and a basket with a dozen glasses. As far as the scientists knew, the launch was a complete success and they could go home — after a suitable celebration, of course. The celebration would be brief for David, Arthur, and Thomas, then they would return to their headquarters via helicopter.
Thomas knew from their calculations that in two hours, while they were still in transport, the coasting missile would pass the moon’s orbit. That would activate the third portkey set for the Moon’s orbit. Before that, though, the second portkey would initiate at an hour and four minutes, a distance of two hundred thousand kilometres — halfway to the moon. That would clear all near-Earth space for the use of magic.
Twelve days later, it would pass Mars’ orbit relative to Earth, the distance at which Mars is closest to Earth, and trigger the fourth portkey. The fifth would activate in ninety days, at a distance of four hundred and two million kilometres, the maximum range between Earth and Mars. That would open up all of the inner solar system to easy and cheap exploration. Five months and twenty-three days after lift-off it would pass Jupiter’s orbit and the final portkey would activate. The entire asteroid belt would be open to safe exploration. Jupiter, itself, would be within portkey reach for almost six months at a time.
The portkeys would also provide important data, as the port-keyed devices used mechanical gauges to measure both pressure and temperature. Making everyone wear a spacesuit might be aggravating, but it would be better than having the first passenger arrive at their destination frozen solid because no one had checked for that danger. The included stop watches would also give them an exact measure on how long portkey travel took. Thomas was very interested in seeing how long a portkey to Mars would take.
Portkeys would make mining the asteroids a simple nine-to-five job! Resource limitations would become a thing of the past.
He was not disappointed to receive two more calls on his phone that he didn’t need to answer on his way home.
|
----(_)----
Yuri Koptev, the new Director for the Russian Space Agency, stared at the British Ambassador, Sir Rodric Braithwaite, almost speechless.
“You . . . are making a joke? Yes?” he said raising his eyebrows in consternation.
Rodric shook his head and smiled genially. “Not at all Director Koptev, my government wishes to buy your Storm shuttle for fifty million pounds. At the current exchange rate, that would be about four billion roubles. Which, if our information is correct, is the approximate cost of the space plane.”
Both were speaking fluent Russian.
“No,” Yuri said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but no.”
Rodric sighed dramatically. “Director Koptev, for the last three years the Storm space plane has been drastically underfunded. The second flight was supposed to take place in 1989, but was scratched to provide funding for other satellites. The second ship, the Little Bird, despite being delivered in 1989, is still sitting in its hanger only ninety-percent complete.”
He leaned forward. “The likelihood that the Kremlin will release sufficient funds to launch the Storm are nearly zero. As Director, you must know that. You might get the funds for finishing Little Bird, but that money would be better spent building and launching a weather satellite or for unmanned scientific exploration. Which is where I would expect such funds to go, regardless of them being released for the shuttle. Plus, the Storm is just not cost-effective to use as a truck to the MIR space station. The Proton rocket is a cheaper alternative, giving you three trips for the cost of the one it would take for the Storm.”
He shook his head sadly, just thinking about it, and leaned back in his chair.
“Based on the political climate of the last few years, I highly doubt the Storm will ever fly again.” He shook his head again. “It’s a shame, too. It is clearly superior to the Yanks’ shuttles. Your unmanned flight in 1988 proved that. If you were to sell it to us, it would still proudly proclaim Russian engineering while giving you a major cash infusion for your other, more important, projects.”
He looked out the window. “Don’t tell anyone I told you, but you might be able to secure an agreement to have one or two of your cosmonauts participate on all the flights.” He glanced back at the Director. “And to carry out some maintenance on some of your satellites at no charge.”
They stared at each other.
“At the very least,” he said, “you’ll recoup nearly half of your investment in the program and pay for quite a few of the others without having to bother the Kremlin for additional funding.” He paused a moment. “Having it all in pounds instead of roubles would insulate your budget from the vagaries of inflation, too.”
Yuri stared at him silently. “We saw your launch last week. Something so small should have been run out of fuel long before leaving the atmosphere.”
Rodric nodded. “It was a proof-of-concept test,” he said amiably. “Now we want to put it to serious use.” He gave the other a level look. “We could build our own space plane, but we don’t have the infrastructure in place, yet. It would probably take months or years before we had something ready to fly. It would be much cheaper, safer, and faster to purchase the Storm.” He leaned forward slightly. “If we can get the Storm for a reasonable price, we’ll be on the Moon before the fall.” He paused. “And so could your cosmonauts.”
Yuri frowned in thought and studied the Ambassador.
“This is new technology from the Equestrians, isn’t it?”
Rodric smiled.
“And you aren’t going to share it, are you?”
“If you were in our shoes, would you?” Rodric replied.
“The Equestrians, they are happy with you hoarding what you have learned from them?” came the incredulous answer.
Rodric shook his head, “It was their idea, actually. One of the first items they acquired were several dozen histories books. They fear that if everything they knew was freely distributed; the planet would descend into a series of bitter wars. They much prefer that the United Kingdom act as a gatekeeper.”
He sighed. “Their political climate is somewhat similar to the United Kingdom’s. We have a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch, they have a constrained nobility with a duarchy.”
“Duarchy?”
“Yes, they are ruled by sister princesses instead of a monarchy, and their nobility operates much like our House of Lords.” He smothered a grin. “Apparently, the Princesses were quite taken with the concept of a House of Commons and are in the process of trying to duplicate it.
“Just as you would feel more comfortable dealing with a communist country, so they are more comfortable with us, than say, the American Republic or Iraq. The current turmoil in the former Soviet Union states has them uncomfortable at the prospects of keeping the more violent aspects of their technology out of the hands of terrorists or violent states such as Iran and Afghanistan.
“Apparently, they’re using England’s response to the introduction of some of their technology as a guideline for what they . . . release in the future.” There was a short silence.
He signed and stood. “I’ve taken enough of your time, Director. Please give it some thought, and discuss it with your superiors. I’ll check back in a week to see if you want to negotiate a fair price.”
|
----(_)----
Watching as the Antonov Mriya cargo plane, with the Buran shuttle on its back, bank for its final approach at London Heathrow was awe inspiring, Thomas thought. The Antonov was a massive plane, easily the biggest airplane currently in use. It was accompanied by two Harrier escort jets.
Only the Hughes Hercules H4 “Spruce Goose” was larger, and that was only by a meter or two. However, the Spruce Goose — made of birchwood, despite its name — had only flown once. That was an impromptu decision of the pilot, Hughes, during a taxi-test. It never went higher than seventy feet, and lasted only a minute before landing, but it did prove it could fly.
Which made the eight-hour flight of the Antonov carrying the twenty-two-ton Buran even more impressive as an accomplishment.
The airport authorities had suspended all other landings and take-offs for a fifteen-minute window. They didn’t want any distractions for the pilots of the plane during its approach and taxi off the main runway. A bay in one of the airport’s maintenance hangers was prepped and waiting for the shuttle’s refurbishing and upgrading. Despite being a “civilian” project, the military was in sharp evidence, providing security and keeping the curious at a distance.
After landing, it took three cranes to lift the Buran so the Antonov could be towed from underneath it. It was another three hours before the shuttle was safely ensconced in its bay.
The day after tomorrow, the Antonov would return home to pick up the cockpit training module for transport to the European Astronaut Centre near Cologne, Germany. The EAC was, of course, the European version of NASA for astronaut selection, training, and support.
In the meantime, the Antonov would take the limelight as its technicians and engineers checked the plane for problems this evening. Tomorrow, they would be more than happy to give tours of the inside to the enthusiastic crowd. The Soviet political system might be in disarray, but the engineering on display was world-class. And they wanted to brag.
As for the Buran?
Thomas almost pitied the poor technician tasked with relabelling the Buran’s instruments in both Russian and English. A simple, but tedious job, requiring the dismantling of the entire cockpit.
Not so tedious would be upgrading the eight downward thrusters on the space plane to match the rear engines’ 8800kgf power. With those in place, vertical landing and take-off on the moon would be child’s play for a Harrier pilot. Unfortunately, that would require some major modifications to the nose and back-plane assembly. Assisting with that, however, would be the use of impervius charms to allow much lighter and smaller nozzles on the engines.
With the use of feather-weight charms to cut the shuttle’s weight to a quarter of normal when fully loaded, they could even manage vertical landings and take-offs on Earth, if they had to do so. But they wanted to keep that particular possibility a secret, for a while. Just pretending the engines had the lift capacity for a lunar landing was pushing the believability point for many people.
Also, the number of rear engines would be increased to six.
The rest of the forty-six Reaction Control System engines would be left alone. Simplifying things, however, was that unlike the yanks’ shuttle, all of the Buran’s engines fed off the same fuel tanks.
With luck, the first trial earth-to-orbit-and-back would be in July. Then the mission to the moon in late August.
The Space Race was about to get a kick in the pants.
And Britain would lead the way.
Thomas was elated to have been the one selected to assist in this project. His first love had been space and rocketry — until his Hogwarts letter had arrived. Being summarily frozen out of the wizarding world after graduation by pure-blood bigots had left a sour taste in his mouth. Doubly so when he realized he was drastically under-qualified, education-wise, for anything but the most menial of jobs with only a record of his primary years. Two years of hard study had gotten him his secondary years covered, and his necessary General Certificates of Secondary Education with excellent grades.
While he didn’t have a Uni degree to make it into a more direct role in the BNSC, even being peripherally associated with it as a low-level repair technician in the Royal Air Force had been nice. Not surprisingly, he had an outstanding record of always being able to repair something in record time.
When word had creeped over to him that the government was looking for a few people with “special” talents, he had waited a few months before stepping forward. He had been more than a little surprised to discover that his “special” knowledge brought an instant transfer and promotion. His unique knowledge of airplanes had brought him to this project.
|
----(_)----
Later that night, close to one in the morning, he slowly walked around the shuttle’s bay. It was one of two bays in the building. Currently, he was outside, and casting a light notice-me-not every few feet on the walls, and every visible window and door, surrounding the Buran’s bay. Only specially authorized personnel would not be affected — they had to wear a special, barcoded badge for entry. He added an alert spell to the windows and doors. He would know if anyone tried to sneak in.
Once he completed that chore, he entered the other bay and did the same to the temporary wall, and doors, it shared with the Buran’s bay.
It would keep the curious from trying to evade the guards patrolling the building, and sneaking in to see the shuttle. The journalists were being especially nosy. His superiors didn’t want anyone not read into the project to notice things they shouldn’t.
The rest of his night, until nine and with a break for dinner, he spent examining the shuttle under the watchful eyes of the soldiers guarding it. A light confundus prevented them from noticing the reparos he cast to bring the shuttle’s exterior into near-new condition. Tomorrow, He would repeat the magical repairs on the inside. The following day, the Russian engineers coming as passengers in the Antonov, would tackle the chore of refurbishing and retrofitting space plane with the British technicians.
One chore would be lowering the height of the wings’ landing gear to barely above the pavement while increasing the length of the nose’s gear. At the moment, the shuttle had a distinct downward slant from its tail to its nose, not a good attitude for taking off from a runway.
It was his job for the next few months to make sure the Russian engineers didn’t “notice” the magical items that were being installed. It wasn’t that terrible a problem, in truth. The British engineers could do enough hand-waving and fast-talking to cover the reduced-in-size heavy-duty engines that would replace the original RSCs, and the impervious spells on the smaller nozzles that would prevent their degradation in use. The big problem would be concealing that the tanks that formerly held 7.5 tonnes of propellant that now could hold over 2,000 tonnes. Hopefully, they wouldn’t notice that until the shuttle was actually fuelled.
And even then, it should be simple to keep them distracted.
The trickiest part would be the feather-weight spell. Normally that was an on-or-off spell, unless the wizard was constantly monitoring it. Thomas had heard that they were building a “special technology” box that would be adjustable on-the-fly, so to say. It would take a team of wizards to overlay the actual spell on the shuttle, but the box would make it variable from no-change all the way to reducing the shuttle to only a tonne. There was no need to worry about accidentally making the plane lighter than air, though. The spell would only counter to a set lower-percentage of whatever the space plane massed.
The tentative plan for that was to do it two days before the engines were tested.
Portkeys worked to the moon; they now knew.
A special habitat was being built for the shuttle to carry that they would leave on the moon. With an airlock and indoor portkey target, to and from the moon would be just an afternoon’s jaunt. A target would be placed outside for larger deliveries that didn’t need to worry about being in a vacuum.
The eggheads were arguing over whether the small moon-base should be placed at the north or south pole. Lunar axial precession was small enough that a solar panel on the highest peak in either location would give them non-stop power. It would only cost a few million pounds sterling instead of the hundreds of millions it would cost to cart everything to the moon. Not even a small nuclear reactor would be cheaper.
Both locations would give access to the “dark” side of the moon, away from the radio interference of the Earth.
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Thirty-eight thousand tiles. Thirty. Eight. Thousand. Tiles.
He was soo sick of this.
Thomas stared at the side of the shuttle in front of him. They had thought that applying an impervius charm would be simple. It meant they wouldn’t have to worry about damaged tiles due to impacts, heat, friction, or any other force of nature or man. The spell made something repel substances and outside forces. The tiles, for all intents and purposes, would be indestructible.
Ha!
It might have been simple if the tiles weren’t designed to be easily replaced.
Set an impervius on wall? Easy! It has a window? Apply a second impervius to that! Oh, a door? Another impervius. Why separate charms? Because they were separate items! They were designed to be separate.
Otherwise, if you set an impervius on a wall with a door, the door wouldn’t open. You needed to use force to push or pull the door in regards to the wall. The wall was impervius and the door was included in that!
So, here he was, assigned with nine other Special Technology officers going over the shuttle, charming each individual tile. And it was exhausting. None of them could do more than a hundred of the charms without nearly reaching magical exhaustion — which only took about two hours for each of them. Then they needed a night’s sleep to recharge their magic.
Thirty-nine days. Eight weeks, with the weekends off. They’d been at it for two weeks, and had six weeks to go
On the other hand, he did notice on Friday he had managed a hundred and five tiles before he had had to quit. Exercising your magic to the limit was beneficial. Tedious, but beneficial in the long run.
For the other nine wizards, it was easy. Officially, they were performing an in-depth maintenance check on the tiles. They came in at the end of a normal six-hour shift at their other duties, then spent the last two here in the hanger casting the impervius charm. They disguised their wands by slipping them inside a “probe” with a meter on it, and wore special googles that let them see which tiles had already been charmed.
For Thomas it was more complicated.
He had been assigned to fly on the shuttle for both the test flight and the moon flight. His superiors wanted a wizard on the crew as backup in case something went wrong. The crew would have emergency portkeys if something went disastrously wrong, but if it was something that could easily be handled by a wizard, why abandon the ship for a minor issue?
Which meant he spent eight hours a day in Cologne, Germany, in the EAC undergoing the same training the other astronauts were going through. At the end of the day, he apparated to Calais, France, took the Ferry to Dover, then portkeyed to the shuttle hanger. As soon as he arrived, he went to work on the shuttle for his two-hour shift. Then collapsed into bed by nine.
At six the next morning, he returned to Cologne and had breakfast with the other astronauts.
A gruelling day, to say the least. However, he would end up knowing the shuttle better than anyone else going on the shuttle. Which wasn’t a bad thing, now was it? After all, he was now a Flight Specialist Engineer.
He grinned.
He was going to space!
He was going to the Moon!
A life-long fantasy, one he had abandoned when he got his Hogwarts letter for another fantasy — magic.
And now he had both!
He realized he was giggling madly when he noticed the soldiers patrolling inside the hanger giving him odd glances. It probably didn’t help that he was here so late in the evening, instead of during the day.
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Major Thomas stood with Administrator David Williams and Director General Arthur Pryor as they watched the Buran being towed out of its hanger — they were keeping the name unchanged as part of the seventy-million pound-sterling deal with the Russians.
Today was the first big test of their modifications to the engines on the space plane. The avionics had been tested inside the hanger the previous week. The plane’s remote controls appeared to be perfectly integrated with the plane’s new capabilities. At least, as far as responsiveness. How it would perform under power was to be tested today in the U-shaped engine-test-run pen opposite the hangers.
The press was in heavy attendance, with several reporters almost run over by the various other pieces of equipment being manoeuvred around at the same time.
Under each of the wheels of the craft were special wheeled “platforms” that supported hydraulics group-programmed to lift five-sixths of the shuttle’s weight, to a maximum height of one meter. The concept, as the information specialist had explained to the reporters, was that they could test the effectiveness of the new “vertical flight” engines this way. If the engines could lift the shuttle’s effective weight of one-sixth normal, then they would be sufficient to handle landing on the moon.
What they were actually testing was the effectiveness of the feather-weight spell on the craft when used with its control module. They would then test the various new RCS nozzles for their effectiveness in “flying” the shuttle around inside the “pen.” Flight Commander Oscar Baker and his co-pilot, Pilot-Cosmonaut Vicktor Mikhailovich Afanasyev, formerly a Soviet Air Force Major, would be testing their abilities in “flying” the craft while it “hovered.”
No one was worried about that last part. Being both being former Air Force pilots, with Baker being a former Harrier pilot, this was more of a familiarization routine.
In truth, the avionics computer would be doing the “hard” work. The two pilots’ contribution would be more in the line of deciding general directions to move the plane in the test-run area, not manually adjusting the fuel flows to each nozzle.
The test was . . . loud.
And very successful.
Not a single non-magical twigged to the fact that the shuttle had had its weight magically reduced.
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It hadn’t really sunk in that he was going into space until Flight Commander Baker released the brakes and space plane began to move down the runway.
Up until that moment, he had been too involved in watching the instruments in his dashboard, and his magical spells, to notice them being pushed-back from the hanger, firing up the rear rockets, and taxiing to their take-off position. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a window beside his Flight Engineer’s seat on the right side of the cockpit. His seat was behind and to the right of the co-pilot, Pilot-Cosmonaut Vicktor, and his seat hid the front windshield quite well. It was also a step lower. The only windows he could see out of were the overheads, which provided him only a sight of the clear sky.
He sank back into his seat as the shuttle accelerated, and decided he would be adding a camera-like charm to the hull, with the display beside him. There was certainly the clear wall space. It would be easy to write the addition off as some of the “special technology” from the Equestrians — a tiny camera and lightweight paper-thin screen. Then place another beside the chair behind and to the left of the pilot, in which was seated the Mission Specialist, Cosmonaut Yelena Vladimirovna Kondakova. She was a brown-eyed brunette with a wicked sense of humour.
In fact, perhaps he should put in a score of them, giving views from every angle out of the space plane? It would be a simple matter to have a tile echo the view from its position, much like a magical mirror could do.
He didn’t need a window, though, to know that practically the entire runway was lined with journalists. This would be the first joint British-Russian flight of a space plane, taking off from the ground, going to orbit, and returning.
Once again, Heathrow’s normal operations had been placed on a fifteen-minute hold while the Buran used runway 09L/27R. At three thousand and nine hundred metres, it was the longest runway in Britain. They didn’t need that much room for their take-off, as the Antonov had. They needed only one thousand metres in their current configuration — that is, an empty payload bay. When they carried the Lunar Base Module, they would need more, about two thousand metres.
He could feel the surge as first the nose gear, then the wings’ gear left the tarmac. The Buran lifted off the runway and he slid deeper into his seat as the plane angled up to gain altitude faster. A few moments later, he felt the craft tilt slightly to his right to correct their flight path to a more southernly direction from east to put them in an equatorial orientation when they left the atmosphere.
The Buran was now under remote control, just as it had been in 1989. Commander Baker was keeping an eagle eye on instruments, and hands and feet on the controls, just in case there was an emergency. For this trip into space, they were all passengers.
Their course temporarily put them over the channel and away from populated areas. The landing-gear indicators went from green-locked-down to yellow for in-transit. A few moments later, there was clunk and the green landing-gear locked-up lights came on in his dashboard as the other indicator shut off. Following that was another thud, more felt than heard, as the light for the landing-doors-closed changed from red to green.
So far, so good. Everything that was supposed to green was green and everything that was supposed to red was red.
The engines throttled back to keep their air-speed below Mach One — they didn’t want a sonic boom to disturb Britain’s French neighbours. Once they were high enough, the engines would once more be pushed to maximum thrust. They would remain there until the Buran reached its assigned altitude and orbit.
If it weren’t for the knowledge that they were headed for space, Thomas would almost have been bored. It was only that they didn’t level off at 10,500 metres, as most planes did, that was different from commercial air travel. It was a smooth and steady climb.
Twenty-eight minutes after take-off, they were in orbit.
It. Was. Glorious.
“This is not possible,” Vicktor said disbelievingly. “The fuel tanks are not big enough.”
Thomas could see Yelena nodding her head. He was prepared for this, though. His wand was taped to his arm, with the tip coming through a special valve in his spacesuit at the wrist. He cast two quick confundus charms. Thank Merlin, the space suits they all wore were no more an impediment to the charm than a heavy coat was.
“Don’t forget,” Thomas said, “We’ve adapted some of the Equestrian technology to get better performance out of our engines.”
He couldn’t see the Russian co-pilot, but Yelena had a slightly confused expression as she nodded.
Then it was on to the minor tasks they need to perform — primarily taking pictures and putting the various capabilities of the shuttle to the test. Opening and closing the cargo doors, checking the airlocks to both the cargo bay and for EVA, testing the performance of the cargo bay manipulator arm, putting the different RCS engines through their paces, using the microwave for a quick hot coffee, and, in general, making sure everything on-board worked the way it should. Every cabinet was opened and closed, every access port opened and checked, even the on-board toilet was given a test by the crew.
Too soon, it seemed to Thomas, they had to make ready to return to Earth.
After buckling back into his chair, Thomas jokingly said, “If they had loaded the Lunar Base Module, I’d suggest we make a side-trip to the moon.”
There were several sighs, and a murmured “Da!”
Then the RCS engines went into action and they were on their way home.
As the Buran rolled onto Heathrow’s taxiway, Thomas heaved a heavy sigh, sad the mission had been so short.
Tomorrow and the next day, the technicians would give the space plane a thorough examination. With such a flawless flight, and the perfect score he knew the technicians would give the plane, the moon mission would be scheduled as soon as the Lunar Base Module was completed.
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It was Thursday, one day before the last quarter of the moon, but the sun wasn’t up yet. Not for another forty-five minutes
The Buran had just been towed out of its hanger, and Thomas was nearly beside himself in excitement and anxiety. This was it, their mission to the moon. The addition of the four viewscreens was much appreciated by the crew. They now had the ability to look anywhere around the craft, fourteen cameras, at the twist of a knob. Linking them in sets of two would even give recordings stereo views in all six directions. Five cameras at the tip of each wing, three at the nose — one forward and one to each side — and one at the back.
His and Yelena’s viewscreens were permanently on, but the Oscar’s and Vicktor’s viewscreens were more akin to a heads-up display that could overlay their windshields if needed.
The take-off was simple, a duplicate of the original, as soon as they cleared the runway, the ship barely had to change its eastward heading, just its attack angle. Unlike the yanks had done in the seventies, this was a direct shot to the moon, no orbiting the earth first.
He got to watch the ground steadily drop away, and the sky slowly change from blue to purple to black. This time, though, they had the cameras running, giving them a complete recording of their take-off and journey to space. They were actually recording from the tips of both wings and the tail-fin. The wing-tip cameras would provide a unique three-dimensional view of their take-off from both directions.
It was more than passingly strange, and fascinating, to watch the Earth slowly dwindle in the wing camera he was viewing from. They were moving fast enough, already, to see the Earth getting smaller by the second.
When they returned home, the space shuttle would be examined, and upgraded with what they had learned. The next time the Buran flew, it would be to deliver some new Russian satellites, and recover a few of the old ones that were now defunct. With unlimited fuel, there was basically no reason not to start removing some of the junk remaining in space. That was especially true of the satellites in high geosynchronous orbits, there were at least half-a-dozen he had heard about. Then there were the satellites that were in elliptical orbits, going from low-to-high and back.
The advantage to that was they would be clearing up orbital positions for new satellites. Not to mention salvaging rare materials for recycling.
But that was the future.
It was a boring flight. Monitoring his instruments took very little effort. He almost wished he could play a movie to alleviate the boredom. The only tasks for Yelena and himself were to monitor the recorders and make sure there were no issues — and to switch the feeds when appropriate.
Their flight path was almost ruler straight once they left the atmosphere. The main engines fired non-stop, accelerating them for just shy of one-hundred-and-five minutes, one-and-three-quarters of an hour. That put them halfway to the moon, 200,000 kilometres from Earth.
This was the turnover point, where the ship rotated to point the main engines towards the moon. Although it was fun to get out of his seat and stretch in zero-gravity, it didn’t provide much excitement. The pre-programmed computer took care of everything, perfectly.
Then came hundred and five minutes of deceleration that left them almost stationary compared to the moon, only a few kilometres above the south-pole surface. From there, they began a slow drift downwards to touchdown — a vertical landing, of course.
The anticipation as they closed in on the moon made him almost giddy. He was pleased to note that he wasn’t he only one, although the other three did a better job of hiding their excitement. The suppressed excitement echoed from the communications systems at BNSC and ESA.
The landing was as smooth as silk. Like clockwork, the RCS thrusters fired in the proper sequence as the main engines severely cut back and the space plane began to drop to the surface. At three hundred metres, the shuttle transitioned from a vertical, on-its-tail, position to horizontal. The RCS down motors fired up and gently began lowering them as the wheels came out of their respective housings.
At the same time, the bottom facing cameras came on to present the pilot and co-pilot with a view of the ground below them. The lights in the wheel-wells were more than adequate in providing the illumination needed to eliminate any shadows.
Fortunately, unlike the first yank landing on the moon, the Baker didn’t have to take last-second control to prevent landing on a boulder and crashing to the surface. Instead, they settled gently to the ground and the engines shutdown.
The silence after so many hours of the thrusters left his ears ringing.
“Yes!” he loudly exclaimed, pumping his right arm.
Almost immediately, Oscar said, “Lady and gentlemen, welcome to the Moon!”
Now came the fun parts of the mission. Fun, but tedious, once they got over the excitement of being on the moon and jumping around a bit.
The next sixteen hours were carefully choreographed.
Soil samples were taken from many different locations, a seismometer was set up, a surface magnetometer, a solar wind spectrometer, an atmospheric composition detector, a lunar interior heat-flow detector, and finally, a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. These were similar to experiments that had been deployed by the yanks’ Apollo missions decades ago, and most were no longer operational. The data from these new, and more sensitive, experiments would be compared to the previous sets for discrepancies and new data. The scientists hoped for a deeper understanding of the physical processes on the Moon.
They also took extensive photographs, and gathered and tagged any rocks or soil samples that looked interesting. The definition for both was rather nebulous. Their goal was to bring back approximately hundred and eighty-two kilos of material, or four hundred and one pounds. One hundred pounds each for the ESA, U.K., and Russia. Equestria would get one hundred and one pounds, because this couldn’t have happened without their contacting the British government last summer.
The soil and rock samples would tell them how different the Lunar pole sections were from the equatorial sections explored by the yanks. Whether they were different or not would answer many questions about the formation of the moon and how it had changed over the billions of years it had existed. Naturally, as in most experiments, the results would probably raise more questions that they answered.
It didn’t sound like a lot when listed, but placing each experiment took time, and several required pieces to be buried in the soil. While they were placing these various items, they were scouting for a good spot for Lunar Habitat Module.
Their final decision for the Modules placement, with help from the ESA, was about two kilometres away, at the base of a tall peak in a crater wall. The peak would be the mount for their solar panels. Moving the Buran the short distance, no more than a brief hop, was easy.
By the time final lift-off arrived, they were all looking forward to the nap they could take on the way back.
The space plane inserted itself into a twelve-hour elliptical orbit around the Earth. It went from a low of five hundred kilometres to a high of forty thousand — a Molniya orbit. Once a day, the low was over England and gave any trained wizard a short window of about ten minutes to apparate to the craft. Portkeys, of course, would work at any time.
“Does everyone have their translocator ready?” Thomas asked, as he looked at the other three. The ship was on stand-by now, a low-power mode that kept the ship barely about five degrees above Centigrade zero. This would be a test of the how well the ship would perform over an extended time in space, and how long it would take to make it habitable when it returned to service.
The translocators were, of course, actually portkeys with an activation knob. It had to be opened, the knob inside twisted, and then firmly pressed. An awkward procedure when wearing spacesuit gloves. Deliberately so, in fact, to prevent accidental activation.
Their hoard of Lunar soil and rocks in its sealed steel box had already been sent down with a separate “translocator.” It had used a mechanical timer to trigger it.
All four were suit-sealed at this point, and on the lower deck under the command deck.
“Just like the tests at the EAC, this’ll drop us into a pool. Oscar goes first, Yelena goes second in thirty seconds, Vicktor third, and I’ll go last. Right?” They nodded. As the expert on the Special Technology, Thomas was in command.
“Buran to Ground Control,” Thomas said, hitting the ship’s transmit toggle on the wall. “First translocation in five seconds. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”
Oscar twisted and pushed the portkey control on his waistbelt, and disappeared.
“Ground Control to Buran, Flight Commander Baker has arrived.”
The other two disappeared on schedule.
While he was waiting for his “translocation,” Thomas quickly cast a notice-me-not on the shuttle. They didn’t want any spy satellites getting a closer look, not just yet, at least. Nor did they want a satellite to drop off a tracking package of any kind.
Later, after the performance test, they would cancel the spell, and then remotely fly the shuttle home and prepare it for its next mission.
Next year summer, the Buran would land on Mars.
If things continued at the current pace, it wasn’t impossible that in ten years the Buran would arrive in the Alpha Centauri system.
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