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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30679-h.zip b/30679-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a34bf71 --- /dev/null +++ b/30679-h.zip diff --git a/30679-h/30679-h.htm b/30679-h/30679-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32a5dac --- /dev/null +++ b/30679-h/30679-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2243 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Trouble With Telstar, by John Berryman + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.img1 {border:solid 1px; } + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trouble with Telstar, by John Berryman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Trouble with Telstar + +Author: John Berryman + +Illustrator: John Schoenherr + +Release Date: December 14, 2009 [EBook #30679] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROUBLE WITH TELSTAR *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 359px;"> +<img class="img1" src="images/image_001.jpg" width="359" height="487" alt="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="500" height="714" alt="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/image_003.jpg" width="500" height="246" alt="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h1>THE TROUBLE WITH TELSTAR</h1> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">The real trouble with communications satellites is <br /> +the enormous difficulty of repairing<br /> +even the simplest little trouble. <br /> +You need such a loooong screwdriver.</p> +<p> </p> +<h2>by JOHN BERRYMAN</h2> +<p> </p> +<h3>ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_d.jpg" alt="D" width="25" height="50" /></div> +<p>oc Stone made sure I wouldn't give him the "too busy" routine. He +sent Millie to get me.</p> + +<p>"Okay, Millie," I said to Stone's secretary. "I'll be right with you." +I cleared the restricted notes and plans from my desk and locked them +in the file cabinet, per regulations, and walked beside Millie to +Stone's office.</p> + +<p>"It's a reflex mechanism, Mike," Dr. Stone said as Millie showed me +in. "Every type knows how to fight for survival." He took one +thoughtful puff on his pipe. "The old fud," he added.</p> + +<p>"The solenoid again, Doc?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"What else, Mike?" he said, raising his pale eyebrows. "It's Paul +Cleary's baby, and after all these years with the company, he doesn't +figure to go down without a fight."</p> + +<p>So I was in the middle of it. I had no business to be there, either. +The design of that solenoid certainly hadn't been mine. All I had ever +done was find out how to destroy it. And after all, that's part of +what my lab does, and what I do, for a living.</p> + +<p>"Quit staring out the window, Mike," Doc said behind me. "Here, sit +down."</p> + +<p>I took the chair beside the desk and watched him go through the +business of unloading his pipe, taking the carefully air-tight top off +the humidor we had machined for him down in the lab, and loading up +with the cheapest Burley you can buy. So much for air-tight +containers. Doc got it going, which took two wooden matches, because +the stuff was wringing wet—thanks again to an air-tight container.</p> + +<p>"I just left Cleary's office, Mike," he explained. "He won't admit +that there's any significance to the failures you have introduced in +his solenoid. He insists that your test procedures affected +performance more than design did, and he wants to talk with you."</p> + +<p>"Great," I said glumly. "Can I count on you to give me a good +recommendation for my next employer?"</p> + +<p>"Cut it out, Mike," he said, coming as near to a snap as his careful +voice could manage. He blew smoke out around the stem of his pipe. I +think sometimes it's a part of his act, like the slightly-out-of-press +sports jacket and flannel trousers. It says he is a sure enough Ph.D. +If you ask me, he's a comer. You can't rate him for lack of brains. He +knows an awful lot about solid-state physics, and for a physicist, he +sure learned enough about micro-assemblies of electronic components. I +guess that's why he was in charge of final assembly of the Telstar +satellites for COMCORP.</p> + +<p>"Don't worry about what Paul Cleary can do <i>to</i> you, Mike," he +suggested. "Think a little bit more about what Fred Stone can do <i>for</i> +you. Cleary is only a year or so from retirement, and you know it."</p> + +<p>"He could make that an awful tough year, Doc." I said. "You told me he +won't hear of design bugs in that solenoid. He'll insist something +went wrong in assembly."</p> + +<p>Doc Stone smiled thinly at me and brushed at his blond crew cut. "It +is a tough spot, Mike," he agreed. "Because I won't hear any talk of +faulty assembly. You'll have to choose, I guess. If you think you can +make your bed by playing footsie with an old fud who has only a year +to go, try it. Just remember that I've got another thirty years to go, +and I'll breathe down your neck every minute of them if you let me +down!"</p> + +<p>"Sure," I said. "When do I see him?"</p> + +<p>"Now."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Doc Stone got someone named Sylvia on the phone and then told me to go +right up. After I got there, I had to sit and wait in Cleary's outer +office.</p> + +<p>I shared it with a small, intense girl named Sylvia Shouff, if you +believed the little plastic sign on her desk. There was barely room +for it in the welter of paper, files, notebooks, phones, calendars and +other junk she had squirreled. She was much too busy banging at a +typewriter and handling the phone to pay any attention to me. Her +pert, lively manner said she hadn't taken any wooden nickels lately.</p> + +<p>But I had. The last series of tests in my lab had put me in the middle +of a hell of a scrap. It had all started a couple years back, when the +final design had been approved for a whole sky-full of communications +satellites. Well, eighteen, to be exact. One of the parts in the +design had been a solenoid, part No. M1537, which handled a switching +operation too potent for a solid-state switch. That solenoid was one +of the few moving parts in the Telstars, and it had been designed for +skeighty-eight million cycles before it got sloppy or quit.</p> + +<p>In practice, out in space, the switching operation simply hadn't +worked. After about a hundred hours of use in Telstar One, it failed. +Unfortunately, this had not been discovered until the first six +satellites had been launched. Further launchings were postponed while +they ran accelerated switching tests on satellites Two through Six out +in space. The same kind of failure took place on each bird.</p> + +<p>There were two schools of thought on licking the bug. Doc Stone, of +course, insisted that solenoid M1537 had failed, which was one +possible interpretation of the telemetry. And Paul Cleary, who had +been in charge of design, insisted that faulty assembly was to blame. +Well, somebody would make up his mind pretty soon, and my evidence +would have a lot to do with it. I had done the appraisal tests of the +circuit in the test lab once the bug had been detected, and now Cleary +was going to smoke it out of me.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Seaman," Sylvia Shouff said to me, kind of waking me up. "Mr. +Cleary will see you now. Have you ever met?" she added, as I came +toward her desk.</p> + +<p>I shook my head. "I'm a working stiff," I said, "I never get to meet +the brass."</p> + +<p>"You are also somewhat insolent," she said tartly. "Better wash out +your mouth before you try that on Paul Cleary. He eats wise young +laboratory technicians for breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>mam</i>!" I said, feeling my ears burn. She led me to the door, +opened it, and introduced me to Paul Cleary. He lumbered out around +his desk and shook my hand with his rather gnarled and boney paw.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Seaman. I'm glad to meet you, young man. Come in. We have a +lot to talk about," he said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Considering that Cleary was a wheel, and had thirty years of service +with Western Electric behind him, his office wasn't especially large. +Maybe that's because Communications Corporation is owned half by the +government and half by AT&T. The government half makes us watch our +pennies.</p> + +<p>"Have a seat, Mike," Cleary said, going around to lower himself +carefully into a tall swivel chair. He learned back and rocked slowly, +like an old woman on the front porch of a resort hotel. His pipe was +still smoking in a rather large ashtray. He picked it up, showing it +to be a curve-stemmed old-man's style, and puffed contentedly at it. +On him it didn't look like an act.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, pulling big shaggy eyebrows down so they shaded his +pale blue eyes. "You've become something of a celebrity around here, +Mike."</p> + +<p>This was an unexpected approach. "Nobody told <i>me</i>," I complained. +"Does this kind of fame show up in the paycheck?"</p> + +<p>"Not always," Cleary said, scowling a little. "I just meant that your +name gets bandied about. Every time I talk to Fred Stone he says, 'Dr. +Seaman says this,' or 'Dr. Seaman says that.' I just had to see what +this doctor looked like."</p> + +<p>"You can forget the doctor part," I said uncomfortably. I had heard +that Cleary was sensitive about having no advanced degree. When he +went to work for the Western, college was plenty. You did your +post-graduate work on the job. He sure had—and he had a string of +patents as long as your arm to prove it.</p> + +<p>"That's good," he said. "I'd hate to think I was competing with you in +the field of knowledge where you are the world's specialist."</p> + +<p>I grinned at him a little sickly. "COMCORP has never made any use of +my specialty," I conceded. "You already had about ten guys around here +who had learned twice as much as I had simply by doing it every day +for a living. They could have written rings around my thesis."</p> + +<p>"Sure," he said contentedly, puffing more smoke. "So we made a testing +engineer out of you. And you may amount to something, to hear Fred +Stone tell it."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," I said.</p> + +<p>"Now let me hear what you've been doing for Fred," Cleary suggested, +in a sort of avuncular tone. "I'd like to measure you myself."</p> + +<p>"You mean the tests I ran on the switching gate?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, we can start there," he nodded, squinting his blue eyes +more and blowing a real screen up between us.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"When Telstar One packed up, they sent me down the whole gate from +that sector," I said. "Dr. Stone asked me to run destruct tests on the +whole assembly, which I did. The only failures I have induced so far +are failures in M1537, the solenoid that all the shouting is about."</p> + +<p>"What kind of failures did you get?"</p> + +<p>"Armature froze on the field," I said. "I guess the bearings really +went. When there was enough load on them, they couldn't maintain +concentricity."</p> + +<p>"What kind of loads?" he growled, sinking down lower in his chair. He +put his elbows on the arm and laced hairy-backed fingers together +under his chin.</p> + +<p>"I put the whole gate on the centrifuge and swung it up to twelve +gees" I said. "Switching was normal there for the twenty thousand +cycles I gave the gate. But when I added undamped vibration at twelve +thousand to fifteen thousand cycles per second, I could induce failure +pretty quickly. Say an hour or so."</p> + +<p>"You had to apply the vibration throughout the whole test period to +get these failures?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Cleary."</p> + +<p>"Then how do you explain how vibration during no more than six or +eight minutes of blast-off and launch could have the same effect on +the actual installation on M1537 in a satellite, Mr. Seaman?" Smoke +poured from the curve-stem.</p> + +<p>"I don't have to explain it," I said, beginning to get a little hot. +"All I have done is find a way to make one part quit. I haven't said +it did quit in use, or that it could be made to quit in use."</p> + +<p>"Then what the hell are you good for?" Cleary growled.</p> + +<p>I didn't have any answer for that.</p> + +<p>He repeated his question, blue eyes glittering. "I asked you what the +hell you were good for, Seaman!" he said, much more loudly.</p> + +<p>"For putting in the middle," I snapped back.</p> + +<p>"That's how you interpret this affair, then?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"All right," Cleary said, straightening up. "We'll stop talking about +your work as if it were scientific study and talk about it as a play +in office politics. Is that what you want?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want any part of it," I said, hoping I wasn't plaintive. "I +work under orders. The director of assembly asked me to test the part +to destruction. I tested it. I'm sorry that it wasn't a soldered joint +that failed. It wasn't. It was a solenoid. What has that got to do +with me?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, maybe," Cleary conceded, pushing himself up out of his +chair. He went to his window to stare out at the parking lot. "You can +be a test engineer all your life, if that's what you want."</p> + +<p>"It isn't."</p> + +<p>"And what do you want, Mike?" he said, turning back to face me.</p> + +<p>"Your job," I said. "In time."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He nodded. "Well said," he decided. "But if you want it, you'll have +to learn that business is about ninety per cent people and about ten +per cent operations. You know, as you have clearly shown, that Fred +Stone is pushing to get me out of here a little before my time, and +pushing to make sure that he gets this spot, for which there are other +claimants of equal rank in the organization. Oh no," he said, holding +up his hand. "Don't tell me that is none of your affair. Right now you +are in the unusual position of being able to cast a vote that will +decide just how soon Fred Stone can make his move for the top spot. +And as long as you sit there and try that smug line of 'I just test +'em and let the chips fall where they may,' you are really siding with +Fred Stone. I need something else out of you, and you know it. What's +it going to be? Are you a wise enough head at your years to pick a +winner in this scrap? And what if it <i>isn't</i> Fred? I'll have your +hide, young man."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image_004.jpg" width="600" height="284" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"That's what your snippy little brunette said," I told him. "She told +me that you'd eat me for breakfast, and she was right." I got to my +feet.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going," he growled. He was still standing behind his +chair.</p> + +<p>"To look for another job, Mr. Cleary. There must be some place where +the honest result of a test will be assessed as the honest result of a +test rather than a move in a political fight."</p> + +<p>"Honest result?" he echoed, and snorted. "<i>Was</i> your test honest? What +<i>really</i> happened out there in space?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody asked me," I said hotly. "My assignment was to test that gate +until a part failed."</p> + +<p>"A dishonest assignment," Cleary said. "Sit down a minute." We both +calmed down and took our seats. I got a cigar out of my coat, peeled +the wrapper and made counter-smoke. "Here, I'll give you an honest +assignment, Seaman. You're a test engineer. Tell me what happened <i>out +there in space</i>. Why did that switching operation fail?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't the faintest idea," I said.</p> + +<p>"Then find out!"</p> + +<p>I chewed my cigar. "Without duplicating the conditions?" I protested. +"And how can we? There's zero gravity—zero pressure—all sorts of +things going on out there we can't duplicate in a lab."</p> + +<p>"I really don't care how you do it," he said. "But if it were my job +I'd just light my pipe and sit here and think for a week or so. Why +don't <i>you</i> try it?"</p> + +<p>I got up again. "Yes, sir," I said. "I suppose it would help to have +the original telemetry data so that I could evaluate for myself what +went wrong."</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd get to that," he said, passing me a fat file-folder. +"Here it is." He stood up, too, and led me to the door. "And other +data you might want?" he asked, now a good deal more kindly. His hand +was on my elbow.</p> + +<p>I looked at him. "How about the phone number of the brunette out +there?" I asked without taking the stogey from my teeth.</p> + +<p>"Sylvia? That's pretty valuable information," he said, beginning to +grin in a sleepy old fashion. "But she only dates astronauts. If you +haven't made at least three orbits, she won't even have dinner with +you."</p> + +<p>I stopped at Sylvia's desk with half an idea of asking her for a date. +"Well, Dr. Seaman," she demanded as I chewed on my pacifier. "What did +you learn?"</p> + +<p>I thought about it. "That a lot depends on knowing where to put your +feet," I said, puffing smoke. "And my name is Mike."</p> + +<p>She sniffed. "If you think Paul Cleary hasn't been around long enough +to catch Fred Stone trying to fake him out of position with a +meaningless test," she said, "you have another think coming!"</p> + +<p>"He'd never have tried it," I told her, "if he'd known Cleary had you +to look after him." That got me a much louder sniff and toss of the +dark curly head, which broke up my plans to ask her to dinner.</p> + +<p>The telemetry results had been decoded, of course, so that a mere +mortal could read them. I didn't have a pipe, which probably meant I'd +be a failure as a physicist, so I chewed cigars ragged for about three +days and did some serious thinking. When I got a result, I looked up +Shouff, Sylvia, Secy./Mgr./Dsgn., in the phone directory, and talked +to my favorite brunette.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Cleary's office," she said.</p> + +<p>"When would he like to see Mike Seaman?" I tried.</p> + +<p>"Probably never," she told me. "But I suppose he'll have to. Isn't +Fred Stone going to run your errand for you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm running Fred Stone's errands, isn't that what you really think, +Sylvia?" I asked her.</p> + +<p>Sniff! "He can see you at eleven." Click.</p> + +<p>Paul Cleary had his coat off and was poring over a large +black-on-white schematic when I was shown in by sniffin' Sylvia. +"Hello, Mike," he growled. "Here, Sylvia. Mike's not supposed to see +this stuff. Drag it away, honey. Drag it away!"</p> + +<p>With quick motions she rolled up the drawings, snapped a rubber binder +around them and went out. Cleary wagged his hairy old paw to the chair +beside his desk.</p> + +<p>"So you've been thinking?" he asked, reaching for his curve-stemmed +pipe.</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"My spies tell me you haven't been out in the lab since the other day. +Certainly you were doing something besides sulk in your office."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, what did you come up with? Why did that switching operation +fail out in space."</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>His shaggy eyebrows shot up. "You don't know? Is that all COMCORP got +for three days' pay?"</p> + +<p>"A confession of ignorance is a hell of a lot more revealing than a +solid error," I snapped. "The honest answer that I get out of the +telemetry data is that something in that gate broke the circuit and +the switching operation failed. I think there are about seven thousand +components in the gate. I don't know which one failed. A few I can +rule out, because they would only cause part of the gate to fail. But +a hundred different breaks could account for the data. So I don't +know."</p> + +<p>He lit his pipe and blew smoke around the curved stem before he made +reply. "So we got a philosopher for our money," he said. "A confession +of ignorance, eh? What are you going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>"You tell me, Mr. Cleary. You're the old head around here."</p> + +<p>"So I am," he said evenly. "So I am. Well, my advice to young pups is +that they should not be ashamed when they don't know. They should say +so. But they should have something else to say along with it."</p> + +<p>"For example," I suggested grumpily.</p> + +<p>"They should say, 'I don't know, but I know where to find out,'" he +said. "Tell me, Dr. Seaman, do you know where to find out?"</p> + +<p>He puffed at me for the two or three minutes I thought about it. +Really, that's a very long time to think. Most ideas come to you the +moment you identify the problem, which is the really hard part of +thinking. But this problem took some thought, and I wanted him to +think I was thinking.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said at last. "I know where to find out."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Out in space."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>This called for a lot more smoke. "You mean, go out there and look at +the satellite, in space?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can't imagine any other way really to figure it out."</p> + +<p>He nodded. "You may be right, Mike. But do you know how much it costs +to send a manned satellite aloft?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," I agreed. "There are cheaper ways. We can beef up every part in +that gate, test it much tougher than we already have, and when we get +the gate to where all seven thousand components can stand any +imaginable strain, we can rebuild the twelve Telstars we haven't +launched yet and be pretty sure they won't have switching failures. +But that isn't what you asked me."</p> + +<p>"We'd have to fix eighteen of them," he said. "The first six are about +sixty per cent useless. They'd have to be replaced."</p> + +<p>"I still think you should consider sending a man to examine the +Telstars in orbit," I suggested.</p> + +<p>"Science demands it, eh" he growled.</p> + +<p>"No, I was thinking that perhaps a simple repair could be made in +space, and that you wouldn't have to launch six extra birds."</p> + +<p>He got out of the chair and went to the clothes tree to put on his +coat. The elbows were shiny from leaning on his desk. "It might be +cheaper at that," he said. "The first six are launched in only two +orbits. Three telstars in each orbit, separated by one hundred and +twenty degrees. Two launches of a repair man might do it, with careful +handling. Is that what you had in mind?"</p> + +<p>"Something like that."</p> + +<p>"We'd have to send a pretty rare kind of a repair man, Mike," he said, +coming back to sit on the corner of his desk and glower down at me. +That was about his kindest expression.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I agreed. "You need somebody who can test and diagnose, and +then make a repair."</p> + +<p>"And who is an astronaut, too," he said. "I wonder if there is such a +thing?"</p> + +<p>"Make one," I suggested.</p> + +<p>He scowled a little more fiercely. "Explain that," he ordered.</p> + +<p>"I figure you could take one of our men from my laboratory, who knows +how to test the gate, and a man who is handy enough with miniature +components to cut out the one that failed and replace it, and teach +him how to get around in a spacesuit. That would surer than hell be +quicker than taking one of these hot-shot astronauts and teaching him +solid-state physics."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he agreed, looking down his fingers. "That was a pretty sneaky +way to get out from between Fred Stone and me, young man."</p> + +<p>I couldn't resist it: "That's what took most of the three days," I +said, just a little too smugly.</p> + +<p>"I liked you better in the middle," Cleary grumped. "Well, you have a +thought, and it calls for a conference." He took his coat off again, +hung it on the clothes tree, came back to his desk and got on the +phone.</p> + +<p>"Sylvia? Have Fred Stone come up, and you come in with him, eh? That's +a dear."</p> + +<p>He racked up the instrument and smiled at me as he stoked his pipe +into more activity. "Relax," he advised me. "It always takes a while +to round up Fred Stone."</p> + +<p>He wanted no small talk, so I fidgeted in my chair while Cleary rocked +gently in his. In about ten minutes, curly-headed Sylvia brought Dr. +Stone in with her.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was, "Hello, Fred," and "Hello there, Paul," when they came in. +Sylvia didn't have anything to say, although she gave me a hot-eyed +glance before pulling out the dictation board on Paul Cleary's desk +and making herself comfortable with her notebook.</p> + +<p>Cleary offered Doc Stone some of his tobacco, which was politely +refused. The old man began it:</p> + +<p>"Your Dr. Seaman has quite an idea, Fred," he said, in a mild, kindly +voice, with a dumb, guileless look on his face.</p> + +<p>"Good, Paul," Doc Stone smiled thinly. "I've told you he's a good +boy."</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m," said Cleary. "He says his tests can't prove what went wrong +with the switching gate on the satellites, and in effect that the +telemetry doesn't make it plain whether we have design or assembly +trouble."</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>well</i>!" said Fred Stone. I decided to start shopping for a +marker for my grave.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Cleary said. "He made quite a suggestion, that we send a man +out in space to look over the Telstars and find out what went wrong. +Even better, he says it might be possible to make a repair at the same +time and get the bird working. You can see the advantages of doing +that, the way they are orbiting."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," Doc Stone said, looking at me with slitted eyes. "Quite +a unique adventure for some technician."</p> + +<p>"Just what I was thinking," Cleary said. "The problem resolves into: +Who do we send? Now Mike, here, says we should take a man from his lab +who knows the bird and its assembly and teach him how to get around in +a spacesuit—that, he claims, would be quicker than taking one of +these space jockeys and making a technician out of him."</p> + +<p>"I think he's right."</p> + +<p>"So—there we are. Who do we send?"</p> + +<p>"There can hardly be any choice," Dr. Stone said, looking at me with +eyes like granite.</p> + +<p>"Hardly," Cleary agreed. "The head of the lab is the best man, beyond +a doubt."</p> + +<p>They were talking about me! Try to get out of taking sides, would I? +Cleary wanted me back in the middle. Stone wanted me dead. They were +both likely to get their way, unless I told them off.</p> + +<p>I opened my mouth. Cleary cleared his throat loudly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dr. Seaman!" Sylvia cut in, breaking her careful silence. "What a +thrilling opportunity for you!"</p> + +<p>I gaped at her. Well, Cleary had said it. She only went out with +astronauts. She was space-happy.</p> + +<p>"There are men in the shop who deserve the chance...." I started.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" she said quickly. "It's your idea, doctor, and you deserve +the fame!"</p> + +<p>"And the promotion this will undoubtedly earn—if you can bring it +off," Cleary added.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" Dr. Stone said with relish. He didn't think I could, either. +Well, that made three of us, unless Sylvia made four.</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much," I started, as a prelude to backing out.</p> + +<p>"Good, that's settled," Cleary said. "That's all, Sylvia."</p> + +<p>She got up and left. She had done her dirty work. If I hadn't been so +sick at my stomach, I would have had to admire really great teamwork.</p> + +<p>Stone shook my hand with an evil kind of relish and followed her out.</p> + +<p>That left Paul Cleary and me alone. "This is a great thing, young +man," he said.</p> + +<p>I couldn't stand him any longer. "You are a worm!" I told him.</p> + +<p>"You're probably right, Mike," he agreed, without any particular heat. +"But a rather just one. I think you'll admit you've been paid off in +your own coin. All you had to do was beg off."</p> + +<p>"In front of her? You knew I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"I <i>figured</i> you wouldn't. That's one of the advantages of being +older. You know more about how the young will behave. Come on," he +said, getting up to put on his coat again. "We have to see a man."</p> + +<p>"One thing," I said, as I got up, "while we're being so just."</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I had thought of asking your Sylvia for a date. But she was so snippy +the other night I decided to forget it. Now, she got me into this, and +she'll have to pay and pay! How do I get to her? It'll be quite a +while before I'm an astronaut."</p> + +<p>He took his pipe from between his teeth. "This calls for the wisdom of +a Solomon," he decided. "But you might try oysters."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was pretty good advice. I hung behind him long enough to tell +Sylvia about the Chincoteague oysters they put in the stew at Grand +Central Terminal, and got a dinner date. That was all, just the date, +because Cleary was itching to take me to see a man.</p> + +<p>Politics must be an awfully large part of business. The man we went to +see was the government side of COMCORP, and I guess he had had to do +as much explaining about Telstar failures to a Senate Committee as +Paul Cleary had had to do to the Western. He wanted an out just as bad +as Paul did.</p> + +<p>There were a good many conferences before a sufficient number of +people decided the cheapest way out was to send a man to fix the +Telstars that had broken down. The question was whether it was +possible.</p> + +<p>We went at it from two directions. They got a team assigned to +figuring out if the Dyna-Soar rocket could be modified to make the +three contacts around the orbit, carry two men and enough air and fuel +for the job, and at COMCORP we appointed a crew to figure out what it +meant to make the repair in orbit.</p> + +<p>Cleary put me in charge of our crew. They gave me a full-size Telstar +satellite for my lab, and I went to work.</p> + +<p>Fancy electronic equipment consists of millions of parts, and Telstar +is no exception. One of the bonuses America got from its poor rocket +booster performance, as compared with the Russians, was a forced-draft +course in miniaturization. Our engineers have learned how to make +almost anything about one-tenth the size you'd think it ought to be, +and still work. To get all these tiny parts into a total system, they +are assembled in racks. In the Telstar each of these long skinny +sticks of perforated magnesium alloy is hinged to the main framework +so that it can be swung out for testing or for replacement of parts, +which is why the engineers call each component a "gate."</p> + +<p>I spent several weeks learning how to take each suspected component +out of the gate. Most of the time I needed a screwdriver. Sometimes I +had to drill out a soft aluminium rivet. The hard part was that some +of the components were so deep inside, even with a couple gates swung +out the way, that I needed all kinds of extension tools.</p> + +<p>Of course, I had to visualize what it would be like doing all this out +in space. I'd be in a spacesuit, wearing thick gloves, and when I +removed a screw that would have looked good in a Swiss watch, there'd +be no work bench on which to place it while I took out the next one. +Worse yet, I would have to put it back in.</p> + +<p>The longer I worked with the parts, the harder it looked. There +wouldn't be a prayer of just turning the parts loose in space. In +theory they'd follow along in orbit. In practice you can't bring your +hand to a halt and release a tiny part without imparting a small +proper motion to it. And even worse, you couldn't handle the little +wretches when you tried to put them back in. With a solid floor to lie +on, with gravity to give things a position orientation, I kept losing +tiny screws. Magnets didn't help, because the screws were nonmagnetic +for what seemed pretty good reasons. Some were made of dural for +lightness. Some were silicon bronze. None of them was steel.</p> + +<p>That put us back in the lab to find out what would happen if we used +steel screws. The answer was, surprisingly, nothing important. So +there was one solid achievement. I had a few thousand of each of the +thirty-four different sizes of fasteners machined from steel, and +magnetized a fly-tier's tweezers. The result was that I could get +screws back into their holes without dropping them, especially when I +put little pads of Alnico on the point of each tweezer to give me a +really potent magnet. Then we had to cook up an offset screwdriver +with a ratchet that would let me reach in about a yard and still run +a number 0-80 machine screw up tight. That called for a kind of +torque-limit clutch and other snivies.</p> + +<p>It was the fanciest and most expensive screwdriver you ever saw. The +handle was a good two feet long. The problem then became that of +seeing what you were doing, and one of the boys faked up a kind of +binocular jeweler's loupe with long focus, so that I could lie back a +yard from the screw and focus on it with about ten diameters +magnification. The trouble was that the long focal length gave a field +of vision about six times the diameter of the screw-head, which meant +that every time my heart beat my head moved enough to throw the field +of vision off the work.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>By that time I was working in a simulated spacesuit—the actual number +was still being made to fit an accurate plaster cast of my body. So +the boys figured out a clamp that would hold my helmet firmly to the +gate, and a chin rack inside the helmet against which I could press +and hold my head steady enough to keep my binoculars focused where +they had to be focused. At a certain point I went back to Paul Cleary +and said I thought I could make the necessary tests, dismount what I +had to dismount, and replace any affected part.</p> + +<p>"All worked out, eh?" he said, reaching for his pipe.</p> + +<p>"Not by a county mile, Mr. Cleary. But I know what the problems are, +and the shop can figure out sensible answers. Some of the hardest +parts turned out to be the easiest."</p> + +<p>"Name any three," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"Well, the screws. As I take them out, I'll discard them into space. I +have to use magnetic screws on reassembly, so there is no point saving +what I take out. Doug Folley has doped out something like a motorman's +change-dispenser that will dispense one screw at a time into my +tweezers, and I'll carry a supply of all thirty-four kinds at my +waist."</p> + +<p>"That's one," he counted on a hairy forefinger.</p> + +<p>"We can use something like a double-faced pressure-sensitive tape to +hold other parts," I said. "We'll draw a diagram on it, stick it to +some unopened part of the satellite near where I'm working, and as I +pull pieces out, I'll just press them against the other sticky face, +in the correct place in the diagram, and they'll be there to pull +loose when I want them."</p> + +<p>"At absolute zero?" he scoffed. "That sticky face will be hard as +glass."</p> + +<p>"We'll face the bird around to the sun," I said. "And warm it up. If +we have to, we'll put wiring in the tape, connect it to Telstar's +battery supply, and keep it warm."</p> + +<p>"Might work," he grumped. "That's two. How about the spacesuit part?"</p> + +<p>That had been tougher. Some forty or fifty men had made the ride into +space and back from Cape Canaveral by this time, and there had been +rendezvous in space in preparation for flights to the moon. But so far +no one had done any free maneuvering in space in a suit.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/image_005.jpg" width="300" height="876" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>They had put me in a swimming pool in a concentrated salt solution +that gave me just zero buoyancy, and I had practiced a kind of +skin-diving in a spacesuit. The problem was one of mobility, and the +one thing we could not reproduce, of course, was frictionless motion. +No matter how I moved, the viscosity of the solution quickly slowed me +down. Out in space I'd have to learn on the first try how to get +around where every force imparted a motion that would continue +indefinitely until an equal and opposite force had been applied.</p> + +<p>The force part had been worked out in theory long before. To my +spacesuit they had fixed two tiny rockets. One aimed out from the +small of my back, the other straight out from my belly. Two +pressurized containers contained hydrazine and nitric acid, which +could be released in tiny streams into peanut rocket chambers by a +single valve-release. They were self-igniting, and spurted out a +needle-fine jet of fire that imparted a few dynes of force as long as +the valve was held open. It only had two positions—full open, or +closed, so that navigation would consist of triggering the valve +briefly open until a little push had been imparted, and drifting until +you triggered the opposite rocket for braking.</p> + +<p>The airtanks on my back were right off a scuba outfit.</p> + +<p>Really, they spent more time on the gloves than anything else. At +first we thought of the problem as a heat problem, but it was tougher +than that. Heat loss was not much, out there in a vacuum, and they +made arrangements to warm the handles of my tools so that I wouldn't +bleed heat through my gloves to them and thus freeze my fingers. No, +the problem was to get a glove that stood up to a pressure difference +of three or four pounds per square inch and could still be flexed with +any accuracy by my fingers. We could make a glove that was pretty +thin, but it stiffened out under pressure and made delicate work +really tough. It was a lot like trying to do brain surgery in mittens.</p> + +<p>They eventually gave me a porous glove that leaked air when you flexed +your fingers. Air, they said, could always be gotten from the +Dyna-Soar rocket that would be hanging close at hand in space. Well, +we hoped it would work. I could do pretty fair work with the leaky +gloves, and all we could hope was that the vapor would be dry enough +as it seeped out through the gloves to prevent formation of a foggy +cloud all around me, or the formation of frost on the gloves. That we +could not test under any conditions easy to simulate.</p> + +<p>Each team spent ninety days. They tell me that's right quick work for +pointing up a launch. But at the end of three months I had assembled +enough stuff to do the job, and still well within the weight limit +they had to set. I wasn't a walking machine shop, but there was a lot +I could do if I had to.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>Ninety days had been enough for several dates with Sylvia. Out of the +office she wasn't quite the protective harpy about Paul Cleary that +she had been in the office, although the thought was never far from +her mind.</p> + +<p>We spent my final night in New York before leaving for the Cape at +Sweets, a real old fashioned seafood house down on Fulton street. +After the obligatory oysters, we had broiled bluefish, and otherwise +lived it up. They serve a good piece of apple pie, and we had that +with our coffee.</p> + +<p>"Are you scared?" Sylvia asked me.</p> + +<p>"Of what?" I lied innocently.</p> + +<p>"Of being out in space—just floating around?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I told her honestly. "I'm scared to death. What if I have a +queasy stomach? They say a good half of the men who have been in orbit +have chucked up or gotten dizzy or something. What if they go to all +this trouble and I get spacesick?"</p> + +<p>"What if you drift away and can't get back?" she said. "It isn't like +swimming back to shore."</p> + +<p>"There's always a way," I said, my stomach tightening as I thought of +what she said.</p> + +<p>That was the night she kissed me good night. It wasn't much of a kiss, +because we were standing in the lobby of her apartment house, and she +wasn't going to invite me up, because she never did. But she said: +"Hurry back."</p> + +<p>"Just you know it, Shouff," I said, bitter inside.</p> + +<p>I'd have been a lot more bitter if I had known what was in store for +me at the Cape. COMCORP flew me down in one of our private prop-jets, +with only Paul Cleary for company. He introduced me to the brass, and +we sat through a couple conferences while the idea was spelled out to +a group of sure-enough spacemen. Then they turned that mob loose on +me.</p> + +<p>I was emotionally unprepared. First off, Cleary and Fred had been +building me up all through the three months, and I had actually gotten +to the point where I thought I knew what I was doing. These +space-jockeys spent most of their time deflating my ego.</p> + +<p>My tormentor-in-chief was a wise punk from Brooklyn named Sid Stein. +"How have you made out in your centrifuge tests?" he asked me at +breakfast the first morning after I had reached the Cape.</p> + +<p>"I have never done any of that stuff, Mr. Stein," I said.</p> + +<p>"Well, how many gees can you pull?"</p> + +<p>I shrugged. "Same as you, I suppose. How many is that?"</p> + +<p>"Brot<i>her</i>!"</p> + +<p>The space medic wasn't any better. The mission chief insisted that it +wasn't safe to put anybody in a satellite who couldn't pass the +physical. I guess you know that about one man in a thousand can +qualify. This was supposed to wash me out.</p> + +<p>"Remarkable shape." The space medic kept saying. "You must take +considerable exercise, doctor."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," I said. "Just jog a mile or so before breakfast. Nothing +spectacular."</p> + +<p>"No other formal activity?"</p> + +<p>"Well," I snarled, "just swimming, fencing and weight lifting. I've +given up the boxing and handball."</p> + +<p>"Kept in excellent shape, nevertheless," he said. "You'll be a +disappointment to them."</p> + +<p>"Look," Stein said to me after a week of tests and countertests. +"Don't be deceived by these tests. All they show is that your heart is +still beating. The big thing is emotional. Doc, I think you should +reconsider this idea of flopping around out there in the void. We've +got experienced men here, and none of them is ready to try it."</p> + +<p>"Fools rush in, eh, Mr. Stein."</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>In the meantime I got a daily phone call from Paul Cleary. That I +could have snarled off, but Sylvia always came on the line first, and +there was a minute or so of chit-chat before she cut her boss in on +the line. I'm sure she listened to all the calls. But her first words +were deadly. For example:</p> + +<p>"Mike! Hi, Mike. Mr. Cleary wants to see how you're doing."</p> + +<p>"Good. Put him on."</p> + +<p>"In a minute. I think it's so wonderful you passed the final physical, +Mike. You're really so deceptive. I never had imagined you had such a +steely physique."</p> + +<p>"Clean living," I said. "No girls."</p> + +<p>"There'd better not be!"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry. How could I get to see any girls down here? Every time I +look away from my work all I can see is Bikini swim suits."</p> + +<p>"Cut that out!" she snickered, and put Cleary on the line.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There came a final day when the mission chief called me in to his +office.</p> + +<p>"Come in, Mike. Come in," he said shortly. "Sit down." He leaned back +against his desk and started talking to me, like they say, straight +from the shoulder:</p> + +<p>"I'll give it to you straight, Mike. We've tried every legal way to +wash you out of this mission. There isn't a one of us here at the Cape +that wants any part of taking an armchair theorist and slapping him +into space—into the kind of a mission you've cooked up. Somebody's +going to get hurt out there, because you aren't fit for the job. Now, +physically, yes, you have the capacity. But emotionally and +environmentally, you simply don't add up. You're looking at this thing +as an extension of your laboratory, and instead it is an enormous +physical and mental hazard that you are undertaking. This country has +never lost a man in space—and you'll be the cause of our first +casualty, as well as being one yourself. I'm asking you man to man to +disqualify yourself."</p> + +<p>"And put an end to this mission?"</p> + +<p>"We'll train one of our men," he said.</p> + +<p>"In two or three years your best man might be barely capable," I said. +"I don't think COMCORP is prepared to waste that much time. After +all," I said ingratiatingly, "all you have to do is refuse the +mission. Say I'm a built-in hazard and let it go at that." I grinned +at him. I was learning from Paul Cleary. I <i>figured</i> how space-jockeys +would react to that.</p> + +<p>He told me: "Do you think any of these men would admit they are not up +to a mission a mere technician is ready to try? No! I can't get them +to beg off, either!"</p> + +<p>"When do we go?" I asked.</p> + +<p>Sid Stein was assigned as my pilot. He had made the trip into orbit +and back four times with the Dyna-Soar rocket, and was considered the +best risk to get me there and get me back. He was also the least +convinced I had any right to sit beside him in the cabin.</p> + +<p>His final briefing was a beaut: "This is a spaceship, doctor," he said +frigidly. "And I want you to remember the 'ship' part of it. I'm in +command, and my every word, my every <i>belch</i>, has got to be law. Do +you understand that? This is my mission, and I'll tell you where to +put your feet."</p> + +<p>"Sure," I said. "Who wants it?"</p> + +<p>"Can't figure out why you do!"</p> + +<p>"I'm just paying somebody back," I said. "Is it tomorrow?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The start was a drag. Eighteen hours before blast-off Sid and I went +into a tank so that we would get rid of our nitrogen. We breathed the +standard helium-oxygen mix at normal pressure until about four hours +before H-hour. They wouldn't even let me smoke. Then we suited up and +were lifted by a crane and stuck in the control room of <i>Nelly Bly</i>, +as I had named our Dyna-Soar rocket-glider. The hatch stayed open, but +we were buttoned up tight in our suits. They had a couple of mods that +were supposed to fit them better for the mission. Instead of the usual +metal helmet with face plate, we had full-vision bubble helmets of +clear plastic. The necks were large enough so that we could, in +theory, drag our arms out of our suits and clean the inside of the +bubbles. That was in case I sicked up out in space, which all +experience said was a real enough hazard. They figured that filling me +full of motion sickness pills was partial prevention.</p> + +<p>These space-jockeys have their own vocabulary, and their own oh, so +cool way of playing it during the countdown. I'm pretty familiar with +complex components, but they were checking off equipment I never heard +of. We had gyros—hell, our <i>gyros</i> had gyros. And we had tanks, and +pressures and temperatures and voltages and who-stuck-John. It was all +very impressive.</p> + +<p>There were suited men up on the gantry unplugging our air feed and +closing our hatch. Sid was straining up from where he lay on his back +to dog it down tight.</p> + +<p>"Roger," Sid was saying to somebody, as he had been all morning.</p> + +<p>The white vapor from our umbilical stopped, which let me know our +tanks had been topped off and sealed, and that we were about to blast +off.</p> + +<p>"This is it, Seaman," Sid Stein said. "Now for Pete's sake don't move, +don't speak, just lie there. I've got the con."</p> + +<p>That was a bunch of baloney. He really had nothing to do until we were +in orbit. The delicate accelerometers and inertial guidance components +did all the piloting until the second stage kicked us loose. But I +kept my mouth shut. He'd have some work to do before the ride was +over, and I might need him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When the lift-off came, it was gentle as a dove's wing. But as we +burned off fuel, the twenty-million pound thrust of our Apollo booster +began to tell, and my vision started to go black. The gee-meter said +we were pulling about ten gees when I could no longer read it, and I +learned later we peaked out at eleven gees in the final seconds before +first-stage burn-out. I didn't like it a little bit.</p> + +<p>The liquid hydrogen second stage kicked in like a hopped up mule, and +we pulled ten gees, right at the limit of my vision, for its whole +four minutes of burning. My earphones were talking now as Sid gave it +the A-OK and Roger bit all the way. This was the stuff, kid!</p> + +<p>Our Dyna-Soar had been modified to some degree for this mission. It's +essentially a big delta-winged glider with a squarish fuselage in the +center. The mods had consisted of tying a third rocket stage out +behind, so that Sid could move us around the orbit from one Telstar to +the next if my work on the first one proved out. The retro-rockets had +several times their normal complement of fuel, so that he could stop +after he got started. The same was true of our steering jets.</p> + +<p>The ship was not pressurized on the lift off. Cabin pressure fell +rather quickly, as we could feel from the inflation of our suits, to +their three and a half-pound pressure. No bends for either of us, +because of the helium substitution for nitrogen. Because there were +two of us, we could chuck and unchuck airtanks for each other as we +needed fresh supplies. We had enough air and water for forty-eight +hours. Together with our low-residue diet for the final week, they +figured we could sweat it out in our suits for two days. We had suit +radios, of course, and could talk with each other for a distance of a +mile or so.</p> + +<p>Burnout of the second stage came suddenly, and we heaved slightly +against our belts as the springs in our seats pushed back out. And +then I got my first taste of free fall. Each veteran astronaut I had +talked to at the Cape had a different way of trying to scare me with +the idea of falling endlessly, and each had different ideas about how +to lick it. In spite of all the talk, I grabbed the arms of my seat to +keep from falling. I turned my head and in the glow from our +instruments could see Sid sneering across at me through his +transparent bubble helmet.</p> + +<p>"How you like them apples?" his voice came from my earphone.</p> + +<p>"That first step is a killer, Sid," I said, trying to sound chipper. I +felt horrible.</p> + +<p>"Let me know when you've had enough," he suggested. "I've got things +to do."</p> + +<p>I knew he did. We had dry-run it a hundred times. If we had been +inserted correctly in orbit, the <i>Nelly Bly</i> was right in the path +that three of the Telstars were now following, and catching up with +Number One at several hundred miles an hour. On the ground, radars all +around the world were taking fixes on us, and Sid was talking shop +over his long-range radio with the radar crews.</p> + +<p>By the time my stomach had made up its mind that it would stick with +me, he had a report.</p> + +<p>"It could be worse," he said. "We've got a lot more velocity than I'd +like, but we're on course. Our orbit would differ quite some, Seaman. +Because of this speed we'd be somewhat more eccentric—maybe swing out +a hundred miles beyond the birds we're chasing. Are you making it?"</p> + +<p>"Easy, Sid. Do we slow down yet?"</p> + +<p>"I'll fire the retros and retard us to the speed of what we're +chasing," he said. "That will equalize our orbits very nearly. Get +busy on that scope if you're up to it. I'll compute my retro."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They had made an amateur radar operator out of me, because it was easy +to do, and gave Sid more time for actual rocket valving. My belt cut +me hard as he braked for several seconds.</p> + +<p>"There," Sid's voice said in my ear. "We should still be catching up +about fifty miles an hour. Let's not ram that thing. See any blip?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. How close are we supposed to be?"</p> + +<p>He lit the cabin light and tapped at the calculator that he swung out +from its rack. "Still got a hundred miles to go, I'd judge." He moved +awkwardly in his suit to finger a switch on his neck and I heard him +speaking to the ground again, and heard in my earphones the answer +that came up from Woomera. We had eighty miles to go, and were now a +little below the orbit of the bird we were chasing.</p> + +<p>"Can't have both ends of the stick, Mike," Sid explained, calling me +by name for the first time. "As soon as we slowed down we had to drop +lower." He fooled around with the steering jets, which were +hydrazine-nitric acid rockets much like the tiny motors on my suit, +and re-oriented <i>Nelly Bly</i>. A little burst from the nose, and I got +my first blip.</p> + +<p>"There!" I said, putting a finger on the PPI. "Turn out the light, +Sid, so I can see the 'scope'."</p> + +<p>He switched off the cabin light and followed my directions with tiny +shoves, sometimes from the rockets, sometimes from the steering jets, +while I conned us closer.</p> + +<p>Our radar would only read within about half a mile. When we got that +close I got the searchlight going and took my first real look through +the forward port out into space.</p> + +<p>It's black. Nothing—nothing you have ever seen will persuade you how +dark it is out there. That was my first big shock. Oh, I had practiced +in the dark, with only my helmet light to guide my tests and +assemblies, but this was a different kind of dark. Our light had no +visible beam—you couldn't even tell it was working. At first I had +the idea we'd see the satellite occulting some stars, but a little +mental arithmetic told me that an object six or eight feet in section +would not subtend much of an angle of vision at half a mile.</p> + +<p>We had chosen, I decided, much too narrow a beam of light for the +searchlight, but just at that moment I got a flash from out in space, +and worked the light back on to our objective.</p> + +<p>"Got it," I said.</p> + +<p>"Yoicks!" Sid said, and went back to the fine controls. After a long +time, and lots of patience, we were hanging about fifty feet out from +our bird. We were farther out in space so that the dark bulk of the +satellite was silhouetted against the crescent light of Earth. I +turned off the spot and switched on the floodlight.</p> + +<p>"Here goes nothing, Sid," I said, and undid the dogs that held the +canopy above our heads.</p> + +<p>My earphone spoke to me: "This is Cleary. Do you read me, Mike?"</p> + +<p>I fumbled around to find the right jack and plugged myself into the +radio. "Yes, Paul. Loud and clear."</p> + +<p>"Watch yourself. Think first. You've got all the time in the world."</p> + +<p>"Sure."</p> + +<p>"Sylvia would miss you," he added.</p> + +<p>I hoped he was right.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Clinging carefully to the handholds that had been specially provided +on the outside of <i>Nelly Bly</i>, I clambered through the hatch and hung +in the darkness, looking down at South America. The world was turning +visibly under me, although I knew that in fact we were skimming +rapidly about three thousand miles over its surface. I got myself +lined up nice and straight with the bird and did my first bit of +non-thinking. I pushed off good and proper with my feet, the way you'd +dive into a swimming pool. It was a fool stunt for my first act. I was +doing a good five or six feet a second. You may not think that is very +fast, but before I could gulp twice I had zipped past that bird and +was headed for Buenos Aires.</p> + +<p>I know I screamed. That was the first time I realized I really was +falling. Earth looked awfully close, and seemed to be rushing up to +meet me.</p> + +<p>My orientation was all wrong for stopping. By diving head first I had +neither my back nor my belly rocket lined up to stop me.</p> + +<p>My training failed completely. I tried to squirm straight, and by +proper swinging of my arms out to full length, and kicking the same +way with my feet, I got turned around to where my belly was facing the +floodlight on <i>Nelly Bly</i>. That's not how I was supposed to do it.</p> + +<p>The glider had disappeared—all I could see was the floodlight. It was +still by far the brightest thing in the sky, but if I drifted much +longer, I would have to use radio direction-finding to get back. I +triggered the motor on my back and felt its gentle push against my +spine.</p> + +<p>"Sid!" I called.</p> + +<p>"Roger, Mike!"</p> + +<p>"Light the tip lights. I've got to get a fix on my velocity. I went +way past and I'm trying to get back."</p> + +<p>Two new stars winked into being, on either side of the floodlight. +This had been some bright guy's idea, and it was paying off. I kept +watching the apparent distance between them shrink as I continued my +trip toward Earth. Memory and a little calculating told me that my +acceleration of three inches per second per second would take twenty +seconds of blast to slow me to a stop. I counted them off, aloud: +"Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three," as I had been +taught to measure seconds. When I got to Mississippi twenty my visual +measurement said I was about stationary with regard to <i>Nelly Bly</i>.</p> + +<p>I used a little more blast and let a couple minutes go by while I +drifted closer to the Telstar. I started squirming again, until I +remembered to use the deflection plate they had given me to hold in my +belly blast, and that got me lined up. But finally I was within +touching distance of the bird, which was rotating with a certain slow +majesty on its long axis.</p> + +<p>The leisurely spin was there to make sure one side didn't face the sun +too long and heat up. My plan called for stopping the bird's spin so +that I could get reasonable solar heating of the part I was working +on. The trouble was there was nothing to grab as the satellite turned. +But we had worked on that part, too, and I went into my act of backing +off the right distance, accelerating with my back rocket until I +drifted close by the bird at its translational speed. I got one end of +my sticky webbing stuck to it by pressure and decelerated so that the +bird turned under me while I paid off the web. In a moment I had it +girdled, and snapped the nifty sort of buckle they had made for me. +Then drawing the webbing tight was no trouble, and I was spinning with +the bird. My added weight slowed its spin down some.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Next came the trick of getting some special equipment loose from my +right leg. This was a little rocket canister which had just enough +poof, the slide-rule boys had said, to stop the rotation of the bird. +I fastened the canister to the webbing, pushed softly with one finger +to get me a few feet away, and drifted while waiting for the delayed +fuse to fire the antispin rocket. It lanced out a flame for a few +seconds, and sputtered dead. The bird hung virtually motionless +beneath me—or above me—or beside me—or whatever you want to call +it when there is no up or down.</p> + +<p>Our light was dimming as we passed the terminator and pulled over +Earth's dark side. The sun was still visible, however, although soon +to be eclipsed by Earth. I jetted softly back to the bird and lit my +helmet light. I had to find the right face of the twelve-sided thing +so that I could open the right gate. The markings were there. They +were just hard to read from inside a helmet. Then the sun was +eclipsed, and my headlamp gave me the kind of light I was used to +working with. The sector I wanted was on the satellite's dark side. I +had to clamp on to the girdle and jet quite a while to turn it halfway +round, and then decelerate just as long to bring it to a stop. I +fooled around several minutes getting the sector to face where the sun +would soon rise.</p> + +<p>My earphone spoke.</p> + +<p>"Mike!"</p> + +<p>"Roger, Sid. What's up."</p> + +<p>"Take it easy on your steering fuel. You're getting low."</p> + +<p>"Roger."</p> + +<p>I had to wait for the sun before I could start work. When it came up, +heating seemed quick. First a test with a thermocouple showed that +Telstar's surface was warming nicely and would soon support the +pressure-sensitive mat I was going to stick to some of her solar +generators. When the 'couple said Telstar had reached zero centigrade, +I pulled the mat loose from where it was stuck to my left leg and +plastered it above the gate I was going to open. I say above, because +it was closer to one pole—the "North" pole of the satellite—than the +gate.</p> + +<p>It was time to go to work on my first screw. And there I got my next +lesson. It was a real big screw, as they go, a 4-40 flat head machine +screw with a length of about three-quarters of an inch. I would have +to give it thirty turns to back it out. I never gave it the first +turn. The head snapped off as soon as I applied a few inch-pounds of +torque.</p> + +<p>Yes, the surface had heated up nicely, but the shank of the screw was +about two hundred below zero centigrade, and far brittler than glass.</p> + +<p>I cussed some and reported to Sid what had happened.</p> + +<p>"Have to drill it out," I said.</p> + +<p>My drill was a cutie. It was a modified dentists' drill, the kind +that's run by a little air turbine at about two hundred thousand +r.p.m.'s. I really mean that. They turn like mad.</p> + +<p>I'd been taught to use it with care. When a dentist drills your teeth, +he blows olive oil and water through the turbine, and the mixture +cools the tooth—and the drill—while the cutting is going on. We +couldn't afford any cloud of vapor—or the shorting out that ice would +cause—so I had only the pressurized mixture of oxygen and helium in +the tanks on my back to run the drill. And that meant light and +intermittent pressures on the number 43 wire gauge drill—the one +that's the right size to drill out a 4-40. It took me about fifteen +minutes and I was down to my last number 43 drill bit when she broke +free.</p> + +<p>From then on I had to heat each screw before I went to work on it. I +had something like a soldering iron that I could press against the +screw-head. Heat would flow through the highly conductive alloy and +make it less brittle. I flicked each screw I removed out into space +and at last carefully hinged the gate wide open.</p> + +<p>The gate was the length of the sector—about two feet. It was four +inches wide and about an inch thick and had parts strung along it like +kernels on an ear of corn.</p> + +<p>At this stage I readjusted the position of my webbing girdle until I +could clamp my head in position and begin the testing. It was slow +work. The first sad thing was to learn that the solenoid M1537 was as +good as new. When I put enough voltage across its terminals, the +actuator clicked down through the core.</p> + +<p>I swore a blue streak.</p> + +<p>"What is it Mike?" Sid's voice came in my ear.</p> + +<p>"Trouble," I said. "What did we expect?"</p> + +<p>"Roger," he said in that toneless unexcited astronauts' voice. "Return +to ship, Mike."</p> + +<p>"Not now," I said. "I've just got the oyster opened."</p> + +<p>His voice cut like my drill-bit. "I ordered you to return to ship. +Your air supply is about shot."</p> + +<p>"I haven't been out that long," I protested, not feeling too sure +about the lapse of time.</p> + +<p>"Your drill chewed it up pretty fast. Quit talking and start moving."</p> + +<p>I was thankful for the experience of moving in close to the bird. The +same tricks worked much more smoothly as I used my deflection plate in +front of my belly blast to turn me to face the floodlight, and then +followed up with a light shove or two in the spine to start me +drifting toward <i>Nelly Bly</i>. There didn't seem any rush, and I drifted +slowly over, using only a couple triggered bursts of deceleration to +slow me down as I approached the open hatch.</p> + +<p>Inside we went through the drill. My ears popped a little as Sid +unchucked my spent tanks, and popped again as the new ones came on +with a hiss.</p> + +<p>"Take it easy on that steering fuel, Mike," he said again. "You're +getting awfully low."</p> + +<p>"Sure," I said and let myself drift out the hatch. I had enough sense +to twist so that my back jet wouldn't hit the ship. Then I took a +zig-zag course through the darkness to my bird, got oriented at the +open gate and went back to work. Before I could get started, my +earphones spoke.</p> + +<p>"Mike, Cleary here."</p> + +<p>"Roger, Paul. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Have you gotten to that solenoid yet?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What can you tell me?"</p> + +<p>"That you're a fathead. Now shut up. I'm busy."</p> + +<p>"Roger, Mike," Paul Cleary acknowledged quite meekly.</p> + +<p>So I started again, reaching with my leads from point to point. After +a certain number of tests, I had the area isolated, but not the part. +From here on it would have to be disassembly. Every tiny screw had to +be heated, then teased out with a jeweler's screwdriver. Some took my +patented ratchet extension. The big miracle was that I didn't break +anything.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image_006.jpg" width="600" height="223" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>When I got to it, it was ridiculous. A small length of wire connected +one component to another. Space was lacking, and the wire was tight +against the metal of the gate. Its insulation was one of these +space-age wonders, a form of clear plastic that would remain ductile +under zero temperature and pressure. Only it didn't. It had shrunk and +cracked, and there was a simple short against the metal of the gate. +There were so many forms of circuit-breakers and self-protectors in +the machine that the whole gate had been switched off as long as the +short was in existence. No wonder telemetry hadn't told us anything.</p> + +<p>As I prepared to fix the trouble, I switched on my radio and had Sid +connect me with the ground. "Canaveral Control," one of those +emotionless voices said. He could afford to be. He was on the ground.</p> + +<p>"Get me Cleary," I ordered.</p> + +<p>"Cleary here, Mike. What have you found, boy?" He sure was anxious +about that solenoid.</p> + +<p>"Not much, Paul. Just that Fred Stone is a fathead, too. Over and out, +like they say." I switched off and went back to my work.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The one thing I had nothing of was any kind of insulating material. +With my screwdriver I hacked a piece loose from the double-faced +sticky-tape I had used to keep loose parts from flying around, and +teased it under the wire with my tweezers. Perhaps I could have done +as well by heating the wire and bending it straight, but there was +little room, and I was afraid of melting a solder joint. So I took my +time teasing the tape through and finally got it to act as an +insulator without breaking the wire. How long it would stay there was +anybody's guess. It was held mechanically as well as by its sticky +action, but when the bird cooled off enough, the sticky effect would +lessen. I hoped the pressure between the wire and the gate could be +enough to keep it in place. Certainly no forces would be acting to +move it.</p> + +<p>Just as I had figured, the reassembly was the tedious part. I had to +move around into about sixteen screwy positions to do all the fixing. +Finally it was back in one piece and I swung the gate closed.</p> + +<p>When the final 4-40's were run up as tight as they were supposed to be +run, I reported to Paul Cleary. "Try her," I suggested. "I think I +found the trouble. No point my coming back down if it doesn't work."</p> + +<p>They made me sweat it out for about ten minutes before Paul said, +"Runs like a watch, Mike. Put the spin back on her, boy." At least he +was quiet about his solenoid.</p> + +<p>This called for the second rocket canister, which I hooked on to the +girdle and, after thinking it out carefully, got headed in the right +direction. I eased away with finger pressure, and let the delayed fuse +do the firing. Telstar started her slow spin again.</p> + +<p>Getting the girdle off was a lot harder than getting it on, something +we hadn't figured on, and in the final stages of the job I found that +my steering motors no longer fired.</p> + +<p>"Sid!"</p> + +<p>"Roger, Mike."</p> + +<p>"How much fuel do you read in my steering jets?"</p> + +<p>"You've been out of fuel for about five minutes, by my gauge. But +don't worry about it," Sid said. "I'll nurse <i>Nelly</i> over there with +my steering jets and pick you up."</p> + +<p>"O.K.," I said doubtfully. "But watch it. Bump this bird and we'll +have it all to do over again."</p> + +<p>Sid had more trouble than he had figured. He had steering jets to run +him in every direction except fore and aft. For that motion the +retro-rockets were considered enough. But one belch out of them was +enough to get me screaming into the mike: "Cut those retros!" I +yelled, the volume making my earphones crack, as it undoubtedly did +his.</p> + +<p>"Roger. What's wrong?"</p> + +<p>"You'll burn the solar generators right off the bird, you fool! +Steering jets, do you hear, steering jets!"</p> + +<p>"Roger."</p> + +<p>But it was not that easy. Finally Sid got <i>Nelly</i> within about twenty +feet, and pretty near at zero relative velocity.</p> + +<p>"All right, Sid," I said. "Hold it there. I'll push over."</p> + +<p>A gentle shove against the side of Telstar was all it took. I got it +straight, which was all that counted. My drift was slow, and I was a +good five minutes making the twenty-foot crossing. But a handhold came +within reach, and I worked my way back into the cabin and climbed in +without shutting the hatch.</p> + +<p>"Don't try that again," I cautioned him. "This thing weighs ten +thousand pounds, and that bird half as much. Even at a couple feet a +second, you can crush me to jelly between them, even if you don't burn +one or the other of us to a crisp."</p> + +<p>"Roger," Sid said, not quite so emotionlessly. "Are we ready to move?"</p> + +<p>"What for?" I asked him. "Until we get me some steering fuel, I'm +useless."</p> + +<p>"I thought we'd abort this mission before we were through," he +sneered.</p> + +<p>"Not so fast. You've got the same rig on your suit. All we have to do +is put your fuel tanks on my suit."</p> + +<p>"Are you nuts?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with it? Those tanks aren't welded to you, and I've +got tools."</p> + +<p>I could see him shake his head in the dim light from the instrument +panel. "You know those fuels ignite on contact with each other," he +pointed out. "If we spill a couple drops of each in here, and they +vaporize, we'll blow this kite to pieces!"</p> + +<p>"Then we'll get outside to make the switch," I insisted. "It won't +hurt anything if a few grams burn up out there, will it, with nothing +to confine the expansion."</p> + +<p>"But then I won't be able to come after you if anything goes wrong," +he pointed out. "No dice."</p> + +<p>"You're grasping, Stein," I growled. "At this stage I'm in charge +around here. I'll take my chances on getting back."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>With the cabin light on I went as far as possible in dismounting both +our tanks. After a couple rehearsals to make sure that at least one of +us would always have a glove on a handhold, we both climbed out the +hatch and I made the switch. Just as Sid suspected, we spilled a few +drops. They vaporized, and again as we had feared, combined in what +would have been an explosion in a confined space. The soundless flash, +dim but real, said we had released quite a little energy uniformly all +around us. I never felt a thing except a faint warmth from infrared +through my helmet.</p> + +<p>Best of all, my jets worked. We both climbed back aboard <i>Nelly</i>, +dogged the hatch, and started after Telstar Two.</p> + +<p>The second bird was about fifteen thousand miles ahead of us. I slept +most of the time, for after Sid gave us a jolt of added velocity, we +had to settle down to about six hours of drifting. I woke up as the +belt cut me when he fired the retros. We went through the radar and +searchlight bit, and had the devil's own time finding our bird. But at +last I got the flash of reflection and went to work.</p> + +<p>I won't say the second job was any easier, except for the fact that I +removed only one part to make room to do my bit with the insulation, +and thus had very few screws to replace. My navigating in space was a +lot better, and I didn't use steering fuel as wastefully as the first +time. Still, when we dogged down to chase after the final bird, the +cabin gauge said that I had less than half my load of steering fuel +left. Equally glum, <i>Nelly</i> herself was even lower on steering fuel. +Neither Sid nor I had been as expert as we were supposed to be.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, we took off after the third bird, and found it +glistening in bright sunlight without the help of the searchlight. I +thought that was a good omen. But from there on nothing seemed to work +right.</p> + +<p>We had been aloft about thirty-six hours, and fatigue was setting in. +I was clumsy on the steering and had quite a time making contact.</p> + +<p>The repair went according to Hoyle, but after I had put the spin back +on the bird I found that I had no more steering fuel. I hung about ten +or fifteen feet from Telstar Three and maybe eighty feet from <i>Nelly</i>, +drifting slowly from both.</p> + +<p>"Sid!"</p> + +<p>"Roger, Mike."</p> + +<p>"This one will have to make it with the girdle on."</p> + +<p>"Can't you get it off?"</p> + +<p>"I can't get back to it. Steering fuel gone."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!"</p> + +<p>"No sweat, Sid. It occludes a small share of the solar generators, but +not enough to hurt anything."</p> + +<p>"That's not what I meant," he said quietly into my ear. "<i>Nelly's</i> out +of steering fuel, too. I can't pick you up!"</p> + +<p>I gulped on that one.</p> + +<p>"Canaveral Control!" I heard him call.</p> + +<p>"Cut that out," I said. "They can't help. Shut up and let me think."</p> + +<p>But he didn't, and I couldn't. I had no fuel with which to move. Sid +had only the retros and stern rockets, no good for swinging or +turning. I was out of touching range of the bird, and couldn't shove +against it to build up a little drift. Just as Sylvia said, it's not +like swimming back to shore.</p> + +<p>There was a lot of excited chatter in my earphones, in which I did not +participate. Nobody made any sense, and Sid shut the thing down.</p> + +<p>"Mike!"</p> + +<p>"Yeah." Disgusted.</p> + +<p>"Whatever you dope out, make it quick. You don't have all the air in +the world." Sid warned me.</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"Ten minutes or so."</p> + +<p>"All right," I said. "It ought to be enough. Keep your eye on me. You +may have to reach out an arm or leg for me to grab as I go by."</p> + +<p>"How are you going to move?"</p> + +<p>"I've got a lifesaver," I said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I writhed and squirmed and made every use of the law of conservation +of angular momentum until I had my back to <i>Nelly</i>. Then I wound up +and threw my fancy screwdriver as hard as I could heave it away from +me. I didn't get the zip on it I would have liked, but because it was +sort of like a throwing stick, I got a little more on it than you +might expect, maybe fifty or sixty feet a second. And the thing +weighed about four pounds, with its fancy ratchet and torque clutch. +Since in my suit I weighed just about a hundred times as much, I +started toward <i>Nelly</i> at just one-one-hundredth of the velocity I had +imparted to the screwdriver. In a couple minutes I was drifting pretty +close, but tumbling. I had forgotten that part.</p> + +<p>Throwing the screwdriver had given my body the correct vector and some +velocity, but I had set up quite a tumbling moment, since I had thrown +from the shoulder and not from my center of gravity.</p> + +<p>I chucked a couple lighter tools away to correct my drift, and Sid +snagged me as I drifted by the hatch.</p> + +<p>"Come to Papa," he said, and drew me inside. We didn't horse around +congratulating ourselves. My air tanks were no longer hissing, and we +made a quick swap.</p> + +<p>Sid let me dog down the hatch while he figured position. He used the +iron compass method, just taking a close look at Earth, which was more +or less dead ahead of us. That was a good place for it, because we had +no steering fuel.</p> + +<p>The re-entry was a mess, from Sid's point of view. We came in at a +weird angle and heated up to beat hell before there was enough +atmosphere for our rudder to swing us around straight. He bounced us +off twice after that as we slowed down, but the creak of heating metal +was all about us each time we dropped in. He cussed me plenty all the +way.</p> + +<p>The trick, of course, was to slow down to the point where he could +spiral us down to Muroc Dry Lake. <i>Nelly</i> was a sort of glider. Her +performance at about Mach 10 and two hundred thousand feet was quite +respectable, but the lower and slower we went, the more she flew like +the proverbial kitchen sink. Sid only had one bright spot: Our big +fuel supply gave him plenty of rocket and retro when he wanted it, and +allowed him to get us back over Muroc.</p> + +<p>I can't say he made the landing look easy, because he didn't. It +looked like plain hell to me, for we scorched in at something over +four hundred miles an hour.</p> + +<p>When <i>Nelly</i> screeched to a stop, we just sat there. There was none of +this romantic business about snapping open face plates and exchanging +witty remarks. Bubble helmets don't have face plates, and besides, I +didn't have anything I wanted to say to Sid. I was as tired of him as +he was of me. I was just plain tired, if you want to know the truth.</p> + +<p>They didn't let us alone, of course. While the crash trucks were still +kicking up a dust trail tearing out to get us, there were guys on the +radio with those cool voices, and Sid was tiredly saying "Roger," to +all their questions. And we didn't do any moving about. You'd be +surprised how weighing four hundred pounds makes you willing to wait +for the crane to lift you from your seat. All at once I almost wanted +to be back in space again, where I didn't weigh anything at all. +Almost.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They flew us back to Canaveral for the de-briefing, both asleep. The +whole mob was there to greet us, Paul Cleary, Fred Stone, and even +Sylvia. They met us at the plane and Sylvia was the first to grab me +as I came down the steps.</p> + +<p>"Mike!" she squealed. "Are you all right?"</p> + +<p>"Better now," I said, kind of untangling from her. "How did you manage +this?" I looked up. "Hi, Paul," I said to his sleepy old grin, and +knew how.</p> + +<p>"Dinner tonight?" she insisted.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I said, looking over at Paul. "I think there's a +de-briefing or something before they turn me loose."</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly," Sylvia said. "It's not as if you were an astronaut +or something."</p> + +<p>I was back on the ground, all right.</p> + +<p>Well, there was sort of a de-briefing. Cleary and Stone got me alone +for a moment in somebody's office.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mike," Paul said, "that was a great performance. What was the +trouble up there?"</p> + +<p>I laughed at both of them. "Go jump in the lake," I said. "I'm out of +the middle."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Mike?" Doc Stone asked, holding his young-man's +pipe at arm's length.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't design—because the solenoid worked. And it wasn't +installation. It was materials." I told them about the no-good +insulation.</p> + +<p>"Lucky it's only used in a couple points," Paul said, scowling. "I +guess any other point where it broke up wasn't as critical in +dimension and no short resulted."</p> + +<p>"Not yet," I grinned. "It may. And I couldn't care less."</p> + +<p>"You're a big winner, then, Mike," Paul grinned. "Fred and I have kind +of made up anyway, and you're in solid with Sylvia."</p> + +<p>"Not with that noise," I said. "No dame was worth that ride. Let Sid +have her."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Trouble with Telstar, by John Berryman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROUBLE WITH TELSTAR *** + +***** This file should be named 30679-h.htm or 30679-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/7/30679/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Trouble with Telstar + +Author: John Berryman + +Illustrator: John Schoenherr + +Release Date: December 14, 2009 [EBook #30679] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROUBLE WITH TELSTAR *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1963. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + THE TROUBLE WITH TELSTAR + + + The real trouble with communications satellites is + the enormous difficulty of repairing + even the simplest little trouble. + You need such a loooong screwdriver. + + + by JOHN BERRYMAN + + ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR + + * * * * * + + + + +Doc Stone made sure I wouldn't give him the "too busy" routine. He +sent Millie to get me. + +"Okay, Millie," I said to Stone's secretary. "I'll be right with you." +I cleared the restricted notes and plans from my desk and locked them +in the file cabinet, per regulations, and walked beside Millie to +Stone's office. + +"It's a reflex mechanism, Mike," Dr. Stone said as Millie showed me +in. "Every type knows how to fight for survival." He took one +thoughtful puff on his pipe. "The old fud," he added. + +"The solenoid again, Doc?" I asked. + +"What else, Mike?" he said, raising his pale eyebrows. "It's Paul +Cleary's baby, and after all these years with the company, he doesn't +figure to go down without a fight." + +So I was in the middle of it. I had no business to be there, either. +The design of that solenoid certainly hadn't been mine. All I had ever +done was find out how to destroy it. And after all, that's part of +what my lab does, and what I do, for a living. + +"Quit staring out the window, Mike," Doc said behind me. "Here, sit +down." + +I took the chair beside the desk and watched him go through the +business of unloading his pipe, taking the carefully air-tight top off +the humidor we had machined for him down in the lab, and loading up +with the cheapest Burley you can buy. So much for air-tight +containers. Doc got it going, which took two wooden matches, because +the stuff was wringing wet--thanks again to an air-tight container. + +"I just left Cleary's office, Mike," he explained. "He won't admit +that there's any significance to the failures you have introduced in +his solenoid. He insists that your test procedures affected +performance more than design did, and he wants to talk with you." + +"Great," I said glumly. "Can I count on you to give me a good +recommendation for my next employer?" + +"Cut it out, Mike," he said, coming as near to a snap as his careful +voice could manage. He blew smoke out around the stem of his pipe. I +think sometimes it's a part of his act, like the slightly-out-of-press +sports jacket and flannel trousers. It says he is a sure enough Ph.D. +If you ask me, he's a comer. You can't rate him for lack of brains. He +knows an awful lot about solid-state physics, and for a physicist, he +sure learned enough about micro-assemblies of electronic components. I +guess that's why he was in charge of final assembly of the Telstar +satellites for COMCORP. + +"Don't worry about what Paul Cleary can do _to_ you, Mike," he +suggested. "Think a little bit more about what Fred Stone can do _for_ +you. Cleary is only a year or so from retirement, and you know it." + +"He could make that an awful tough year, Doc." I said. "You told me he +won't hear of design bugs in that solenoid. He'll insist something +went wrong in assembly." + +Doc Stone smiled thinly at me and brushed at his blond crew cut. "It +is a tough spot, Mike," he agreed. "Because I won't hear any talk of +faulty assembly. You'll have to choose, I guess. If you think you can +make your bed by playing footsie with an old fud who has only a year +to go, try it. Just remember that I've got another thirty years to go, +and I'll breathe down your neck every minute of them if you let me +down!" + +"Sure," I said. "When do I see him?" + +"Now." + + * * * * * + +Doc Stone got someone named Sylvia on the phone and then told me to go +right up. After I got there, I had to sit and wait in Cleary's outer +office. + +I shared it with a small, intense girl named Sylvia Shouff, if you +believed the little plastic sign on her desk. There was barely room +for it in the welter of paper, files, notebooks, phones, calendars and +other junk she had squirreled. She was much too busy banging at a +typewriter and handling the phone to pay any attention to me. Her +pert, lively manner said she hadn't taken any wooden nickels lately. + +But I had. The last series of tests in my lab had put me in the middle +of a hell of a scrap. It had all started a couple years back, when the +final design had been approved for a whole sky-full of communications +satellites. Well, eighteen, to be exact. One of the parts in the +design had been a solenoid, part No. M1537, which handled a switching +operation too potent for a solid-state switch. That solenoid was one +of the few moving parts in the Telstars, and it had been designed for +skeighty-eight million cycles before it got sloppy or quit. + +In practice, out in space, the switching operation simply hadn't +worked. After about a hundred hours of use in Telstar One, it failed. +Unfortunately, this had not been discovered until the first six +satellites had been launched. Further launchings were postponed while +they ran accelerated switching tests on satellites Two through Six out +in space. The same kind of failure took place on each bird. + +There were two schools of thought on licking the bug. Doc Stone, of +course, insisted that solenoid M1537 had failed, which was one +possible interpretation of the telemetry. And Paul Cleary, who had +been in charge of design, insisted that faulty assembly was to blame. +Well, somebody would make up his mind pretty soon, and my evidence +would have a lot to do with it. I had done the appraisal tests of the +circuit in the test lab once the bug had been detected, and now Cleary +was going to smoke it out of me. + +"Mr. Seaman," Sylvia Shouff said to me, kind of waking me up. "Mr. +Cleary will see you now. Have you ever met?" she added, as I came +toward her desk. + +I shook my head. "I'm a working stiff," I said, "I never get to meet +the brass." + +"You are also somewhat insolent," she said tartly. "Better wash out +your mouth before you try that on Paul Cleary. He eats wise young +laboratory technicians for breakfast." + +"Yes, _mam_!" I said, feeling my ears burn. She led me to the door, +opened it, and introduced me to Paul Cleary. He lumbered out around +his desk and shook my hand with his rather gnarled and boney paw. + +"Hello, Seaman. I'm glad to meet you, young man. Come in. We have a +lot to talk about," he said. + + * * * * * + +Considering that Cleary was a wheel, and had thirty years of service +with Western Electric behind him, his office wasn't especially large. +Maybe that's because Communications Corporation is owned half by the +government and half by AT&T. The government half makes us watch our +pennies. + +"Have a seat, Mike," Cleary said, going around to lower himself +carefully into a tall swivel chair. He learned back and rocked slowly, +like an old woman on the front porch of a resort hotel. His pipe was +still smoking in a rather large ashtray. He picked it up, showing it +to be a curve-stemmed old-man's style, and puffed contentedly at it. +On him it didn't look like an act. + +"Well," he said, pulling big shaggy eyebrows down so they shaded his +pale blue eyes. "You've become something of a celebrity around here, +Mike." + +This was an unexpected approach. "Nobody told _me_," I complained. +"Does this kind of fame show up in the paycheck?" + +"Not always," Cleary said, scowling a little. "I just meant that your +name gets bandied about. Every time I talk to Fred Stone he says, 'Dr. +Seaman says this,' or 'Dr. Seaman says that.' I just had to see what +this doctor looked like." + +"You can forget the doctor part," I said uncomfortably. I had heard +that Cleary was sensitive about having no advanced degree. When he +went to work for the Western, college was plenty. You did your +post-graduate work on the job. He sure had--and he had a string of +patents as long as your arm to prove it. + +"That's good," he said. "I'd hate to think I was competing with you in +the field of knowledge where you are the world's specialist." + +I grinned at him a little sickly. "COMCORP has never made any use of +my specialty," I conceded. "You already had about ten guys around here +who had learned twice as much as I had simply by doing it every day +for a living. They could have written rings around my thesis." + +"Sure," he said contentedly, puffing more smoke. "So we made a testing +engineer out of you. And you may amount to something, to hear Fred +Stone tell it." + +"Thanks," I said. + +"Now let me hear what you've been doing for Fred," Cleary suggested, +in a sort of avuncular tone. "I'd like to measure you myself." + +"You mean the tests I ran on the switching gate?" I asked. + +"Why, yes, we can start there," he nodded, squinting his blue eyes +more and blowing a real screen up between us. + + * * * * * + +"When Telstar One packed up, they sent me down the whole gate from +that sector," I said. "Dr. Stone asked me to run destruct tests on the +whole assembly, which I did. The only failures I have induced so far +are failures in M1537, the solenoid that all the shouting is about." + +"What kind of failures did you get?" + +"Armature froze on the field," I said. "I guess the bearings really +went. When there was enough load on them, they couldn't maintain +concentricity." + +"What kind of loads?" he growled, sinking down lower in his chair. He +put his elbows on the arm and laced hairy-backed fingers together +under his chin. + +"I put the whole gate on the centrifuge and swung it up to twelve +gees" I said. "Switching was normal there for the twenty thousand +cycles I gave the gate. But when I added undamped vibration at twelve +thousand to fifteen thousand cycles per second, I could induce failure +pretty quickly. Say an hour or so." + +"You had to apply the vibration throughout the whole test period to +get these failures?" + +"Yes, Mr. Cleary." + +"Then how do you explain how vibration during no more than six or +eight minutes of blast-off and launch could have the same effect on +the actual installation on M1537 in a satellite, Mr. Seaman?" Smoke +poured from the curve-stem. + +"I don't have to explain it," I said, beginning to get a little hot. +"All I have done is find a way to make one part quit. I haven't said +it did quit in use, or that it could be made to quit in use." + +"Then what the hell are you good for?" Cleary growled. + +I didn't have any answer for that. + +He repeated his question, blue eyes glittering. "I asked you what the +hell you were good for, Seaman!" he said, much more loudly. + +"For putting in the middle," I snapped back. + +"That's how you interpret this affair, then?" + +"Yes." + +"All right," Cleary said, straightening up. "We'll stop talking about +your work as if it were scientific study and talk about it as a play +in office politics. Is that what you want?" + +"I don't want any part of it," I said, hoping I wasn't plaintive. "I +work under orders. The director of assembly asked me to test the part +to destruction. I tested it. I'm sorry that it wasn't a soldered joint +that failed. It wasn't. It was a solenoid. What has that got to do +with me?" + +"Nothing, maybe," Cleary conceded, pushing himself up out of his +chair. He went to his window to stare out at the parking lot. "You can +be a test engineer all your life, if that's what you want." + +"It isn't." + +"And what do you want, Mike?" he said, turning back to face me. + +"Your job," I said. "In time." + + * * * * * + +He nodded. "Well said," he decided. "But if you want it, you'll have +to learn that business is about ninety per cent people and about ten +per cent operations. You know, as you have clearly shown, that Fred +Stone is pushing to get me out of here a little before my time, and +pushing to make sure that he gets this spot, for which there are other +claimants of equal rank in the organization. Oh no," he said, holding +up his hand. "Don't tell me that is none of your affair. Right now you +are in the unusual position of being able to cast a vote that will +decide just how soon Fred Stone can make his move for the top spot. +And as long as you sit there and try that smug line of 'I just test +'em and let the chips fall where they may,' you are really siding with +Fred Stone. I need something else out of you, and you know it. What's +it going to be? Are you a wise enough head at your years to pick a +winner in this scrap? And what if it _isn't_ Fred? I'll have your +hide, young man." + +[Illustration] + +"That's what your snippy little brunette said," I told him. "She told +me that you'd eat me for breakfast, and she was right." I got to my +feet. + +"Where are you going," he growled. He was still standing behind his +chair. + +"To look for another job, Mr. Cleary. There must be some place where +the honest result of a test will be assessed as the honest result of a +test rather than a move in a political fight." + +"Honest result?" he echoed, and snorted. "_Was_ your test honest? What +_really_ happened out there in space?" + +"Nobody asked me," I said hotly. "My assignment was to test that gate +until a part failed." + +"A dishonest assignment," Cleary said. "Sit down a minute." We both +calmed down and took our seats. I got a cigar out of my coat, peeled +the wrapper and made counter-smoke. "Here, I'll give you an honest +assignment, Seaman. You're a test engineer. Tell me what happened _out +there in space_. Why did that switching operation fail?" + +"I haven't the faintest idea," I said. + +"Then find out!" + +I chewed my cigar. "Without duplicating the conditions?" I protested. +"And how can we? There's zero gravity--zero pressure--all sorts of +things going on out there we can't duplicate in a lab." + +"I really don't care how you do it," he said. "But if it were my job +I'd just light my pipe and sit here and think for a week or so. Why +don't _you_ try it?" + +I got up again. "Yes, sir," I said. "I suppose it would help to have +the original telemetry data so that I could evaluate for myself what +went wrong." + +"I thought you'd get to that," he said, passing me a fat file-folder. +"Here it is." He stood up, too, and led me to the door. "And other +data you might want?" he asked, now a good deal more kindly. His hand +was on my elbow. + +I looked at him. "How about the phone number of the brunette out +there?" I asked without taking the stogey from my teeth. + +"Sylvia? That's pretty valuable information," he said, beginning to +grin in a sleepy old fashion. "But she only dates astronauts. If you +haven't made at least three orbits, she won't even have dinner with +you." + +[Illustration] + +I stopped at Sylvia's desk with half an idea of asking her for a date. +"Well, Dr. Seaman," she demanded as I chewed on my pacifier. "What did +you learn?" + +I thought about it. "That a lot depends on knowing where to put your +feet," I said, puffing smoke. "And my name is Mike." + +She sniffed. "If you think Paul Cleary hasn't been around long enough +to catch Fred Stone trying to fake him out of position with a +meaningless test," she said, "you have another think coming!" + +"He'd never have tried it," I told her, "if he'd known Cleary had you +to look after him." That got me a much louder sniff and toss of the +dark curly head, which broke up my plans to ask her to dinner. + +The telemetry results had been decoded, of course, so that a mere +mortal could read them. I didn't have a pipe, which probably meant I'd +be a failure as a physicist, so I chewed cigars ragged for about three +days and did some serious thinking. When I got a result, I looked up +Shouff, Sylvia, Secy./Mgr./Dsgn., in the phone directory, and talked +to my favorite brunette. + +"Mr. Cleary's office," she said. + +"When would he like to see Mike Seaman?" I tried. + +"Probably never," she told me. "But I suppose he'll have to. Isn't +Fred Stone going to run your errand for you?" + +"I'm running Fred Stone's errands, isn't that what you really think, +Sylvia?" I asked her. + +Sniff! "He can see you at eleven." Click. + +Paul Cleary had his coat off and was poring over a large +black-on-white schematic when I was shown in by sniffin' Sylvia. +"Hello, Mike," he growled. "Here, Sylvia. Mike's not supposed to see +this stuff. Drag it away, honey. Drag it away!" + +With quick motions she rolled up the drawings, snapped a rubber binder +around them and went out. Cleary wagged his hairy old paw to the chair +beside his desk. + +"So you've been thinking?" he asked, reaching for his curve-stemmed +pipe. + +"How do you know?" + +"My spies tell me you haven't been out in the lab since the other day. +Certainly you were doing something besides sulk in your office." + +"Yes." + +"Well, what did you come up with? Why did that switching operation +fail out in space." + +"I don't know." + +His shaggy eyebrows shot up. "You don't know? Is that all COMCORP got +for three days' pay?" + +"A confession of ignorance is a hell of a lot more revealing than a +solid error," I snapped. "The honest answer that I get out of the +telemetry data is that something in that gate broke the circuit and +the switching operation failed. I think there are about seven thousand +components in the gate. I don't know which one failed. A few I can +rule out, because they would only cause part of the gate to fail. But +a hundred different breaks could account for the data. So I don't +know." + +He lit his pipe and blew smoke around the curved stem before he made +reply. "So we got a philosopher for our money," he said. "A confession +of ignorance, eh? What are you going to do about it?" + +"You tell me, Mr. Cleary. You're the old head around here." + +"So I am," he said evenly. "So I am. Well, my advice to young pups is +that they should not be ashamed when they don't know. They should say +so. But they should have something else to say along with it." + +"For example," I suggested grumpily. + +"They should say, 'I don't know, but I know where to find out,'" he +said. "Tell me, Dr. Seaman, do you know where to find out?" + +He puffed at me for the two or three minutes I thought about it. +Really, that's a very long time to think. Most ideas come to you the +moment you identify the problem, which is the really hard part of +thinking. But this problem took some thought, and I wanted him to +think I was thinking. + +"Yes," I said at last. "I know where to find out." + +"Where?" + +"Out in space." + + * * * * * + +This called for a lot more smoke. "You mean, go out there and look at +the satellite, in space?" + +"Yes, I can't imagine any other way really to figure it out." + +He nodded. "You may be right, Mike. But do you know how much it costs +to send a manned satellite aloft?" + +"Oh," I agreed. "There are cheaper ways. We can beef up every part in +that gate, test it much tougher than we already have, and when we get +the gate to where all seven thousand components can stand any +imaginable strain, we can rebuild the twelve Telstars we haven't +launched yet and be pretty sure they won't have switching failures. +But that isn't what you asked me." + +"We'd have to fix eighteen of them," he said. "The first six are about +sixty per cent useless. They'd have to be replaced." + +"I still think you should consider sending a man to examine the +Telstars in orbit," I suggested. + +"Science demands it, eh" he growled. + +"No, I was thinking that perhaps a simple repair could be made in +space, and that you wouldn't have to launch six extra birds." + +He got out of the chair and went to the clothes tree to put on his +coat. The elbows were shiny from leaning on his desk. "It might be +cheaper at that," he said. "The first six are launched in only two +orbits. Three telstars in each orbit, separated by one hundred and +twenty degrees. Two launches of a repair man might do it, with careful +handling. Is that what you had in mind?" + +"Something like that." + +"We'd have to send a pretty rare kind of a repair man, Mike," he said, +coming back to sit on the corner of his desk and glower down at me. +That was about his kindest expression. + +"Yes," I agreed. "You need somebody who can test and diagnose, and +then make a repair." + +"And who is an astronaut, too," he said. "I wonder if there is such a +thing?" + +"Make one," I suggested. + +He scowled a little more fiercely. "Explain that," he ordered. + +"I figure you could take one of our men from my laboratory, who knows +how to test the gate, and a man who is handy enough with miniature +components to cut out the one that failed and replace it, and teach +him how to get around in a spacesuit. That would surer than hell be +quicker than taking one of these hot-shot astronauts and teaching him +solid-state physics." + +"Yes," he agreed, looking down his fingers. "That was a pretty sneaky +way to get out from between Fred Stone and me, young man." + +I couldn't resist it: "That's what took most of the three days," I +said, just a little too smugly. + +"I liked you better in the middle," Cleary grumped. "Well, you have a +thought, and it calls for a conference." He took his coat off again, +hung it on the clothes tree, came back to his desk and got on the +phone. + +"Sylvia? Have Fred Stone come up, and you come in with him, eh? That's +a dear." + +He racked up the instrument and smiled at me as he stoked his pipe +into more activity. "Relax," he advised me. "It always takes a while +to round up Fred Stone." + +He wanted no small talk, so I fidgeted in my chair while Cleary rocked +gently in his. In about ten minutes, curly-headed Sylvia brought Dr. +Stone in with her. + + * * * * * + +It was, "Hello, Fred," and "Hello there, Paul," when they came in. +Sylvia didn't have anything to say, although she gave me a hot-eyed +glance before pulling out the dictation board on Paul Cleary's desk +and making herself comfortable with her notebook. + +Cleary offered Doc Stone some of his tobacco, which was politely +refused. The old man began it: + +"Your Dr. Seaman has quite an idea, Fred," he said, in a mild, kindly +voice, with a dumb, guileless look on his face. + +"Good, Paul," Doc Stone smiled thinly. "I've told you he's a good +boy." + +"Hm-m-m," said Cleary. "He says his tests can't prove what went wrong +with the switching gate on the satellites, and in effect that the +telemetry doesn't make it plain whether we have design or assembly +trouble." + +"Well, _well_!" said Fred Stone. I decided to start shopping for a +marker for my grave. + +"Yes," Cleary said. "He made quite a suggestion, that we send a man +out in space to look over the Telstars and find out what went wrong. +Even better, he says it might be possible to make a repair at the same +time and get the bird working. You can see the advantages of doing +that, the way they are orbiting." + +"Yes, indeed," Doc Stone said, looking at me with slitted eyes. "Quite +a unique adventure for some technician." + +"Just what I was thinking," Cleary said. "The problem resolves into: +Who do we send? Now Mike, here, says we should take a man from his lab +who knows the bird and its assembly and teach him how to get around in +a spacesuit--that, he claims, would be quicker than taking one of +these space jockeys and making a technician out of him." + +"I think he's right." + +"So--there we are. Who do we send?" + +"There can hardly be any choice," Dr. Stone said, looking at me with +eyes like granite. + +"Hardly," Cleary agreed. "The head of the lab is the best man, beyond +a doubt." + +They were talking about me! Try to get out of taking sides, would I? +Cleary wanted me back in the middle. Stone wanted me dead. They were +both likely to get their way, unless I told them off. + +I opened my mouth. Cleary cleared his throat loudly. + +"Oh, Dr. Seaman!" Sylvia cut in, breaking her careful silence. "What a +thrilling opportunity for you!" + +I gaped at her. Well, Cleary had said it. She only went out with +astronauts. She was space-happy. + +"There are men in the shop who deserve the chance...." I started. + +"Nonsense!" she said quickly. "It's your idea, doctor, and you deserve +the fame!" + +"And the promotion this will undoubtedly earn--if you can bring it +off," Cleary added. + +"Yes!" Dr. Stone said with relish. He didn't think I could, either. +Well, that made three of us, unless Sylvia made four. + +"Thank you very much," I started, as a prelude to backing out. + +"Good, that's settled," Cleary said. "That's all, Sylvia." + +She got up and left. She had done her dirty work. If I hadn't been so +sick at my stomach, I would have had to admire really great teamwork. + +Stone shook my hand with an evil kind of relish and followed her out. + +That left Paul Cleary and me alone. "This is a great thing, young +man," he said. + +I couldn't stand him any longer. "You are a worm!" I told him. + +"You're probably right, Mike," he agreed, without any particular heat. +"But a rather just one. I think you'll admit you've been paid off in +your own coin. All you had to do was beg off." + +"In front of her? You knew I wouldn't." + +"I _figured_ you wouldn't. That's one of the advantages of being +older. You know more about how the young will behave. Come on," he +said, getting up to put on his coat again. "We have to see a man." + +"One thing," I said, as I got up, "while we're being so just." + +"Yes?" + +"I had thought of asking your Sylvia for a date. But she was so snippy +the other night I decided to forget it. Now, she got me into this, and +she'll have to pay and pay! How do I get to her? It'll be quite a +while before I'm an astronaut." + +He took his pipe from between his teeth. "This calls for the wisdom of +a Solomon," he decided. "But you might try oysters." + + * * * * * + +It was pretty good advice. I hung behind him long enough to tell +Sylvia about the Chincoteague oysters they put in the stew at Grand +Central Terminal, and got a dinner date. That was all, just the date, +because Cleary was itching to take me to see a man. + +Politics must be an awfully large part of business. The man we went to +see was the government side of COMCORP, and I guess he had had to do +as much explaining about Telstar failures to a Senate Committee as +Paul Cleary had had to do to the Western. He wanted an out just as bad +as Paul did. + +There were a good many conferences before a sufficient number of +people decided the cheapest way out was to send a man to fix the +Telstars that had broken down. The question was whether it was +possible. + +We went at it from two directions. They got a team assigned to +figuring out if the Dyna-Soar rocket could be modified to make the +three contacts around the orbit, carry two men and enough air and fuel +for the job, and at COMCORP we appointed a crew to figure out what it +meant to make the repair in orbit. + +Cleary put me in charge of our crew. They gave me a full-size Telstar +satellite for my lab, and I went to work. + +Fancy electronic equipment consists of millions of parts, and Telstar +is no exception. One of the bonuses America got from its poor rocket +booster performance, as compared with the Russians, was a forced-draft +course in miniaturization. Our engineers have learned how to make +almost anything about one-tenth the size you'd think it ought to be, +and still work. To get all these tiny parts into a total system, they +are assembled in racks. In the Telstar each of these long skinny +sticks of perforated magnesium alloy is hinged to the main framework +so that it can be swung out for testing or for replacement of parts, +which is why the engineers call each component a "gate." + +I spent several weeks learning how to take each suspected component +out of the gate. Most of the time I needed a screwdriver. Sometimes I +had to drill out a soft aluminium rivet. The hard part was that some +of the components were so deep inside, even with a couple gates swung +out the way, that I needed all kinds of extension tools. + +Of course, I had to visualize what it would be like doing all this out +in space. I'd be in a spacesuit, wearing thick gloves, and when I +removed a screw that would have looked good in a Swiss watch, there'd +be no work bench on which to place it while I took out the next one. +Worse yet, I would have to put it back in. + +The longer I worked with the parts, the harder it looked. There +wouldn't be a prayer of just turning the parts loose in space. In +theory they'd follow along in orbit. In practice you can't bring your +hand to a halt and release a tiny part without imparting a small +proper motion to it. And even worse, you couldn't handle the little +wretches when you tried to put them back in. With a solid floor to lie +on, with gravity to give things a position orientation, I kept losing +tiny screws. Magnets didn't help, because the screws were nonmagnetic +for what seemed pretty good reasons. Some were made of dural for +lightness. Some were silicon bronze. None of them was steel. + +That put us back in the lab to find out what would happen if we used +steel screws. The answer was, surprisingly, nothing important. So +there was one solid achievement. I had a few thousand of each of the +thirty-four different sizes of fasteners machined from steel, and +magnetized a fly-tier's tweezers. The result was that I could get +screws back into their holes without dropping them, especially when I +put little pads of Alnico on the point of each tweezer to give me a +really potent magnet. Then we had to cook up an offset screwdriver +with a ratchet that would let me reach in about a yard and still run +a number 0-80 machine screw up tight. That called for a kind of +torque-limit clutch and other snivies. + +It was the fanciest and most expensive screwdriver you ever saw. The +handle was a good two feet long. The problem then became that of +seeing what you were doing, and one of the boys faked up a kind of +binocular jeweler's loupe with long focus, so that I could lie back a +yard from the screw and focus on it with about ten diameters +magnification. The trouble was that the long focal length gave a field +of vision about six times the diameter of the screw-head, which meant +that every time my heart beat my head moved enough to throw the field +of vision off the work. + + * * * * * + +By that time I was working in a simulated spacesuit--the actual number +was still being made to fit an accurate plaster cast of my body. So +the boys figured out a clamp that would hold my helmet firmly to the +gate, and a chin rack inside the helmet against which I could press +and hold my head steady enough to keep my binoculars focused where +they had to be focused. At a certain point I went back to Paul Cleary +and said I thought I could make the necessary tests, dismount what I +had to dismount, and replace any affected part. + +"All worked out, eh?" he said, reaching for his pipe. + +"Not by a county mile, Mr. Cleary. But I know what the problems are, +and the shop can figure out sensible answers. Some of the hardest +parts turned out to be the easiest." + +"Name any three," he suggested. + +"Well, the screws. As I take them out, I'll discard them into space. I +have to use magnetic screws on reassembly, so there is no point saving +what I take out. Doug Folley has doped out something like a motorman's +change-dispenser that will dispense one screw at a time into my +tweezers, and I'll carry a supply of all thirty-four kinds at my +waist." + +"That's one," he counted on a hairy forefinger. + +"We can use something like a double-faced pressure-sensitive tape to +hold other parts," I said. "We'll draw a diagram on it, stick it to +some unopened part of the satellite near where I'm working, and as I +pull pieces out, I'll just press them against the other sticky face, +in the correct place in the diagram, and they'll be there to pull +loose when I want them." + +"At absolute zero?" he scoffed. "That sticky face will be hard as +glass." + +"We'll face the bird around to the sun," I said. "And warm it up. If +we have to, we'll put wiring in the tape, connect it to Telstar's +battery supply, and keep it warm." + +"Might work," he grumped. "That's two. How about the spacesuit part?" + +That had been tougher. Some forty or fifty men had made the ride into +space and back from Cape Canaveral by this time, and there had been +rendezvous in space in preparation for flights to the moon. But so far +no one had done any free maneuvering in space in a suit. + +[Illustration] + +They had put me in a swimming pool in a concentrated salt solution +that gave me just zero buoyancy, and I had practiced a kind of +skin-diving in a spacesuit. The problem was one of mobility, and the +one thing we could not reproduce, of course, was frictionless motion. +No matter how I moved, the viscosity of the solution quickly slowed me +down. Out in space I'd have to learn on the first try how to get +around where every force imparted a motion that would continue +indefinitely until an equal and opposite force had been applied. + +The force part had been worked out in theory long before. To my +spacesuit they had fixed two tiny rockets. One aimed out from the +small of my back, the other straight out from my belly. Two +pressurized containers contained hydrazine and nitric acid, which +could be released in tiny streams into peanut rocket chambers by a +single valve-release. They were self-igniting, and spurted out a +needle-fine jet of fire that imparted a few dynes of force as long as +the valve was held open. It only had two positions--full open, or +closed, so that navigation would consist of triggering the valve +briefly open until a little push had been imparted, and drifting until +you triggered the opposite rocket for braking. + +The airtanks on my back were right off a scuba outfit. + +Really, they spent more time on the gloves than anything else. At +first we thought of the problem as a heat problem, but it was tougher +than that. Heat loss was not much, out there in a vacuum, and they +made arrangements to warm the handles of my tools so that I wouldn't +bleed heat through my gloves to them and thus freeze my fingers. No, +the problem was to get a glove that stood up to a pressure difference +of three or four pounds per square inch and could still be flexed with +any accuracy by my fingers. We could make a glove that was pretty +thin, but it stiffened out under pressure and made delicate work +really tough. It was a lot like trying to do brain surgery in mittens. + +They eventually gave me a porous glove that leaked air when you flexed +your fingers. Air, they said, could always be gotten from the +Dyna-Soar rocket that would be hanging close at hand in space. Well, +we hoped it would work. I could do pretty fair work with the leaky +gloves, and all we could hope was that the vapor would be dry enough +as it seeped out through the gloves to prevent formation of a foggy +cloud all around me, or the formation of frost on the gloves. That we +could not test under any conditions easy to simulate. + +Each team spent ninety days. They tell me that's right quick work for +pointing up a launch. But at the end of three months I had assembled +enough stuff to do the job, and still well within the weight limit +they had to set. I wasn't a walking machine shop, but there was a lot +I could do if I had to. + + * * * * * + +Ninety days had been enough for several dates with Sylvia. Out of the +office she wasn't quite the protective harpy about Paul Cleary that +she had been in the office, although the thought was never far from +her mind. + +We spent my final night in New York before leaving for the Cape at +Sweets, a real old fashioned seafood house down on Fulton street. +After the obligatory oysters, we had broiled bluefish, and otherwise +lived it up. They serve a good piece of apple pie, and we had that +with our coffee. + +"Are you scared?" Sylvia asked me. + +"Of what?" I lied innocently. + +"Of being out in space--just floating around?" + +"Yes," I told her honestly. "I'm scared to death. What if I have a +queasy stomach? They say a good half of the men who have been in orbit +have chucked up or gotten dizzy or something. What if they go to all +this trouble and I get spacesick?" + +"What if you drift away and can't get back?" she said. "It isn't like +swimming back to shore." + +"There's always a way," I said, my stomach tightening as I thought of +what she said. + +That was the night she kissed me good night. It wasn't much of a kiss, +because we were standing in the lobby of her apartment house, and she +wasn't going to invite me up, because she never did. But she said: +"Hurry back." + +"Just you know it, Shouff," I said, bitter inside. + +I'd have been a lot more bitter if I had known what was in store for +me at the Cape. COMCORP flew me down in one of our private prop-jets, +with only Paul Cleary for company. He introduced me to the brass, and +we sat through a couple conferences while the idea was spelled out to +a group of sure-enough spacemen. Then they turned that mob loose on +me. + +I was emotionally unprepared. First off, Cleary and Fred had been +building me up all through the three months, and I had actually gotten +to the point where I thought I knew what I was doing. These +space-jockeys spent most of their time deflating my ego. + +My tormentor-in-chief was a wise punk from Brooklyn named Sid Stein. +"How have you made out in your centrifuge tests?" he asked me at +breakfast the first morning after I had reached the Cape. + +"I have never done any of that stuff, Mr. Stein," I said. + +"Well, how many gees can you pull?" + +I shrugged. "Same as you, I suppose. How many is that?" + +"Brot_her_!" + +The space medic wasn't any better. The mission chief insisted that it +wasn't safe to put anybody in a satellite who couldn't pass the +physical. I guess you know that about one man in a thousand can +qualify. This was supposed to wash me out. + +"Remarkable shape." The space medic kept saying. "You must take +considerable exercise, doctor." + +"Oh, no," I said. "Just jog a mile or so before breakfast. Nothing +spectacular." + +"No other formal activity?" + +"Well," I snarled, "just swimming, fencing and weight lifting. I've +given up the boxing and handball." + +"Kept in excellent shape, nevertheless," he said. "You'll be a +disappointment to them." + +"Look," Stein said to me after a week of tests and countertests. +"Don't be deceived by these tests. All they show is that your heart is +still beating. The big thing is emotional. Doc, I think you should +reconsider this idea of flopping around out there in the void. We've +got experienced men here, and none of them is ready to try it." + +"Fools rush in, eh, Mr. Stein." + +"Precisely." + +In the meantime I got a daily phone call from Paul Cleary. That I +could have snarled off, but Sylvia always came on the line first, and +there was a minute or so of chit-chat before she cut her boss in on +the line. I'm sure she listened to all the calls. But her first words +were deadly. For example: + +"Mike! Hi, Mike. Mr. Cleary wants to see how you're doing." + +"Good. Put him on." + +"In a minute. I think it's so wonderful you passed the final physical, +Mike. You're really so deceptive. I never had imagined you had such a +steely physique." + +"Clean living," I said. "No girls." + +"There'd better not be!" + +"Don't worry. How could I get to see any girls down here? Every time I +look away from my work all I can see is Bikini swim suits." + +"Cut that out!" she snickered, and put Cleary on the line. + + * * * * * + +There came a final day when the mission chief called me in to his +office. + +"Come in, Mike. Come in," he said shortly. "Sit down." He leaned back +against his desk and started talking to me, like they say, straight +from the shoulder: + +"I'll give it to you straight, Mike. We've tried every legal way to +wash you out of this mission. There isn't a one of us here at the Cape +that wants any part of taking an armchair theorist and slapping him +into space--into the kind of a mission you've cooked up. Somebody's +going to get hurt out there, because you aren't fit for the job. Now, +physically, yes, you have the capacity. But emotionally and +environmentally, you simply don't add up. You're looking at this thing +as an extension of your laboratory, and instead it is an enormous +physical and mental hazard that you are undertaking. This country has +never lost a man in space--and you'll be the cause of our first +casualty, as well as being one yourself. I'm asking you man to man to +disqualify yourself." + +"And put an end to this mission?" + +"We'll train one of our men," he said. + +"In two or three years your best man might be barely capable," I said. +"I don't think COMCORP is prepared to waste that much time. After +all," I said ingratiatingly, "all you have to do is refuse the +mission. Say I'm a built-in hazard and let it go at that." I grinned +at him. I was learning from Paul Cleary. I _figured_ how space-jockeys +would react to that. + +He told me: "Do you think any of these men would admit they are not up +to a mission a mere technician is ready to try? No! I can't get them +to beg off, either!" + +"When do we go?" I asked. + +Sid Stein was assigned as my pilot. He had made the trip into orbit +and back four times with the Dyna-Soar rocket, and was considered the +best risk to get me there and get me back. He was also the least +convinced I had any right to sit beside him in the cabin. + +His final briefing was a beaut: "This is a spaceship, doctor," he said +frigidly. "And I want you to remember the 'ship' part of it. I'm in +command, and my every word, my every _belch_, has got to be law. Do +you understand that? This is my mission, and I'll tell you where to +put your feet." + +"Sure," I said. "Who wants it?" + +"Can't figure out why you do!" + +"I'm just paying somebody back," I said. "Is it tomorrow?" + + * * * * * + +The start was a drag. Eighteen hours before blast-off Sid and I went +into a tank so that we would get rid of our nitrogen. We breathed the +standard helium-oxygen mix at normal pressure until about four hours +before H-hour. They wouldn't even let me smoke. Then we suited up and +were lifted by a crane and stuck in the control room of _Nelly Bly_, +as I had named our Dyna-Soar rocket-glider. The hatch stayed open, but +we were buttoned up tight in our suits. They had a couple of mods that +were supposed to fit them better for the mission. Instead of the usual +metal helmet with face plate, we had full-vision bubble helmets of +clear plastic. The necks were large enough so that we could, in +theory, drag our arms out of our suits and clean the inside of the +bubbles. That was in case I sicked up out in space, which all +experience said was a real enough hazard. They figured that filling me +full of motion sickness pills was partial prevention. + +These space-jockeys have their own vocabulary, and their own oh, so +cool way of playing it during the countdown. I'm pretty familiar with +complex components, but they were checking off equipment I never heard +of. We had gyros--hell, our _gyros_ had gyros. And we had tanks, and +pressures and temperatures and voltages and who-stuck-John. It was all +very impressive. + +There were suited men up on the gantry unplugging our air feed and +closing our hatch. Sid was straining up from where he lay on his back +to dog it down tight. + +"Roger," Sid was saying to somebody, as he had been all morning. + +The white vapor from our umbilical stopped, which let me know our +tanks had been topped off and sealed, and that we were about to blast +off. + +"This is it, Seaman," Sid Stein said. "Now for Pete's sake don't move, +don't speak, just lie there. I've got the con." + +That was a bunch of baloney. He really had nothing to do until we were +in orbit. The delicate accelerometers and inertial guidance components +did all the piloting until the second stage kicked us loose. But I +kept my mouth shut. He'd have some work to do before the ride was +over, and I might need him. + + * * * * * + +When the lift-off came, it was gentle as a dove's wing. But as we +burned off fuel, the twenty-million pound thrust of our Apollo booster +began to tell, and my vision started to go black. The gee-meter said +we were pulling about ten gees when I could no longer read it, and I +learned later we peaked out at eleven gees in the final seconds before +first-stage burn-out. I didn't like it a little bit. + +The liquid hydrogen second stage kicked in like a hopped up mule, and +we pulled ten gees, right at the limit of my vision, for its whole +four minutes of burning. My earphones were talking now as Sid gave it +the A-OK and Roger bit all the way. This was the stuff, kid! + +Our Dyna-Soar had been modified to some degree for this mission. It's +essentially a big delta-winged glider with a squarish fuselage in the +center. The mods had consisted of tying a third rocket stage out +behind, so that Sid could move us around the orbit from one Telstar to +the next if my work on the first one proved out. The retro-rockets had +several times their normal complement of fuel, so that he could stop +after he got started. The same was true of our steering jets. + +The ship was not pressurized on the lift off. Cabin pressure fell +rather quickly, as we could feel from the inflation of our suits, to +their three and a half-pound pressure. No bends for either of us, +because of the helium substitution for nitrogen. Because there were +two of us, we could chuck and unchuck airtanks for each other as we +needed fresh supplies. We had enough air and water for forty-eight +hours. Together with our low-residue diet for the final week, they +figured we could sweat it out in our suits for two days. We had suit +radios, of course, and could talk with each other for a distance of a +mile or so. + +Burnout of the second stage came suddenly, and we heaved slightly +against our belts as the springs in our seats pushed back out. And +then I got my first taste of free fall. Each veteran astronaut I had +talked to at the Cape had a different way of trying to scare me with +the idea of falling endlessly, and each had different ideas about how +to lick it. In spite of all the talk, I grabbed the arms of my seat to +keep from falling. I turned my head and in the glow from our +instruments could see Sid sneering across at me through his +transparent bubble helmet. + +"How you like them apples?" his voice came from my earphone. + +"That first step is a killer, Sid," I said, trying to sound chipper. I +felt horrible. + +"Let me know when you've had enough," he suggested. "I've got things +to do." + +I knew he did. We had dry-run it a hundred times. If we had been +inserted correctly in orbit, the _Nelly Bly_ was right in the path +that three of the Telstars were now following, and catching up with +Number One at several hundred miles an hour. On the ground, radars all +around the world were taking fixes on us, and Sid was talking shop +over his long-range radio with the radar crews. + +By the time my stomach had made up its mind that it would stick with +me, he had a report. + +"It could be worse," he said. "We've got a lot more velocity than I'd +like, but we're on course. Our orbit would differ quite some, Seaman. +Because of this speed we'd be somewhat more eccentric--maybe swing out +a hundred miles beyond the birds we're chasing. Are you making it?" + +"Easy, Sid. Do we slow down yet?" + +"I'll fire the retros and retard us to the speed of what we're +chasing," he said. "That will equalize our orbits very nearly. Get +busy on that scope if you're up to it. I'll compute my retro." + + * * * * * + +They had made an amateur radar operator out of me, because it was easy +to do, and gave Sid more time for actual rocket valving. My belt cut +me hard as he braked for several seconds. + +"There," Sid's voice said in my ear. "We should still be catching up +about fifty miles an hour. Let's not ram that thing. See any blip?" + +"Not yet. How close are we supposed to be?" + +He lit the cabin light and tapped at the calculator that he swung out +from its rack. "Still got a hundred miles to go, I'd judge." He moved +awkwardly in his suit to finger a switch on his neck and I heard him +speaking to the ground again, and heard in my earphones the answer +that came up from Woomera. We had eighty miles to go, and were now a +little below the orbit of the bird we were chasing. + +"Can't have both ends of the stick, Mike," Sid explained, calling me +by name for the first time. "As soon as we slowed down we had to drop +lower." He fooled around with the steering jets, which were +hydrazine-nitric acid rockets much like the tiny motors on my suit, +and re-oriented _Nelly Bly_. A little burst from the nose, and I got +my first blip. + +"There!" I said, putting a finger on the PPI. "Turn out the light, +Sid, so I can see the 'scope'." + +He switched off the cabin light and followed my directions with tiny +shoves, sometimes from the rockets, sometimes from the steering jets, +while I conned us closer. + +Our radar would only read within about half a mile. When we got that +close I got the searchlight going and took my first real look through +the forward port out into space. + +It's black. Nothing--nothing you have ever seen will persuade you how +dark it is out there. That was my first big shock. Oh, I had practiced +in the dark, with only my helmet light to guide my tests and +assemblies, but this was a different kind of dark. Our light had no +visible beam--you couldn't even tell it was working. At first I had +the idea we'd see the satellite occulting some stars, but a little +mental arithmetic told me that an object six or eight feet in section +would not subtend much of an angle of vision at half a mile. + +We had chosen, I decided, much too narrow a beam of light for the +searchlight, but just at that moment I got a flash from out in space, +and worked the light back on to our objective. + +"Got it," I said. + +"Yoicks!" Sid said, and went back to the fine controls. After a long +time, and lots of patience, we were hanging about fifty feet out from +our bird. We were farther out in space so that the dark bulk of the +satellite was silhouetted against the crescent light of Earth. I +turned off the spot and switched on the floodlight. + +"Here goes nothing, Sid," I said, and undid the dogs that held the +canopy above our heads. + +My earphone spoke to me: "This is Cleary. Do you read me, Mike?" + +I fumbled around to find the right jack and plugged myself into the +radio. "Yes, Paul. Loud and clear." + +"Watch yourself. Think first. You've got all the time in the world." + +"Sure." + +"Sylvia would miss you," he added. + +I hoped he was right. + + * * * * * + +Clinging carefully to the handholds that had been specially provided +on the outside of _Nelly Bly_, I clambered through the hatch and hung +in the darkness, looking down at South America. The world was turning +visibly under me, although I knew that in fact we were skimming +rapidly about three thousand miles over its surface. I got myself +lined up nice and straight with the bird and did my first bit of +non-thinking. I pushed off good and proper with my feet, the way you'd +dive into a swimming pool. It was a fool stunt for my first act. I was +doing a good five or six feet a second. You may not think that is very +fast, but before I could gulp twice I had zipped past that bird and +was headed for Buenos Aires. + +I know I screamed. That was the first time I realized I really was +falling. Earth looked awfully close, and seemed to be rushing up to +meet me. + +My orientation was all wrong for stopping. By diving head first I had +neither my back nor my belly rocket lined up to stop me. + +My training failed completely. I tried to squirm straight, and by +proper swinging of my arms out to full length, and kicking the same +way with my feet, I got turned around to where my belly was facing the +floodlight on _Nelly Bly_. That's not how I was supposed to do it. + +The glider had disappeared--all I could see was the floodlight. It was +still by far the brightest thing in the sky, but if I drifted much +longer, I would have to use radio direction-finding to get back. I +triggered the motor on my back and felt its gentle push against my +spine. + +"Sid!" I called. + +"Roger, Mike!" + +"Light the tip lights. I've got to get a fix on my velocity. I went +way past and I'm trying to get back." + +Two new stars winked into being, on either side of the floodlight. +This had been some bright guy's idea, and it was paying off. I kept +watching the apparent distance between them shrink as I continued my +trip toward Earth. Memory and a little calculating told me that my +acceleration of three inches per second per second would take twenty +seconds of blast to slow me to a stop. I counted them off, aloud: +"Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three," as I had been +taught to measure seconds. When I got to Mississippi twenty my visual +measurement said I was about stationary with regard to _Nelly Bly_. + +I used a little more blast and let a couple minutes go by while I +drifted closer to the Telstar. I started squirming again, until I +remembered to use the deflection plate they had given me to hold in my +belly blast, and that got me lined up. But finally I was within +touching distance of the bird, which was rotating with a certain slow +majesty on its long axis. + +The leisurely spin was there to make sure one side didn't face the sun +too long and heat up. My plan called for stopping the bird's spin so +that I could get reasonable solar heating of the part I was working +on. The trouble was there was nothing to grab as the satellite turned. +But we had worked on that part, too, and I went into my act of backing +off the right distance, accelerating with my back rocket until I +drifted close by the bird at its translational speed. I got one end of +my sticky webbing stuck to it by pressure and decelerated so that the +bird turned under me while I paid off the web. In a moment I had it +girdled, and snapped the nifty sort of buckle they had made for me. +Then drawing the webbing tight was no trouble, and I was spinning with +the bird. My added weight slowed its spin down some. + + * * * * * + +Next came the trick of getting some special equipment loose from my +right leg. This was a little rocket canister which had just enough +poof, the slide-rule boys had said, to stop the rotation of the bird. +I fastened the canister to the webbing, pushed softly with one finger +to get me a few feet away, and drifted while waiting for the delayed +fuse to fire the antispin rocket. It lanced out a flame for a few +seconds, and sputtered dead. The bird hung virtually motionless +beneath me--or above me--or beside me--or whatever you want to call +it when there is no up or down. + +Our light was dimming as we passed the terminator and pulled over +Earth's dark side. The sun was still visible, however, although soon +to be eclipsed by Earth. I jetted softly back to the bird and lit my +helmet light. I had to find the right face of the twelve-sided thing +so that I could open the right gate. The markings were there. They +were just hard to read from inside a helmet. Then the sun was +eclipsed, and my headlamp gave me the kind of light I was used to +working with. The sector I wanted was on the satellite's dark side. I +had to clamp on to the girdle and jet quite a while to turn it halfway +round, and then decelerate just as long to bring it to a stop. I +fooled around several minutes getting the sector to face where the sun +would soon rise. + +My earphone spoke. + +"Mike!" + +"Roger, Sid. What's up." + +"Take it easy on your steering fuel. You're getting low." + +"Roger." + +I had to wait for the sun before I could start work. When it came up, +heating seemed quick. First a test with a thermocouple showed that +Telstar's surface was warming nicely and would soon support the +pressure-sensitive mat I was going to stick to some of her solar +generators. When the 'couple said Telstar had reached zero centigrade, +I pulled the mat loose from where it was stuck to my left leg and +plastered it above the gate I was going to open. I say above, because +it was closer to one pole--the "North" pole of the satellite--than the +gate. + +It was time to go to work on my first screw. And there I got my next +lesson. It was a real big screw, as they go, a 4-40 flat head machine +screw with a length of about three-quarters of an inch. I would have +to give it thirty turns to back it out. I never gave it the first +turn. The head snapped off as soon as I applied a few inch-pounds of +torque. + +Yes, the surface had heated up nicely, but the shank of the screw was +about two hundred below zero centigrade, and far brittler than glass. + +I cussed some and reported to Sid what had happened. + +"Have to drill it out," I said. + +My drill was a cutie. It was a modified dentists' drill, the kind +that's run by a little air turbine at about two hundred thousand +r.p.m.'s. I really mean that. They turn like mad. + +I'd been taught to use it with care. When a dentist drills your teeth, +he blows olive oil and water through the turbine, and the mixture +cools the tooth--and the drill--while the cutting is going on. We +couldn't afford any cloud of vapor--or the shorting out that ice would +cause--so I had only the pressurized mixture of oxygen and helium in +the tanks on my back to run the drill. And that meant light and +intermittent pressures on the number 43 wire gauge drill--the one +that's the right size to drill out a 4-40. It took me about fifteen +minutes and I was down to my last number 43 drill bit when she broke +free. + +From then on I had to heat each screw before I went to work on it. I +had something like a soldering iron that I could press against the +screw-head. Heat would flow through the highly conductive alloy and +make it less brittle. I flicked each screw I removed out into space +and at last carefully hinged the gate wide open. + +The gate was the length of the sector--about two feet. It was four +inches wide and about an inch thick and had parts strung along it like +kernels on an ear of corn. + +At this stage I readjusted the position of my webbing girdle until I +could clamp my head in position and begin the testing. It was slow +work. The first sad thing was to learn that the solenoid M1537 was as +good as new. When I put enough voltage across its terminals, the +actuator clicked down through the core. + +I swore a blue streak. + +"What is it Mike?" Sid's voice came in my ear. + +"Trouble," I said. "What did we expect?" + +"Roger," he said in that toneless unexcited astronauts' voice. "Return +to ship, Mike." + +"Not now," I said. "I've just got the oyster opened." + +His voice cut like my drill-bit. "I ordered you to return to ship. +Your air supply is about shot." + +"I haven't been out that long," I protested, not feeling too sure +about the lapse of time. + +"Your drill chewed it up pretty fast. Quit talking and start moving." + +I was thankful for the experience of moving in close to the bird. The +same tricks worked much more smoothly as I used my deflection plate in +front of my belly blast to turn me to face the floodlight, and then +followed up with a light shove or two in the spine to start me +drifting toward _Nelly Bly_. There didn't seem any rush, and I drifted +slowly over, using only a couple triggered bursts of deceleration to +slow me down as I approached the open hatch. + +Inside we went through the drill. My ears popped a little as Sid +unchucked my spent tanks, and popped again as the new ones came on +with a hiss. + +"Take it easy on that steering fuel, Mike," he said again. "You're +getting awfully low." + +"Sure," I said and let myself drift out the hatch. I had enough sense +to twist so that my back jet wouldn't hit the ship. Then I took a +zig-zag course through the darkness to my bird, got oriented at the +open gate and went back to work. Before I could get started, my +earphones spoke. + +"Mike, Cleary here." + +"Roger, Paul. What is it?" + +"Have you gotten to that solenoid yet?" + +"Yes." + +"What can you tell me?" + +"That you're a fathead. Now shut up. I'm busy." + +"Roger, Mike," Paul Cleary acknowledged quite meekly. + +So I started again, reaching with my leads from point to point. After +a certain number of tests, I had the area isolated, but not the part. +From here on it would have to be disassembly. Every tiny screw had to +be heated, then teased out with a jeweler's screwdriver. Some took my +patented ratchet extension. The big miracle was that I didn't break +anything. + +[Illustration] + +When I got to it, it was ridiculous. A small length of wire connected +one component to another. Space was lacking, and the wire was tight +against the metal of the gate. Its insulation was one of these +space-age wonders, a form of clear plastic that would remain ductile +under zero temperature and pressure. Only it didn't. It had shrunk and +cracked, and there was a simple short against the metal of the gate. +There were so many forms of circuit-breakers and self-protectors in +the machine that the whole gate had been switched off as long as the +short was in existence. No wonder telemetry hadn't told us anything. + +As I prepared to fix the trouble, I switched on my radio and had Sid +connect me with the ground. "Canaveral Control," one of those +emotionless voices said. He could afford to be. He was on the ground. + +"Get me Cleary," I ordered. + +"Cleary here, Mike. What have you found, boy?" He sure was anxious +about that solenoid. + +"Not much, Paul. Just that Fred Stone is a fathead, too. Over and out, +like they say." I switched off and went back to my work. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + +The one thing I had nothing of was any kind of insulating material. +With my screwdriver I hacked a piece loose from the double-faced +sticky-tape I had used to keep loose parts from flying around, and +teased it under the wire with my tweezers. Perhaps I could have done +as well by heating the wire and bending it straight, but there was +little room, and I was afraid of melting a solder joint. So I took my +time teasing the tape through and finally got it to act as an +insulator without breaking the wire. How long it would stay there was +anybody's guess. It was held mechanically as well as by its sticky +action, but when the bird cooled off enough, the sticky effect would +lessen. I hoped the pressure between the wire and the gate could be +enough to keep it in place. Certainly no forces would be acting to +move it. + +Just as I had figured, the reassembly was the tedious part. I had to +move around into about sixteen screwy positions to do all the fixing. +Finally it was back in one piece and I swung the gate closed. + +When the final 4-40's were run up as tight as they were supposed to be +run, I reported to Paul Cleary. "Try her," I suggested. "I think I +found the trouble. No point my coming back down if it doesn't work." + +They made me sweat it out for about ten minutes before Paul said, +"Runs like a watch, Mike. Put the spin back on her, boy." At least he +was quiet about his solenoid. + +This called for the second rocket canister, which I hooked on to the +girdle and, after thinking it out carefully, got headed in the right +direction. I eased away with finger pressure, and let the delayed fuse +do the firing. Telstar started her slow spin again. + +Getting the girdle off was a lot harder than getting it on, something +we hadn't figured on, and in the final stages of the job I found that +my steering motors no longer fired. + +[Illustration] + +"Sid!" + +"Roger, Mike." + +"How much fuel do you read in my steering jets?" + +"You've been out of fuel for about five minutes, by my gauge. But +don't worry about it," Sid said. "I'll nurse _Nelly_ over there with +my steering jets and pick you up." + +"O.K.," I said doubtfully. "But watch it. Bump this bird and we'll +have it all to do over again." + +Sid had more trouble than he had figured. He had steering jets to run +him in every direction except fore and aft. For that motion the +retro-rockets were considered enough. But one belch out of them was +enough to get me screaming into the mike: "Cut those retros!" I +yelled, the volume making my earphones crack, as it undoubtedly did +his. + +"Roger. What's wrong?" + +"You'll burn the solar generators right off the bird, you fool! +Steering jets, do you hear, steering jets!" + +"Roger." + +But it was not that easy. Finally Sid got _Nelly_ within about twenty +feet, and pretty near at zero relative velocity. + +"All right, Sid," I said. "Hold it there. I'll push over." + +A gentle shove against the side of Telstar was all it took. I got it +straight, which was all that counted. My drift was slow, and I was a +good five minutes making the twenty-foot crossing. But a handhold came +within reach, and I worked my way back into the cabin and climbed in +without shutting the hatch. + +"Don't try that again," I cautioned him. "This thing weighs ten +thousand pounds, and that bird half as much. Even at a couple feet a +second, you can crush me to jelly between them, even if you don't burn +one or the other of us to a crisp." + +"Roger," Sid said, not quite so emotionlessly. "Are we ready to move?" + +"What for?" I asked him. "Until we get me some steering fuel, I'm +useless." + +"I thought we'd abort this mission before we were through," he +sneered. + +"Not so fast. You've got the same rig on your suit. All we have to do +is put your fuel tanks on my suit." + +"Are you nuts?" he demanded. + +"What's the matter with it? Those tanks aren't welded to you, and I've +got tools." + +I could see him shake his head in the dim light from the instrument +panel. "You know those fuels ignite on contact with each other," he +pointed out. "If we spill a couple drops of each in here, and they +vaporize, we'll blow this kite to pieces!" + +"Then we'll get outside to make the switch," I insisted. "It won't +hurt anything if a few grams burn up out there, will it, with nothing +to confine the expansion." + +"But then I won't be able to come after you if anything goes wrong," +he pointed out. "No dice." + +"You're grasping, Stein," I growled. "At this stage I'm in charge +around here. I'll take my chances on getting back." + + * * * * * + +With the cabin light on I went as far as possible in dismounting both +our tanks. After a couple rehearsals to make sure that at least one of +us would always have a glove on a handhold, we both climbed out the +hatch and I made the switch. Just as Sid suspected, we spilled a few +drops. They vaporized, and again as we had feared, combined in what +would have been an explosion in a confined space. The soundless flash, +dim but real, said we had released quite a little energy uniformly all +around us. I never felt a thing except a faint warmth from infrared +through my helmet. + +Best of all, my jets worked. We both climbed back aboard _Nelly_, +dogged the hatch, and started after Telstar Two. + +The second bird was about fifteen thousand miles ahead of us. I slept +most of the time, for after Sid gave us a jolt of added velocity, we +had to settle down to about six hours of drifting. I woke up as the +belt cut me when he fired the retros. We went through the radar and +searchlight bit, and had the devil's own time finding our bird. But at +last I got the flash of reflection and went to work. + +I won't say the second job was any easier, except for the fact that I +removed only one part to make room to do my bit with the insulation, +and thus had very few screws to replace. My navigating in space was a +lot better, and I didn't use steering fuel as wastefully as the first +time. Still, when we dogged down to chase after the final bird, the +cabin gauge said that I had less than half my load of steering fuel +left. Equally glum, _Nelly_ herself was even lower on steering fuel. +Neither Sid nor I had been as expert as we were supposed to be. + +Nevertheless, we took off after the third bird, and found it +glistening in bright sunlight without the help of the searchlight. I +thought that was a good omen. But from there on nothing seemed to work +right. + +We had been aloft about thirty-six hours, and fatigue was setting in. +I was clumsy on the steering and had quite a time making contact. + +The repair went according to Hoyle, but after I had put the spin back +on the bird I found that I had no more steering fuel. I hung about ten +or fifteen feet from Telstar Three and maybe eighty feet from _Nelly_, +drifting slowly from both. + +"Sid!" + +"Roger, Mike." + +"This one will have to make it with the girdle on." + +"Can't you get it off?" + +"I can't get back to it. Steering fuel gone." + +"Oh, no!" + +"No sweat, Sid. It occludes a small share of the solar generators, but +not enough to hurt anything." + +"That's not what I meant," he said quietly into my ear. "_Nelly's_ out +of steering fuel, too. I can't pick you up!" + +I gulped on that one. + +"Canaveral Control!" I heard him call. + +"Cut that out," I said. "They can't help. Shut up and let me think." + +But he didn't, and I couldn't. I had no fuel with which to move. Sid +had only the retros and stern rockets, no good for swinging or +turning. I was out of touching range of the bird, and couldn't shove +against it to build up a little drift. Just as Sylvia said, it's not +like swimming back to shore. + +There was a lot of excited chatter in my earphones, in which I did not +participate. Nobody made any sense, and Sid shut the thing down. + +"Mike!" + +"Yeah." Disgusted. + +"Whatever you dope out, make it quick. You don't have all the air in +the world." Sid warned me. + +"How much?" + +"Ten minutes or so." + +"All right," I said. "It ought to be enough. Keep your eye on me. You +may have to reach out an arm or leg for me to grab as I go by." + +"How are you going to move?" + +"I've got a lifesaver," I said. + + * * * * * + +I writhed and squirmed and made every use of the law of conservation +of angular momentum until I had my back to _Nelly_. Then I wound up +and threw my fancy screwdriver as hard as I could heave it away from +me. I didn't get the zip on it I would have liked, but because it was +sort of like a throwing stick, I got a little more on it than you +might expect, maybe fifty or sixty feet a second. And the thing +weighed about four pounds, with its fancy ratchet and torque clutch. +Since in my suit I weighed just about a hundred times as much, I +started toward _Nelly_ at just one-one-hundredth of the velocity I had +imparted to the screwdriver. In a couple minutes I was drifting pretty +close, but tumbling. I had forgotten that part. + +Throwing the screwdriver had given my body the correct vector and some +velocity, but I had set up quite a tumbling moment, since I had thrown +from the shoulder and not from my center of gravity. + +I chucked a couple lighter tools away to correct my drift, and Sid +snagged me as I drifted by the hatch. + +"Come to Papa," he said, and drew me inside. We didn't horse around +congratulating ourselves. My air tanks were no longer hissing, and we +made a quick swap. + +Sid let me dog down the hatch while he figured position. He used the +iron compass method, just taking a close look at Earth, which was more +or less dead ahead of us. That was a good place for it, because we had +no steering fuel. + +The re-entry was a mess, from Sid's point of view. We came in at a +weird angle and heated up to beat hell before there was enough +atmosphere for our rudder to swing us around straight. He bounced us +off twice after that as we slowed down, but the creak of heating metal +was all about us each time we dropped in. He cussed me plenty all the +way. + +The trick, of course, was to slow down to the point where he could +spiral us down to Muroc Dry Lake. _Nelly_ was a sort of glider. Her +performance at about Mach 10 and two hundred thousand feet was quite +respectable, but the lower and slower we went, the more she flew like +the proverbial kitchen sink. Sid only had one bright spot: Our big +fuel supply gave him plenty of rocket and retro when he wanted it, and +allowed him to get us back over Muroc. + +I can't say he made the landing look easy, because he didn't. It +looked like plain hell to me, for we scorched in at something over +four hundred miles an hour. + +When _Nelly_ screeched to a stop, we just sat there. There was none of +this romantic business about snapping open face plates and exchanging +witty remarks. Bubble helmets don't have face plates, and besides, I +didn't have anything I wanted to say to Sid. I was as tired of him as +he was of me. I was just plain tired, if you want to know the truth. + +They didn't let us alone, of course. While the crash trucks were still +kicking up a dust trail tearing out to get us, there were guys on the +radio with those cool voices, and Sid was tiredly saying "Roger," to +all their questions. And we didn't do any moving about. You'd be +surprised how weighing four hundred pounds makes you willing to wait +for the crane to lift you from your seat. All at once I almost wanted +to be back in space again, where I didn't weigh anything at all. +Almost. + + * * * * * + +They flew us back to Canaveral for the de-briefing, both asleep. The +whole mob was there to greet us, Paul Cleary, Fred Stone, and even +Sylvia. They met us at the plane and Sylvia was the first to grab me +as I came down the steps. + +"Mike!" she squealed. "Are you all right?" + +"Better now," I said, kind of untangling from her. "How did you manage +this?" I looked up. "Hi, Paul," I said to his sleepy old grin, and +knew how. + +"Dinner tonight?" she insisted. + +"I don't know," I said, looking over at Paul. "I think there's a +de-briefing or something before they turn me loose." + +"Don't be silly," Sylvia said. "It's not as if you were an astronaut +or something." + +I was back on the ground, all right. + +Well, there was sort of a de-briefing. Cleary and Stone got me alone +for a moment in somebody's office. + +"Well, Mike," Paul said, "that was a great performance. What was the +trouble up there?" + +I laughed at both of them. "Go jump in the lake," I said. "I'm out of +the middle." + +"What do you mean, Mike?" Doc Stone asked, holding his young-man's +pipe at arm's length. + +"It wasn't design--because the solenoid worked. And it wasn't +installation. It was materials." I told them about the no-good +insulation. + +"Lucky it's only used in a couple points," Paul said, scowling. "I +guess any other point where it broke up wasn't as critical in +dimension and no short resulted." + +"Not yet," I grinned. "It may. And I couldn't care less." + +"You're a big winner, then, Mike," Paul grinned. "Fred and I have kind +of made up anyway, and you're in solid with Sylvia." + +"Not with that noise," I said. "No dame was worth that ride. Let Sid +have her." + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Trouble with Telstar, by John Berryman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROUBLE WITH TELSTAR *** + +***** This file should be named 30679.txt or 30679.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/7/30679/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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