4 — Space, The Final Frontier
Monday, March 30th, 1992, 10:00 AM
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 affront — Their God(s) had made humans the top of the heap, how dare these interlopers show up? Some Christians and Muslims 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.
These aliens had colours that almost should be visible from space, for god's sake!
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, so far, and seemed headed for zero!
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 hundreds or 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 both 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 the 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, nearly five-hundred million Sterling Pounds.
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 . . . then Mars . . . then the stars!"
They stared at him, wide-eyed, then downed their glasses.
!
- - -(_)- - -
Friday, April 24th, 8:45 PM
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 tanks. 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 tanks 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 don't-notice-this spell 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 — another detail from the Major.
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 eight-point-eight 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 a few seconds later.
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 don't-notice-this spell 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.
!
- - -(_)- - -
Thursday, April 30th, 9:08 AM
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, 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 diarchy."
"Diarchy?"
"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 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."
He signed. "If we can't come to a quick agreement, I'll have to approach the Yanks for one of their inferior shuttles."
!
- - -(_)- - -