Voyage. Stephen Baxter

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СКАЧАТЬ in the control room. All report that they are go for the mission and this has been reported to the test supervisor.

      The test supervisor is now going through some more status checks.

      Launch operations manager reports go for launch.

      Mission Control at Houston reports that all systems on the Ares orbital booster cluster are also nominal and ready to support the mission. The need to be in plane with the cluster, to enable the docking, is imposing a tight window on today’s launch.

      Launch director now gives the go. We are at T minus four minutes, fifty seconds and counting.

      At launch time, you may wish to look out for flights of pelicans, egrets and herons, from the marshy land here on Merritt Island. Forty years ago Merritt pretty much belonged to the birds, and they’re still here, although nowadays they’re disturbed every few months by a new launching.

      It has taken nine Saturn VB launches so far to put the Ares complex into orbit. Today’s will be the tenth. So nesting isn’t so good any more.

      T minus four minutes and counting. As a preparation for main engine ignition, the fuel valve heaters have been turned on. T minus three minutes fifty-four seconds and counting. The final fuel purge on the main engines has been started. That’s the vapor you can see there, billowing across the launch pad, away from the Saturn booster.

      The liquid oxygen replenish system has been turned off, so we can pressurize the tanks for the launch.

      The wind is below ten knots, and we have a thin cloud layer. That’s pretty nearly perfect launch weather, well within mission rules.

      It is typically hot, humid Florida weather here, on this historic day, Thursday March 21, 1985.

      T minus three minutes forty seconds and counting.

      I am told that there are an estimated one million here with us today, the largest turnout for a launch since Apollo 11. Welcome to all of you. You might like to know that among the celebrities watching the launch today in the VIP enclosure are Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Joe Muldoon and Michael Collins, cosmonaut Vladimir Viktorenko, along with Liza Minnelli, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, William Shatner, sci fi authors Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, and singer John Denver. We’re sure you aren’t going to be disappointed.

      T minus three minutes twenty seconds and counting. Ares is now on internal power.

      Coming up on T minus three minutes.

      T minus three minutes and counting.

      The engine gimbal check is underway, to ensure that the engines are moving freely, ready for flight control.

      T minus two minutes fifty-two seconds. The liquid oxygen valves on both stages have been closed and pressurization of fuel and oxidizer tanks has begun.

      T minus two minutes twenty-five seconds and counting. The liquid oxygen tanks are now at flight pressure.

      Coming up on two minutes away from launch.

      T minus two minutes mark, and counting. Two minutes from launch.

      The liquid hydrogen vent valves have been closed and the hydrogen tanks’ flight pressurization is underway.

      T minus one minute fifty seconds and counting. No holds so far.

       Capcom John Young has just said, ‘Smooth ride, baby,’ to astronauts Phil Stone, Ralph Gershon and Natalie York. Mission Commander Stone has replied, ‘Thank you very much, we know it will be a good flight.’

      T minus one minute thirty-five seconds and counting.

      T minus one minute ten seconds and counting. All liquid hydrogen tanks are at flight pressure.

      T minus one minute, mark, and counting.

      The firing system for the sound suppression water system will be armed just a couple of seconds from now.

      The firing system has now been armed.

      T minus forty-five seconds and counting.

      T minus forty seconds and counting. The development flight instrumentation recorders are on. We are still go with Ares.

       Astronaut Stone reports: ‘It feels good.’

      T minus thirty seconds.

      We are just a few seconds away from switching on the redundant sequence. This is the automatic system for engine cut-off.

      T minus twenty-seven seconds and counting.

      We have gone for redundant sequence start.

      T minus twenty seconds and counting. Sound suppression system fired. Solid Rocket Boosters armed.

      T minus fifteen, fourteen, thirteen.

      T minus ten, nine, eight.

      Main engine start.

       Book 1 DECISION

       THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

      Thursday, February 13, 1969

      

      MEMORANDUM for

      

      The Vice President

      The Secretary of Defense

      The Acting Administrator; National Aeronautics and Space Administration

      The Science Adviser

      

      It is necessary for me to have in the near future a definitive recommendation on the direction which the US space program should take in the post-Apollo period. I, therefore, ask the Secretary of Defense, the Acting Administrator of NASA, and the Science Adviser each to develop proposed plans and to meet together as a Space Task Group, with the Vice President in the chair, to prepare for me a coordinated program and budget proposal. In developing your proposed plans, you may wish to seek advice from the scientific, engineering and industrial communities, from the Congress and the public.

      I would like to receive the coordinated proposal by September 1, 1969.

      Richard M. Nixon

      Handwritten addendum: Spiro, do we have to go to Mars? What options have we got? RMN.

      

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