Back to the Moon-ARC

He was on his way to a press briefing. The NASA unmanned Moon landing had boosted interest in all things space related, and Space Excursions was high on the list of many reporters for that “next day” follow-up story.

Gesling walked into the conference room that had been modified to accommodate the press and was immediately startled by the number of reporters there. He had expected maybe ten or twelve, most of them local, but the room was packed with what he quickly estimated to be fifty or more. There was standing room only in the drab tan-paneled makeshift press room. He recognized the big names like CNN, Fox News, and the networks, but there were others: China Daily, the London Times, and the Times of India, to name a few.

Already at the podium stood Gary Childers and Caroline O’Conner. Kentucky had come to Nevada. Although he wasn’t late, Gesling was the last one to arrive, and he hoped it didn’t leave a bad impression with Childers. He and Childers were on shaky enough ground as it was. Paul walked briskly to the front of the room and stood behind and to the left of his boss.

“So, as we can all see,” Childers said, “our brilliant captain has arrived, and so I’ll turn this over to him.” Childers motioned at Gesling to step up to the podium.

“Ahem.” Paul cleared his throat to buy some time so that he could remember what he had planned to say. “Good morning. Thanks for your interest in Space Excursions. I’m sure we all saw NASA put on quite a show yesterday by landing the Altair on the lunar surface.” There were sounds of affirmation, some heads nodding, but there was little in the way of enthusiastic applause—typical reaction from a press corps only interested in drama to sell advertising time.

“We’re very pleased with our nation’s success and look forward to seeing the test flight successfully completed. That said, we’re gonna beat ’em to the punch. And”—Paul paused for his own dramatic emphasis—“we’re gonna do it with people. Real live human beings that are customers who paid to train and become astronauts.” Despite what some bloggers had to say, Paul and Childers and the rest of the company did not view the government’s space endeavors as competition, and he only wished them well. Hell, Childers had originally begged NASA to sell them a seat on their mission, but NASA had for all its existence resisted sponsorship and commercialization. The original space tourists used Russian flights. The Russians understood capitalism, or at least commercialism, better than NASA. That was a funny bit of historical irony in Paul’s mind. But in the end it came down to dollars. Space Excursions was in the business of making money and commercializing space. It was the government’s job to explore and do the costly endeavors of space science. It was industry’s job to follow and turn the public investment into profit through commercialization wherever it could.

“So, you’re all here to learn about our company, Space Excursions, and we’re here to answer whatever questions you may have.

“As Mr. Childers said, I am Captain Paul Gesling. I’m a former Navy pilot, and thanks to Mr. Childers I am proud to have been chosen to be the captain and pilot of Dreamscape for its maiden voyage to the Moon.”

“There isn’t a person I trust more with my ship than Paul Gesling,” Childers interjected. From the press’s point of view, these two appeared to be more like brothers separated at birth instead of a boss and his employee— especially not a boss and employee just past a rough patch in their working relationship.

Childers then launched into a short history of the company. He explained why he had founded it and how it was going to revolutionize and commercialize space exploration. He took a couple of questions and then gave the floor back to Gesling. “And now, I’ll let Paul explain a little bit about Dreamscape and how he’s going to get our customers to the Moon and back again. Paul?”

Gesling stepped back to the podium and promptly picked up the telescoping aluminum pointer Caroline had made sure was ready for him. Though not technophobic, Gesling very much preferred the solid aluminum pointer to its jittery laser cousin. He never trusted that those darned things were eye-safe. He then picked up the remote control from beneath the podium and turned on the projection system.

Immediately behind him, the projection wall came to life with an image of the Dreamscape on a runway. The camera’s view was from a helicopter that circled the parked space plane to allow viewing from several angles. Paul tapped the screen, pointing out parts of the spacecraft as he talked.

“Dreamscape itself is the reusable-spaceship part of a two-stage-to-orbit rocket. The first stage of the rocket is a supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet. Based on the technology work conducted by NASA through the early 2000s, Space Excursions picked up where NASA left off and perfected the technology. Lifting off from the Nevada spaceport, test flights of the scramjet first stage reached upwards of twelve times the speed of sound, flying to successful landings at Space Excursions’ alternate landing site in Australia in just under two hours. Instead of carrying both rocket fuel and oxidizer, as do most conventional chemical rockets, a scramjet scoops oxygen—hence the term oxidizer—from the atmosphere to mix with the propellant to make the rocket go. Without having to carry all that heavy oxidizer, the rocket is much lighter and very, very efficient.”

The image behind him came to life with a video of the Dreamscape flying indescribably fast from one end of the frame to another. The video appeared to have been shot from a chase plane that was quickly left behind by the supersonic Dreamscape.

“Instead of having to be carried to a high altitude and using rockets to achieve high airspeeds before the scramjet begins operating, as was the limitation of the NASA design, Space Excursions found a way to throttle the engine at low airspeeds. Our design begins flight as a conventional jet aircraft, starting its journey from a dead stop in the Nevada desert. Once airborne and above twenty thousand feet, the scramjet fires and our ride to orbit begins.”

Another video began to play at this point. Clearly an animation, the video showed the separation of the Dreamscape from its scramjet first stage and its ascent into space.

“This is where the fun begins.” Gesling was clearly in his element and enjoying every minute at the podium. “At an altitude of about twenty miles and a speed of Mach twelve, the rocket engines on the Dreamscape will ignite, pulling the passenger-carrying rocket away from its scramjet first stage and into a trajectory that will take it to a three-hundred-mile low Earth orbit. That’s just above the altitude of things like the International Space Station and low-flying satellites. Following in the footsteps of Virgin Galactic and doing it one better, we’ve already taken flights not only into space, but also into orbit—a much harder task. Getting into space is comparatively easy. Accelerating to the orbital velocity of seventeen thousand miles per hour is another task altogether. And Dreamscape’s two stages accomplish this nicely.”

The animation continued. Seemingly floating high above the Earth, the Dreamscape maneuvered close to a large cylinder that was also in Earth orbit. As Gesling resumed speaking, the two were moving close together.