“And then the beams will be able to cut the rock?” Colonel Che-chee asked.
“We’ll just have to see,” Bill replied. “I need to go off somewhere by myself for a while and do some math. Wish I had a beer to go along with it.”
It took more than a day for Weaver to simulate the mirror design on the ship’s computers. It took another day just to fab and assemble the honeycomb pieces of AlBeMet into a ten-meter diameter primary mirror. The biggest issue was keeping it clean since the slightest bits of dust or fingerprint oil or any impurities on the surface would be a place for heat to gather and then a point where the mirror could be damaged and possibly even destroy itself. The surface also had to be manufactured with a precision of millionths of a meter tolerance. Fortunately, the fabber was good for even stricter design requirements. Bill and Miriam had overseen the entire project. While Bill completed the optical design and engineering of the mirror, Miriam developed a control system out of retrofitted thrusters from the EVA suits. And, since Miriam had difficulty lifting hardware much larger than a bowling ball, she had enlisted the help of her two favorite engineering and machinist lackeys, Red and Sub Dude.
Since moving it from the science section outside would have required moving the pieces through the ship, and thus coating them with gunk, Red and Sub Dude cleared out a section of Engineering near the elevator and then planned for it to be evacuated per Captain Weaver’s orders. The evacuation of the room would boil off most finger oils and impurities as well as suck out dust particulates. In other words, they sucked it empty to clean it.
“Captain Weaver, we’ve got the mirror component area cleared and wiped down and I guess we’re ready to evacuate it sir,” Sub Dude Gants alerted Bill, who was arms deep in the fabber pulling out the latest mirror holder and cooling junction.
“Good, that makes what now, Eng? Thirty-eight?” Weaver asked Oldfield standing on the other side of the alien machine at the fabber control console.
“Uh, Thirty-nine. Still twelve pieces to go. And then we can start on the mirror pieces,” the Eng replied.
“Okay then, it is as good a time for a break now as any other.” He turned to the machinist’s mate as he stretched his neck. The mirror holders were damned heavy and lifting them for the last four hours as they rolled out of the fabber was giving him a serious pain in the neck. “Sub Dude, you and Red lock all these down and let me know when you are done. Then we’ll go to zero gravity and suck out the clean room.”
“Yes sir.”
“ALL HANDS ALL HANDS PREPARE FOR ZERO GRAVITY!”
“Well, evacuating the room sucked most of the dust out of it and boiled off most of the oils and other contaminants. We used dry and clean air from bottles to fill the room to a slight overpressure so when we open the doors it will blow any contaminants out not in.” Miriam adjusted the cleanroom suit booties over her spike heels and taped them down as she explained to Captain Prael what they had been up to for the past half of a day. Miriam jerked slightly from a static shock as she touched the metal door-facing of the airseal, grounding herself.
“I see,” the CO grunted.
“But the room isn’t large enough to assemble the mirror and then get it out of the elevator. After all, when it is all said and done the mirror will be over ten meters in diameter and will weigh almost a ton.” Miriam unzipped the makeshift airseal and stepped through, motioning the CO to follow. She then resealed the plastic seam and turned to the door.
“I got it.” The CO was already ahead of her and once he saw the seal close he turned the bulkhead door to the left, opening it. A rush of cool air washed over them as they stepped through the hatch.
“So,” Miriam continued. “We’ll have to make certain the components are clean here and that we know how to put them together. And then comes the fun part. Somebody who can handle things delicately will have to go outside and assemble the mirror in space.”
“And who might that be?” the CO asked.
“That’ll be me, sir.” Weaver looked up from a checklist of components and systems where he was testing the physical mating of three honeycomb pieces. Red and Gants were straining against the weight of the large assembly pieces as Weaver attempted to mate them together while wearing spacesuit gloves. “There’s nobody else on board who’s really qualified for it.”
“Man, I wish we could modify the gravity to about half in here,” Red complained.
“Good idea,” Bill wondered if there was a way to get the little black box to do that as he fiddled with an oversized screwdriver. Letting his focus drift for just a second was enough for him to nearly drop it onto one of the reflective segments. “Maulk!”
“Maybe we should take a short break, sir?” Machinist’s Mate Gants smiled. Even though the room temperature was specifically kept at sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit he was starting to sweat under his cleansuit.
“Good idea. Set’er down.” Weaver backed away from the components slowly and began sliding his EVA gloves off.
“Problems, Bill?” Miriam smiled even though she was wearing a doctor’s mask over her face and nobody could tell.
“I’ve done EVAs in suits and Wyverns but nothing that required this level of intricacy,” Bill said, shaking his head. “This is why astronauts like the ones who built the International Space Station trained in neutral buoyancy tanks for months before a mission like this. Spacesuit gloves are just damned hard to work in, even the Adar-designed ones.”
“Are you saying this is undoable, Captain?” the CO asked, unhappily.
“I don’t know why we don’t just fab some better designed gloves for you Bill?” Miriam said nonchalantly. “We could base them on the Hexosehr suits.”
“Why in hell didn’t I think of that already?” Bill said, tapping his head with the back of his hand. “Duh. I’ll do that now for a break. Miriam, you want to get started with the ACS?”
“Why I’m here,” she said with a smile. “The software is finished and just needs testing. Red, do you mind helping me get those attitude control system thruster boxes up onto the workbench?”
Red waved his number two arm assuredly at her. “Right away.”
“The gloves work even better out here than they did inside,” Bill said as he gently tightened the last mirror component into place.
“How much longer until we are ready to test the ACS?” Captain Prael radioed back.
“As soon as Gants and I disconnect the umbilical from the Blade we’ll hand launch it. ETA, say fifteen more minutes, sir,” Weaver replied. “Miriam, when we get a break I think we should seriously consider redesigning and fabbing some new EVA suits from the Hexosehr design.”
“Roger that, Bill.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she had already done it.
“Okay sir, the umbilical is away from my end.” Gants held the long cable in his left hand keeping one hand on the large optic floating above his head; his magnetic boots gave him a solid footing against the Blade’s outer hull. “Red, you can reel it in now.”
“Roger that,” Red responded over the com link.