checklist so hard her fingers hurt.
Is that it? Is it over?
The master alarm sounded, jarring.
More lights appeared on the caution/warning array, and on another display to Angel’s right hand. Lamb killed the alarm.
“Uh oh,” said Angel. “There goes power unit two.”
The capcom said, “Copy that, Columbia. We confirm, APU two down.”
Lamb said evenly, “Well, we still have two out of three APUs up and running, so we’re still nominal.” But Benacerraf thought she could see something in the set of his shoulders.
The auxiliary power units sat in back of the orbiter, close to the OMS engine pods. And they already knew something serious had happened in that part of the ship. Lamb, she sensed, was starting to fear that the problem back there, whatever it was, might be spreading.
The cabin darkened; Columbia had flown for the last time into the shadow of Earth.
Hadamard took his seat on the podium for NASA officers, astronauts and guests, at the end of the press line. The PA was intoning the usual incomprehensible timeline technicalities, mixed in with the crackle of air-to-ground loops. A bunch of Morton Thiokol executives came to sit with Hadamard; they were clutching their blank commemorative stamp covers, that they could get stamped at the Base post office later. Everybody loved spaceships and astronaut pilot heroes, even these crusty aerospace types. Hadamard felt sour.
A plane, sleek and white, flew low over the landing site. Hadamard recognized it; it was a Shuttle Training Aircraft, a modified Grumman Gulfstream executive jet with a computer on board that modified the plane’s handling characteristics so that the astronauts could train for the orbiter’s unique landing approach. There used to be two STAs; Hadamard had cut one, soon after he got his job. It was a waste of money. There just wasn’t the demand for that many new Shuttle pilots.
He looked out over the landing site.
The lake bed was a plain of dried-out, cracked mud, stretching all the way to the mountains that shouldered over the horizon. The runway was just painted on the surface, as simple as that. It was fifteen thousand feet long, twice as long and wide as most commercial runways, with a five-mile overrun stretching off into the lake bed. Hadamard could see a team working its way along the runway on foot, looking out for foreign objects that might have settled there. Where the desert mud had been scuffed by feet and tires, it had turned to a fine powder that blew in the soft breeze across the press stands; Hadamard could see it settling on his patent leather shoes.
Beyond the runway Hadamard recognized the big blocky gantry of the mate-demate device, that would lift the orbiter onto its transport aircraft for the trip back to the Cape. It looked like some huge car-wash. A recovery convoy had gathered in a parking area, within sight of the runway. There was a big white-painted fire-tender in the middle of it all, and towing tractors, and a vapor dispersal truck with its big blowers, and there were the ground power and purging vehicles with their long, dangling umbilical hoses. There was a feeling of business, of competence, out there in the desert heat.
To Hadamard, a city boy whose haunt was Washington, D.C., this was a bleak alien place, inhabited by incomprehensible machines; he might as well have been transported to Mars.
There was a stir in the crowd around him.
He looked around, seeking its source. Some of the grizzled old veteran-type astronauts were looking up at the PA stands, shielding their eyes against the low sun. The air-to-ground loop sounded a lot tenser than before, with a lot of chatter about orbiter components called APUs.
Something, evidently, was going wrong.
Despite the gathering warmth of the sun, he started to feel cold.
He sure as hell didn’t want any major malfunctions showing up during this landing, or any other. It was a thought he hauled around with him constantly, during every one of these damn
Is that it? Is it over?
The master alarm sounded, jarring.
More lights appeared on the caution/warning array, and on another display to Angel’s right hand. Lamb killed the alarm.
“Uh oh,” said Angel. “There goes power unit two.”
The capcom said, “Copy that, Columbia. We confirm, APU two down.”
Lamb said evenly, “Well, we still have two out of three APUs up and running, so we’re still nominal.” But Benacerraf thought she could see something in the set of his shoulders.
The auxiliary power units sat in back of the orbiter, close to the OMS engine pods. And they already knew something serious had happened in that part of the ship. Lamb, she sensed, was starting to fear that the problem back there, whatever it was, might be spreading.
The cabin darkened; Columbia had flown for the last time into the shadow of Earth.
Hadamard took his seat on the podium for NASA officers, astronauts and guests, at the end of the press line. The PA was intoning the usual incomprehensible timeline technicalities, mixed in with the crackle of air-to-ground loops. A bunch of Morton Thiokol executives came to sit with Hadamard; they were clutching their blank commemorative stamp covers, that they could get stamped at the Base post office later. Everybody loved spaceships and astronaut pilot heroes, even these crusty aerospace types. Hadamard felt sour.
A plane, sleek and white, flew low over the landing site. Hadamard recognized it; it was a Shuttle Training Aircraft, a modified Grumman Gulfstream executive jet with a computer on board that modified the plane’s handling characteristics so that the astronauts could train for the orbiter’s unique landing approach. There used to be two STAs; Hadamard had cut one, soon after he got his job. It was a waste of money. There just wasn’t the demand for that many new Shuttle pilots.
He looked out over the landing site.
The lake bed was a plain of dried-out, cracked mud, stretching all the way to the mountains that shouldered over the horizon. The runway was just painted on the surface, as simple as that. It was fifteen thousand feet long, twice as long and wide as most commercial runways, with a five-mile overrun stretching off into the lake bed. Hadamard could see a team working its way along the runway on foot, looking out for foreign objects that might have settled there. Where the desert mud had been scuffed by feet and tires, it had turned to a fine powder that blew in the soft breeze across the press stands; Hadamard could see it settling on his patent leather shoes.
Beyond the runway Hadamard recognized the big blocky gantry of the mate-demate device, that would lift the orbiter onto its transport aircraft for the trip back to the Cape. It looked like some huge car-wash. A recovery convoy had gathered in a parking area, within sight of the runway. There was a big white-painted fire-tender in the middle of it all, and towing tractors, and a vapor dispersal truck with its big blowers, and there were the ground power and purging vehicles with their long, dangling umbilical hoses. There was a feeling of business, of competence, out there in the desert heat.
To Hadamard, a city boy whose haunt was Washington, D.C., this was a bleak alien place, inhabited by incomprehensible machines; he might as well have been transported to Mars.
There was a stir in the crowd around him.
He looked around, seeking its source. Some of the grizzled old veteran-type astronauts were looking up at the PA stands, shielding their eyes against the low sun. The air-to-ground loop sounded a lot tenser than before, with a lot of chatter about orbiter components called APUs.
Something, evidently, was going wrong.
Despite the gathering warmth of the sun, he started to feel cold.
He sure as hell didn’t want any major malfunctions showing up during this landing, or any other. It was a thought he hauled around with him constantly, during every one of these damn
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