Dragon Rider
This is another Astro Boy pastiche in an original setting with mostly original characters.
Astro Boy (aka Tetsuwan Atom) is the creation of Osmau Tezuka.
Chapter 2
SpaceX Corporation, Hawthorne, CA
At first Elon Musk thought that the piece on the web comparing him to Iron Man's Anthony Stark was flattering and humorous. Then one day, someone put a working model arc reactor complete with flashing blue LEDs on his desk. A few days later the name plate on his secretary's desk was changed out to one reading "Pepper Pots." The latest joke was someone leaving an Iron Man suit from a Halloween shop hanging in his office closet, and he realized that things might soon get out of control. The price of fame, he sighed as he opened his email that morning.
There was the usual ton of corporate financial reports that he let his CFO handle, though he was copied on every one. What peaked his interests were the technical engineering status reports, Musk was a hands on CEO in the engineering sector. The progress report on the upcoming ISS resupply mission was what caught his eye this morning. It seemed that things were going well ahead of schedule, so much so in fact, that the Falcon-9 launch vehicle could be ready to ship to the KSC a full two weeks ahead of time. Preparation of the Dragon cargo spacecraft for the mission was also going better than planned, though the cargo manifest from NASA hadn't been fully certified yet. After a bit of thought, Musk came to a decision.
He picked up the phone and dialed Tim Buzza's extension. The corporate VP of Launch and Test answered the phone himself.
"Hello Mr. Musk, Buzza here."
"Good Morning Tim. I assume you've read the status reports from the assembly floor," Musk said.
"Yes, Elon. I think we are going to give NASA a big surprise, this time we will be waiting on them instead of the other way around."
"Let's take advantage of the situation. We've been given the green light to move our on-site assembly and mission preparation into the VAB now that the shuttle missions are history. Can we ship the Falcon a week early, and take advantage of the time to move into the VAB ahead of schedule?"
"I don't see why not, Mr. Musk. In fact we could probably move the schedule up by as much as ten days if you'd like."
"Excellent, make it so!" Musk hung up with a beaming smile on his face.
"Maybe I am a bit like Iron Man," he thought to himself.
David A. Boody Middle School, Brooklyn
As they had done everyday since their first week in the sixth grade, Atom and Cora walked home from school together either hand in hand, or arm in arm. Cora couldn't believe how the time had flown by. Next year they would be starting High School together. She started to daydream as memories flowed.
From their first day in Middle School Cora had been attracted to Atom. It may have been a maternal instinct, at just four feet tall Atom was the shortest kid in the class, and he seemed so weak and vulnerable. How wrong she had been about that! Then again, it may also have been because she had lost her best friend in her sister, who was now on the other side of the country in college.
She might have grown out of her puppy love for the cute little kid, except for that fateful first warm day of spring as their first year of middle school was coming to an end. Cora had used the lock picks, just as her sister had taught her, to gain access to the roof of her apartment building to sunbathe, just like the two of them had been doing for the past three years. Mike Finkle, that ogre, had been stalking her and cornered her up on the roof. What happened next still gave Cora nightmares. Mike chased after her and she tried to get away. She was only wearing her bikini bottom, flip-flops, and a towel to protect her modesty. Cora tried to run around him to get back to the stairwell, but she ran too close to the edge of the roof and slipped on a wet sheet of metal flashing. She fell over the low knee wall at the edge of the roof and was hanging over the side by her finger tips, screaming for help as she felt her grip giving way.
Cora started to fall to the street below her. She remembered falling forever, but in reality she was in free fall for only a second before Atom had caught her in mid air in his arms. When Cora felt her fall being broken, and looked at Atom's face as both of them were hovering four stories above the ground, she fainted. When she came to, she was back on the roof, lying on her lounge chair looking up into Atom's brown eyes. That was how Cora had learned just what Atom really was, and how she had fallen deeply in love with him.
Atom was no longer the tiny little kid he had been in the beginning. Cora didn't understand it, but Atom's creator-father had been able to modify his framework to allow him to grow. At any rate, he was now a good half foot taller than when she had first met him. He was still the shortest kid in his class, but he would pass for someone in his school grade.
They reached Cora's apartment building and shared a quick kiss goodbye. Tomorrow was another school day, when they would repeat the ritual.
June 3
Somewhere in North Korea
Dong-hyun Hwan, chief engineer and director of the KSA nervously looked over the technical data at his disposal. He seemed to be in luck, the rocket scientists working under him would have another test missile ready for launch in a few days. He had recently helped complete the prototype spy satellite that had been in design for the past year and a half. So Kim Jong-un's "request" would be accomplished within a safe time frame.
Dong-hyun only had to make sure that the launch site would be ready, and he'd do that in person. It would mean a personal inspection, and a bit of brow beating, but he'd been there and done that several times before. Hwan prayed that this time everything would go perfectly. His life could be on the line.
David A. Boody Middle School, Brooklyn
It was probably the first time ever that the students in Atom's science class had entered the classroom early. Mike ran up and turned on the television monitor before the teacher could reach the switch. Mr. Wilson gave Mike a glare that said "Sit down and shut up!" at about 100 db.
"OK, class," he said, "I'm glad to see you all here so early. As you know today is our live conference with the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Once the conference begins you can ask them questions at anytime with the microphone on my desk."
He switched the input setting on the TV monitor to connect it to his desk computer, which was already logged into the NASA website for the two way conference. Right on time, the connection was established with the space station and the first thing they saw was station commander Chris Hadfield smiling into the camera. The veteran astronaut said hello and started to introduce the rest of the station's crew.
"Hello students. My name is Chris Hadfield, and I'm the current commander here at the International Space Station, though in reality we all work together. I've lost count of the number of shifts I've put in up here, and I like to think my title is in name only. First let me introduce our newest member of the astronaut community, Sally Furth."
The camera panned to the left and zeroed on on the smiling spacewoman. Sally's hair was cut short, but it still stood up on end due to the micro gravity, as if she was sitting on top of a running Van de Graaff generator.
"Hello class. My name is Sally Furth. This is my very first trip into space and let me tell you I'm having the time of my life up here! My specialty is meteorology and climatology. I'm studying the effects of global warming from space. I'm also studying tropical weather, and a bit later I'll show you the latest disturbance that has formed in the East Atlantic. Now I'd like to introduce you to the Russian members of our team."
Again the camera turned and the faces of the two cosmonauts filled the TV screen.
"Hi, my name is Boris Dostovalov, and this ugly fellow to my left is Peter Gorbunov". Peter gave Boris a punch in the arm and replied, "He's really the ugly one, and jealous because I get all the hot chicks back home."
Off camera Chris spoke, "Just ignore them kids, those two love to kid each other. I'd better keep them off microphone before they break into telling some dirty jokes, in Russian of course."
The class broke into a bunch of giggles and Mr. Wilson smiled holding back his own laughter.
"Finally meet our mission specialist from Japan, Yuji Tanaka, who is working in the Kibo laboratory module." The camera panned once more and Yuji bowed politely to his audience.
"Normally," Hadfield said, "the ISS has a crew of six members, but we are currently short one member as the European space agency needed more time to prepare the experiments they were going to send up. We'll be back to our full complement after the next crew rotation cycle."
The camera followed Yuji toward the Kibo module.
"This is the Kibo Laboratory module," Yuji said. "The name means 'Hope' in English. This is the largest module in the station. In here we can perform research on space medicine, biology, materials production, biotechnology, communications, as well as detailed Earth observations. We also have facilities for growing plants and fish."
The video tour left Kibo as Tanaka stayed behind to feed his fish.
"This module is called Harmony," Chris said as they entered the next unit. "The docking ports for the Dragon spacecraft that bring supplies up to the station, and take spent items back to earth, are in this module. If we continue on through this module we will enter the Columbus Laboratory that was supplied by the European Space Agency. Our EVA spacesuits are stored in these two modules, and there is an airlock to the outside in Columbus."
The camera showed the tour leaving Harmony and into yet another section of the space station.
"We are now in the Destiny Laboratory. Destiny serves as the sleeping quarters for four members of the crew, the remaining two sleeping stations are in the Russian section. Destiny also has kitchen and bathroom facilities which are duplicated in the Russian end of the station. Off to the side here," the camera panned to where Chris was pointing, "is the external storage locker. All of our supplies that are unloaded from the Progress or Dragon cargo ships end up in here. Everything from toilet paper, to food and water, or oxygen bottles."
The video tour continued to the next section of the station.
"This module is called Unity. It serves to join the Russian section of the station with the part that we have just been in."
"Next, here is the Tranquility module," Sally Furth announced. "It serves as one of the station's control centers, mostly for the US side of the station. There is another control hub in the Russian side as well. Just off this module is my favorite part of the ISS, the Cupola."
The camera panned off of Sally's face and toward the inside of the Cupola. This section of the space station was mostly windows looking down toward the earth.
"I can sit in here for hours and stare at the earth below me," she said. "Now as I promised, here comes a lecture on meteorology."
The camera zoomed out the window to look down just off the coast of Africa.
"Down there you can see the first tropical depression of this hurricane season. If this storm develops winds that exceed 39 mph it will become a tropical storm and be given a name. The first name on this year's list is Adam."
Mike gave Atom a poke in the side. "Hey Adam the Atom, your clouds are showing!"
Atom grabbed Mike's right arm with both hands and twisted.
"Indian Burn!", he snickered.
"OUCH, CUT THAT OUT!", Mike cried.
Mr. Wilson grabbed Mike by the arm and dragged him to the other side of the room.
"Stop being a trouble maker or I'll have you sit out the rest of the class session in the hall, Mr. Finkle!"
"Now if the wind speed increase to over 74 mph, the storm becomes a hurricane," Sally continued. "Hurricanes are rated by their wind speed which can exceed 200 mph for the strongest ones at category 5. A category 1 storm has winds below 90 mph. The center of the storm is called the eye. All of the hurricane's winds revolve about the eye. Inside the eye wall it's actually calm. If the eye of a hurricane passes overhead, you can actually see blue sky and sun, there will be no wind or rain. Many people have been fooled into thinking the storm was over once they found themselves in the eye, only to be hit by the back side of the storm when the rear of the eye wall passed over them. The back side of the storm is often worse in intensity than the front!"
Cora picked up the microphone on Mr. Wilson's desk and asked, "How large is the eye, and how long does it last, the calm I mean?"
"Good question. That depends on the size of the storm's eye and how fast it's moving. Most hurricanes have eyes ranging from 5 to 120 miles in diameter. Sometimes they can be smaller though. In 1992 Hurricane Andrew was thought to have an eye less than 5 miles in diameter. Typically the calm in the eye will last for under an hour, though in some cases it could be many hours."
"Now our two comrades will take us into the Russian sector", Sally finished up.
Commander Hadfield carried the camera along while the two cosmonauts led the way. Peter and Boris finished showing the class the Zarya and Zveuzda modules of the station just as the bell rang indicating the end of the period.
"Thank you very much for the tour," Mr. Wilson told the astronauts. Behind him the class joined in a chorus of "Thank You" as the Internet connection closed down.
International Space Station
As soon as the camera was turned off and Command Hadfield was out of sight of the two Russians, Peter Gorbunov suddenly groaned and held his hand over his lower abdomen. Boris helped his fellow cosmonaut sit down (well float down anyway).
"I think I've been eating some bad caviar", Peter joked. "Maybe I need to go to the medical section for some antacid."
"Chush' sobach'ya," Boris replied, "I warned you that you should have not come on this mission. Now it looks like your appendicitis has come back for real this time. We're probably going to have to get you back down to earth for surgery. Let's get you some antibiotics and take your white count."