Building Up - jedcline's 2006 NanoWriMo

Day 23 of 30 Building Up

Day 23 of 30 2006 Building up JEDCline

Their next need was to get their landing spacecraft off the runway area and make it less conspicuous in case some TANFL aircraft, if any existed, flew over. There still was a partial circle of spare habitat modules over in the site where the modules had been set up and tested for systems integration as a living system within a machine system, before disassembly for launch of the individual modules into orbit; if they could get their landing craft over into the circle, it would be less conspicuous. Half the team took on the task of disconnecting the 10 meter diameter 20 meter long cylinder of the return module, that was built also to be their home for an indefinite period down here, from the cast aluminum foam wing and re-entry shield and landing skid underbelly.

The other half of the team went to one of the trucks that were used long ago to move the habitat module cylinders around, and to bring them to the launch pad assembly area. There was plenty of the pulverized coal fuel for the truck, and it was not long before the external combustion engine's flash boiler was belching black smoke as it began to bring its power systems back to life after several years of sitting idle in the desert. Its steam engine was in a totally enclosed loop through the turbine and then to the waste heat radiator, so it still had its liquid boiling fine inside, and it began to rumble off toward their landing craft. Its pair of transfer cranes swung around and belts slipped across front and back of the cylinder, now disconnected from its landing airframe casting; then the module segment was on the truck, and soon headed toward the partially finished ring of habitat modules. The module was set into the ring groove, although since access to their home was through one end of the cylinder, it was not placed up against the module there, so they could get in and out of their home. There was plenty of empty room on the ring for all the landing craft coming back.

They explored the remaining arc of habitat module space station segments, which appeared to be part of a third ring for the space station, but its construction had been halted and abandoned. It appeared to have been being built as another prison type facility, but it included two of the agricultural sections and a cafeteria section, although not set up yet to be functional.

The next time the space station was passing by overhead in its orbit, they sent up a message in its direction, saying that their return vehicle had been cleared out of the landing field and it was ready for the next landing; and also told about their discovery of the partial habitat module wheel set up which included agricultural areas and cafeteria, so bring down as much agricultural materials as they could stuff safely into their spare room. A coded beep message was sent back from the space station, indicating receipt of message.

It looked a lot easier to get the agricultural sections and cafeteria going in the partial habitat ring, than to set up some place there in the open desert to do farming to grow their food. The wheel station's agricultural area was designed for complete recycling of water, and water was going to be one of their critical shortage items.

They had brought down only enough food and drink to last them for a month, so they had to have another nutritional supply source going by then. They put their organic waste material into one of the partly-finished wheel's agricultural areas; the material would be almost as precious later for agriculture here in the desert as it was up in the space station.

Meanwhile, in the dual wheel space station up in Low Earth Orbit, The second return spacecraft vehicle had been brought out of storage and prepared for boarding by its crew. They had studied all the data sent by the first vehicle's crew during its pioneering decent, yet they knew that their trip would also be sprinkled with unknown variables encountered along the way. There was no way of knowing if the first landing had been through good luck circumstances. Weather was a variable quite risky, and although their telescope was able to see if sandstorms and storm clouds existed before launch, it could not see nor predict gusty cross winds existence. Once committed to the tether drop, they had only one day extra air reserves to hang down there in the fringes of the upper atmosphere while waiting for weather to clear up down below; and of course, if weather turned dangerous while they were in the atmospheric decent, they were committed to go down somewhere, one place or another, gently or not gently. The Earth's weather had long ago turned sour from the global warming greenhouse gas accumulation, but there were still some seasons of relatively calm weather in the White Sands area, one of which was occurring now. They needed to get the vehicles launched as fast as possible to take advantage of the weather window for landing reasonably safely. They prepared to do a launch every other day, which allowed half a day to bring a return vehicle out of storage lashed to the hub, dock it to the Embarcadero's airlock, finish its nutritional provision and clothing stocking, load agriculture and some light industrial machinery, passengers and pilot, send it on its way by tether, a controlled drop which took a day at least; then a half day to reel back in the 230 miles of emptied tether, damp its oscillations and connect it with the next landing spacecraft. It would take two days at least for each vehicle.

The second return spacecraft was lowered on the tether; they practiced their attitude control while dragging lightly along in the upper atmosphere, released from the tether and began the skip-and-bounce around the planet with their large foamed aluminum wings, keeping re-entry cool, until they slowed enough to circle White sands, and then they too were skidding down the runway to a stop in the sand beyond its far end. They got greeted by the crew of the first vehicle, and they all went to the shade of the nearby building and had the now somewhat traditional toast with a cup of ethyl alcohol in juice beverage.

The module carrier truck belched black smoke again as its coal-fired flash steam turbine engine spun into life, and within 4 hours the new module section was placed near the first one in the empty part of the habitat ring cradle in the desert floor. They moved the agricultural materials out of the module, which included some chunks of grain growing in its matrix, and put right back in the equivalent area of one of the agricultural areas of the abandoned modular habitat ring section, ready to resume growing now in the desert sunshine instead of that of earth-orbital space. A few quail were brought along too, a start on a new flock down here, a start again at providing a bit of eggs and meat. And of course, some caged small cockroaches that were so essential for both recycling of organics but providing protein nutrition supplements for both the quail and people.

The agricultural matrix was activated with their liquid organic waste materials as much as possible, and the returned grain sections were used as starts along the matrix, along with seed planting, so as to provide a harvest distribution.

In the first two weeks, they had landed the first 5 spacecraft return glider vehicles, so they had 10 of the extended families and enough agriculture to have a chance at long term sustenance of themselves. The calm weather seemed to be holding up OK, and the vehicles were coming in at an average rate of 1 every two and a half days; not all went smoothly and so took a bit of extra time.
From orbit in the space station, it could be seen that weather was getting ready worldwide to begin another stormy season that likely would reach White Sands facility area too, making landings more risky. They were sending down groups of the extended families. Since the population had been only 25 percent women overall, mostly each one had several husbands, which created an extended family. The members of these families had traded around from the original random assignments until each was in comfortable balance as a team. Some of the original space station wheel's crew were already couples of just one man per woman, so the remainder of the women had three or four husbands, making a typical extended family of 4 or 5 people. Each return vehicle carried two extended families, so the dual wheel's population of 1,145 people needed to launch 128 of their space return vehicles.

Improy decided to convert the tether into a full loop, leaving the drag airscoop down in the high fringes of the upper atmosphere, swung on a pulley. This way, as one spacecraft was lowered by the tether, tether material from the previous launch was being lifted up to get another vehicle. It took a week to make this modification, during which no vehicles were launched. When a test of the loop successfully lowered and launched the 6th return vehicle, they began to launch a vehicle about every day; then they tried lowering two vehicles spaced evenly on the tether, thus launching a return vehicle every half day, 14 each week. This clearly was not going to get them all down before the stormy season, so they lowered three vehicles at a time on the tether; but the winch motor was showing signs of overheating when they tried lowering four vehicles at a time, so their limit was three vehicles per day with that system.

Improy and Catalie were having to troubleshoot and solve technological crises that were going on in the space wheel as the evacuation of the wheels got into panic mode due to the increasingly dangerous weather down there at the landing site, so they were staying to be on the last return vehicle. Already they received some reports of vehicle overturnings as they skidded down the runway in gusty winds, destroying their foamed aluminum wings in the process, scattering the pieces around, and generally shaking things up inside, particularly the agricultural supplies and the equipment too hastily stowed.

The process of disconnecting the foamed aluminum winged re-entry sections from the cylindrical section, and hauling them over to the module ring, was already overloading the ground crew and single crane-equipped truck, so several of the crashed vehicles had to be left where they had stopped, although they had been up-righted by the crane so the occupants and supplies could be gotten out more easily. It was a big area, so it was unlikely a vehicle skidding in to the sand portion at the end of the runway would strike one of the crashed vehicles; but not impossible.

Improy and Catalie stayed to operate the tether for the last of the return vehicles lowering and release into the upper atmosphere. There were still a half dozen of the return vehicles remaining. Improy modified the RF link between the station and their descent vehicle, so that the winch and emergency release latch could be operated from the vehicle as it was being lowered. They went around the station wheels, verifying that the telescope could be controlled and viewed from the ground, that the solar-derived power beam was locking onto the target transmitter on the ground and was pouring out microwave energy at it during each pass over the White Sands area; and they verified that the internal mechanisms were all working well, including the robotic operation of the remaining agricultural area they had not been able to take down with them, to keep them alive as long as possible. The remaining agriculture consisted of the grains, some vegetables, cockroaches and a few quail families. The rest had been taken down to the surface already.

Improy and Catalie loaded up their return spacecraft, including use of the unused passenger space, lashing supplies and one of their space worksuits into the unused seats. Manually closing the Embarcadero's hub airlock hatches, they then sealed the nose entry hatch. Verifying the tether was properly attached, they allowed the craft to release from the dock, unlatch the spring-loaded foamed aluminum nose cone which then swung around and latched into position for the flight back. Then Catalie sent the signal to the winch to start lowering them, and away they went. They took turns doing the "human gyroscope" practice at orienting the attitude of the spacecraft as it was being lowered. Neither of them were very heavy, so they had to work at spinning around quite vigorously; the other descending vehicles all had had someone who was tubby yet athletic to some extent, and they had done the gyro attitude control. So they took turns, Catalie being the pilot calling out attitude numbers, while Improy cavorted in the center area being a gyroscope for awhile, then they would switch positions. When they reached the pulley bottom end of the bi-directional tether, they sent up the signal to stop the winch, and go into long term standby mode. Improy wanted to make it possible for a vehicle to fly up here and latch onto the tether to return to the space station, if that became possible and useful in the future.

They used the airfoil control surfaces and last bit of gyro activity to optimize the attitude of the spacecraft, then they released the clamp, and they were free and headed toward the planet. They repeated the long slow bounce mode of skipping across the upper atmosphere, gradually slowing the vehicle down without heating it up intolerably. This kind of re-entry had very much less kinetic energy to dissipate than a vehicle would have if de-orbiting from Low Earth Orbit altitude, since they were traveling with the same angular velocity as the higher station yet were not dropping except from a start in the upper atmosphere, instead of plummetting into it from hundreds of miles above in free-fall conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy. So it was relatively easy to cooly lose their kinetic energy and altitude potential energy, encircling the planet a couple of times gliding on their big swept back wings. But there were scattered storm clouds over the White Sands landing area. Catalie strapped herself into the passenger seat nearest the pilot, and Improy piloted the rest of the way down. He could see parts of the runway through breaks in the clouds. He circled until it was time for the space station to be overhead, then he sent up a command to temporarily cut the beamed microwave frequency to a wavelength that would be absorbed by the cloud water droplets, and fire the energy beam toward the rectenna targeting transmitter location near the landing strip. In two minutes a hole had opened up in the clouds, evaporated by the beam from the space station, then the station was out of range. But there was a lot more of the landing strip visible now for a minute or two, and he dove toward the end of the runway, coming in a bit too fast. They skidded on their foamed aluminum underbelly, Improy using the airfoil control surfaces to keep the vehicle horizontal until too slow to be guided by deflection of air, then they spun to face the wind, skidded a few yards more, and they were back home on Earth once again.

A welcoming reception greeted them as they emerged from the nose hatch, getting them over to the traditional building wall for the toast for safe arrival, though the wall was now a wind shelter more than a sunshade. Others emptied the spacecraft of its precious cargo and took it to the ring of modules. The crane truck was not to be brought out until the storm had died down enough to safely lift and position the cylinder to be hauled over to the module ring.

Inside the habitat module ring's cafeteria, Catalie and Improy found a Thanksgiving feast was prepared, awaiting their arrival. They gave thanks for their return to the Earth surface and the abundance, such as it was, that they had; and for their life that continued and hope that they could help their loved ones elsewhere on the planet.

posted by Unknown @ 7:32 AM