Interstellar 1

Chapter 2: Leaving Earth

1 ½ years later, NASA astronaut preflight house

Scott Morren woke up with a jolt. He briefly wondered why he was in this beach house rather than his house in Minnesota, and then remembered: it was launch day. As the realization hit him, he threw on his clothes and ran outside, knowing it was the last time in ten years he would be able to witness the beauty of earth and the sun's rays. He looked at his clock briefly, it was 6 in the morning. He decided to go for an hour jog. He ran across Florida beach, feeling the icy water lap his toes. After about 50 minutes, he dashed back to the beach house and slipped back in the still-warm bed, pretending to be asleep. Sure enough, in 10 minutes, the Mission Commander, Elizabeth Warren, called out to the crew: "Rise and shine,crew, today is launch day!" He briskly got out of bed, got back into his clothes, and walked out to the hallway. He heard a cacophony of groans from his other 3 crew members beside the Commander and himself. "Will you at least let us sleep more in space, Commander?" "How much?" Warren responded from the living room. "Oh, maybe..... The whole day." Scott grinned and put his face into his palms. The voice was coming from Scott's favorite crew mate, Jack Allen. "Is the Commander giving you a tough time Jack, because your a Newbie?" Scott yelled across the house. "Yeah yeah, Mr 2-timer" He responded. Eventually, they gathered in the kitchen. The 5 crewmen chosen for the Interstellar Mission were Elizabeth Warren, Scott Morren, Jack Allen, Alex Mitchell, and Phillips Smith. A batch of pancakes with upside down strawberries on the top (UFPs) was whipped up, and flew right into everybody's mouth. They were eaten quickly, and then the blue NASA bus pulled up out of the door. For the first time, Scott started to feel nervous. He tried not to show it, but then realized the rest of the crew probably felt the same way. They boarded the bus, the air-conditioned interior a sharp contrast to the warm, humid environment of Florida outside. They quickly seated, and talk turned to the spaceship they would meet, board, and live in in orbit. "I want the centrifuge one with the feather bed!" "Well, you will get a centrifuge one, but there is not a room with a feather bed and on the off chance that there somehow is, I will get it, because i am the commander, and I am the most important!" Warren made a snotty, aristocratic brat-like face, and the bus exploded in laughter. They arrived at 9, 1 and ½ hours after they left at 7:30. The bus pulled up at the launchpad, and all eyes turned to the rocket/bomb which they would ride into orbit in an hour. The light of the morning glanced off of the booster, and temporarily blinded Scott. "The rocket tried to to blind me by bouncing the sun off!" He said. The others laughed, and pretended to tease the rocket. They were all acting weird from the stress. The NASA representative then ushered them into the building to get suited up, and they followed. Immediately after getting in, a NASA preflight prepper split them up into different rooms to get suited up. Scott walked into Preflight Room A. As he entered, it was clear that they had prepared the room especially, as it was going to be the first time a human was going into Interstellar space, and landing on a planet of another solar system. Every planet in the solar system of the Earth had been conquered by an astronaut already, and some moons of Saturn like Titan along with Phobos and Europa also had human's touch their surface. The room was gleaming and polished everywhere. On the previous 2 missions he had been on, both of them missions to Saturn's moons via the Orion nuclear pulse drive, Preflight rooms before were more laid back, still clean, but not polished to make every surface perfect. He sat down in the briefing chair, though he already knew his mission. The prepper said: "Your mission is a 10 year interstellar mission. You will go to 3 stars, and on each star, chose the 3 most interesting planets orbiting them and land on those planets via the landers and planes (For planets with atmospheres) that are stored in the Interstellar 1's spacecraft hangar." Scott rolled his eyes. How could NASA think that astronauts who are selected for the most prestigious mission, maybe ever, would forget what the mission was? Still, it was protocol, so it had to be done. After 30 minutes more useless rambling by the mission prepper, it was time for him to get on his suit. First, he put on the undersuit, then the multilayer, then the outer coating. He grabbed his helmet and walked to the crew tower, where his other crew members were waiting. They climbed up the 23 story high stairs, which would be an ordeal even with no space suit, but with it, it was almost impossible. "Why do we have to do a strenuous exercise before we even reach the launch vehicle?" Scott panted. "Beats me." Jack said. "Commander?" Scott asked. "I know I am the mission commander, but i have no clue why they can't buy an elevator even though they have a state of the art P.A systems and massive, comfy grandstands." Elizabeth replied. They reached the top of the crew tower and got in an updated and slightly changed version of the Orion for crew transfers. The dawn light reached down the rocket, shining in the window of the Orion and precisely blinding all the crew members for 30 seconds. "I told you the rocket wants to blind us!" Scott said. His voice was drowned out by the P.A system: "System status. Fuel pressures:" "Green" "Engine Catalyst" "Green" "Cabin Pressure" "Green" "Moving on to go or no." "Ground Control" "Go" "Timekeeper" "Go" "Flight Director" "Go" "Pilots" "Go" Commander Warren radioed in from the cabin. "T-Minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, Umbilical towers detaching." The umbilical towers fell to the ground and the crew tower gangplank at the top retracted. "5, 4, 3, Main Engines start" A plume of smoke billowed out from under the launchpad as the engine bell turned red hot. "2, 1, Liftoff of Orion Crew Transfer." The SLS lifted off the launchpad slowly at first, then rapidly gaining speed. At approximately 10,000 meters, it started its gravity turn on its belly. Inside the Orion, Scott felt the g-forces from the SLS. Once near a 400 KM orbit, the SLS core stage separated from the Orion. Scott looked out the window and past the Orion OMS and docking system, he saw the SLS stage activate its retrorockets briefly before it fell away. He got a few seconds of reprieve and floated in his seat before the OMS started. "On course for rendezvous in 30 minutes." rang his radio. The voice temporarily surprised him, but he remembered it was mission control. The Orion continued on. After the maneuver was completed, Mission Control once again rang through Scott's helmet: "Delay time up to 1.5 seconds. Engaging manual control". Scott looked across to Jack's console, and the readouts lit up and the control sticks extended out of the console. He grabbed them and announced to the group: "Engaging docking procedures.". RCS ports extended out of the previously smooth surface. Scott looked out the window as the Interstellar 1 came into view. Once only a hundred meters from the space dock, Jack activated the RCS. White puffs of monopropellant came out of the ports, thrusting towards the space dock. Jack pressed a button on his console to interface with the Interstellar 1, and the doors of the spacedock slowly opened. Inside of the spacedock, 9 other spacecrafts waited, some spaceplanes, some traditional landers. These craft were for landing on the planets of solar systems of other stars, however one of the ten docking ports was empty. He moved the ship into the remaining docking port, which was attached to a gangplank that led around the spacedock. The doors of the spacedock closed, and they unbuckled and floated into the spacedock. However, the spacedock was not intended to hold an atmosphere, so the had to keep their helmets on until they reached the airlock on the far side of the hangar. They got in the airlock and it slowly pressurized, before the door opened. They were faced with a long hallway. They knew that there were 2 centrifuges, and the science lab. On most ships of the time, the centrifuge modules would be sticking out because of their large diameter. However, this ship was so large that the centrifuges fit neatly in line, allowing for better aerobraking maneuvers, with the same amount of artificial gravity. The engineer, Phillips, floated over to an interface on the wall, and activated the centrifuges. 3 sections of corridor immediately started spinning. As was procedure, the engineer had to immediately look over all systems as soon as he was aboard. The 4 centrifuge modules were: The greenhouse(which also had livestock), and the habitat, and the science lab and engineering area. The habitat also included the rec area and kitchen/eating area. Phillips said "I better get going, I have work to do." This surprised the crew, as Phillips had said barely anything to them. He floated down the hallway. There was also an airlock on the other side of the spacedock, which led to the engineering bay. The engineering bay housed the Alcubierre drive as well as an Orion pulse drive for getting to planets in the solar system once the ship was in orbit around the sun/star they were visiting. Scott looked around the ship in amazement,it was like nothing he had ever seen before. Once Philips was finished, they set everything up before contacting NASA to inform them of everything's status. After that they had steak for dinner. The Commander then gave the tour, as she had the schematics, and Alex Mitchell wondered aloud if this was a luxury cruise. Inside of the rec area, they had a TV, a couch, a bookshelf, and computer. Then there was the kitchen, witch was a pretty basic setup, table, chair,convection oven and stove, fridge, etc. They moved over to every crewman's quarters. Each quarter had a bed, bookshelf, and computer. They moved on to the greenhouse, which was growing rice, wheat, carrots, and livestock they could eventually kill (They would kill them in a humane way, first sedate them and then expose them to the vacuum of space) for food. Scott floated over to the entrance to the centrifuge, and slid down the ladder, gaining gravity as he went. He yawned, it had been a long day. He looked around at everyone as they walked down the hallway to the bedroom. "g'night everyone" Scott said as he walked down the hallway. They responded "good night." He walked into the room and flopped down on the bed. Scott was asleep before he hit the pillow.