“That is some cool shit.” Roger grinned like a kid in a candy store. He allowed himself the break of standing and staring in awe for just a few moments more before it was back to the urgent business of the Neighborhood Watch.
“Now, why don’t we get to looking at this second stage model, ’cause I’ve got to get back to work on the focal plane array packages for the telescope.” Roger put his hands in his pants pockets and the little kid’s giddy stare turned to a more serious one.
“Right. It’s around the corridor here.” John led Roger to another room with a shake table in it. Atop the table was a one-tenth scaled model of the second stage system.
There were three scaled engines on the table. The engines were the “stretched” or “extended” RL10B-2 motors from Pratt Whitney. In order to have twice the specific impulse and burn time, the tankage for both fuel and oxidizer had to be larger. The problem was that the rocket design team had not been able to find available tankage parts that had been flight-proven and were the appropriate size.
Roger surveyed the parts and the various engineering drawings lying on the floor and pinned to the walls around the room. There was one Solid Edge drawing of the engines on a computer monitor. Somebody must have just been in the room and stepped out for a moment or their screen saver was turned off. How damned hard could this be, he thought. We just need bigger tanks! I’ve got so much shit to be doing!
“You see, Rog, if we use the tanks from any other engine, the pumps won’t fit, the frame will be too large to fit in the aerodynamic shroud without building a new shroud, or the structural design will be questionable, which means we aren’t certain about the shake and bake of the larger frame. And if we go to a modified shroud we have to run all new CFD models of the ascent friction and you know that Dr. Powell won’t be happy with that.”
“Uh huh.” Roger frowned.
“There just aren’t enough available COTS or GOTS engine parts to solve this problem.” John pointed to the model, pointing out the deficiencies in the design. “Open for suggestions here.”
“Jesus, John, has this country been wrapped up in paperwork and bureaucracy for so long that just doing things is beyond us? Stack a couple of gas tanks out of old pickups together! Whatever it takes!”
“Weeelll.” John stretched out the word. “I do have a solution, but it isn’t from a space-qualified piece of hardware and both the Air Force and NASA frown on such. But if—”
“John. Let’s hear your idea.”
“Okay. It really is simple, but you’ll have to get a waiver from NRO, or Boeing will never approve or build it. I’ve been round and round with them about it. In their mind, it’s just way too much risk. That’s really why I brought you.” He pointed to the computer monitor. “Here look at this. I’ve tried to convince them that this is what we need to do but… well, hell, it has been harder than it was getting them to agree to the mods for the strap-on boosters. Risk-averse assholes.”
John pulled up a PowerPoint slide file and opened it. He scrolled through the slides to the second stage portion.
“Here is the standard RL10B-2.” John grabbed the tankage portion with the copy tool, then pasted it into a new slide. He then duplicated the tank. “I want to take two tanks and cut one end off each and then just weld the damned things together. Oh, there would have to be some adjustments to the cryo pipes, a little bit of structural integrity support, and stuff like that, but it should work.” He finished creating the image on the PowerPoint slide.
“I knew it was simple. Why don’t we just do it,” Roger said rather than asking.
“I’m telling you, Rog, without you telling them that they would be free of reprisal if the thing fails, Boeing isn’t going to even consider it. It took us most of the first week to convince them to add the extra strap-on hardpoints. It wasn’t like we really were using duct tape and Bondo!” John shook his head in disgust and threw up his hands.
“John, get started. I’m going back to the office to take care of this. You catch a cab back to the hotel.” Roger knew John could see that he was angry and that somebody was about to get a good old-fashioned southern ass chewin’.
“I don’t give a good Goddamn, Charlie. If John says he wants it done, then by God do it. We ain’t worried about political fallout here, we’re worried about the future of the freakin’ human race for crying out loud… un huh… no… no… uh… no… GODDAMNITALLTOHELL Charlie I said NO! If I have to fly to D.C. and get more horsepower behind my decision I’ll leave today and you’ll be looking for a new fucking job tomorrow. You hear what I’m telling you?” Roger had had enough of the corporate risk-averse culture that was holding back the program. The bean counters at the top of the culture were a larger impediment to the development of the program than the immense technical requirements and compressed schedule. Roger was irate and working on about a day and a half of sleep in the last month. It felt good to vent on these bean counting assholes a little, he thought to himself.
“All right then… yes, okay. Well, Charlie I appreciate you getting this done. And I don’t want to have this conversation again. I want John Fisher to have a blank check and a rubber stamp approval with y’all from now on. We do not have the time to have this conversation over and over every time somebody points out that we’re jumping all over the process. Yep, Ronny’ll back me up on this.” Back me up on this, Ronny. “…I’ll pick up the other line and call him right this minute if it’ll help you… No. Okay then.” Roger sat down in his chair and exhaled loudly.
“Okay, Charlie, thanks for your help. Hey listen, we’re doing great stuff here and don’t forget that part of it. Okay then.” Roger hung up the phone and screamed at the top of his lungs for about three minutes. Then he opened up his telescope modeling program on his laptop and went back to work.
Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Powell, Davis, Dr. Ronny Guerrero, General Riggs, NASA MSFC Director Dr. Byron and the President’s science advisor sat in the VIP bunker at the east coast launch facility at CCAFS with several Boeing and Lockheed Martin higher-ups, USAF 45th Space Wing Program support manager, and other upper echelon contractors and members of the Neighborhood Watch program.
Dr. John Fisher burst into the bunker VIP support room with two hours to spare before launch. He was obviously flustered; multiple beads of sweat had formed on his forehead, and his usually well-combed hair was in disarray. The sweat could have been from stress but maybe not — after all, it was a beautiful August day in sunny Florida, which meant hotter than hell.
John pulled a laptop out of locked double bags, and set it down on the conference table and plugged it into the portable projector he also pulled out of the bags. “This Machine is Approved Top Secret/Neighborhood Watch” was stamped on the front and back of the laptop and the projector.
“Sorry I’m late. There were some last minute hold procedures that I was tending to,” he said.
“That’s quite all right, John,” Roger told him.
“Yes, Dr. Fisher, just as long as we don’t miss the big show,” the science advisor to the President responded. George Fines pointed out the window at the rocket on the pad. “I can’t wait to hear you explain that behemoth to us.”