“Next time, mister, you tell me when you plan on flying anything, and I don’t care how high or how fast it goes,” the President hissed angrily into Patrick’s ear. “This is no longer about you and how you do things. You are special adviser to the president of the United States, in uniform or out, on the ground or in orbit. I don’t like surprises. Am I making myself fucking clear to you, General?”
Patrick was a little taken aback by the President’s admonition — he looked carefully for even the faintest glint of humor or forgiveness and, finding none, was ashamed for even looking. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He stepped back, smiled, shook Patrick’s hand warmly and firmly, and, so everyone could hear, said, “Job well done, General. Job well done.”
“Thank you, sir.” When the President looked at Boomer, Patrick continued, “Sir, may I present my mission commander and designer of the rocket engines on the Black Stallion spaceplane, Captain Hunter Noble, U.S. Air Force, call-sign ‘Boomer.’”
“Captain Noble, a pleasure to meet a real rocket scientist,” the President said. Boomer was about half a head taller than the President, but he didn’t notice that because suddenly he found it very difficult to speak or even think: he was shaking hands with the President of the United States! Now the full force of where he was hit him, and it came much more suddenly than he ever believed possible. He felt Patrick steering him to his right and someone said something about getting his picture taken by the official White House photographer, but he felt as sluggish, as if he was standing in quicksand. “‘Boomer,’ huh?” the President asked as the photographer worked. “Where did that call-sign come from — making sonic booms all the time?”
Patrick waited a few breaths to see if Hunter would answer; when he found he was still too starstruck to do so, he chimed in, “It does now, sir. But when Captain Noble started at Dreamland, most of his designs went ‘boom’ on the test stands with frightening regularity. Fortunately for us, he perfected his designs, and now he’s created the fastest, most efficient, and most reliable manned spacecraft in existence.”
“Excellent. That’s what we’re here to talk about. Take seats.” Patrick steered Boomer to the proffered chairs. The President was pointing to the others in the Oval Office as Patrick led him to his seat. “Boomer, I know you’ve met the Vice President; let me introduce Dr. Carson, secretary of state; Mr. Gardner, secretary of defense; General Glenbrook, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and General Sparks, my national security adviser.” Both remained standing as they were introduced to the others in the room and shook hands, then took seats after the President took his seat at the head of the meeting area. “First off, General McLanahan, I want to know about the flight.”
“I’ll let my mission commander describe it for you, sir, if I could.”
“‘Mission commander?’” General Sparks commented. “Isn’t that the new Air Force term for ‘copilot?’”
“Yes, sir,” Patrick said. “I flew the spacecraft this morning.”
“You?”
“I may not wear pilot’s wings, sir, but I fly every aircraft that goes through the ‘Lake,’” Patrick said.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it is,” Patrick said, meeting Sparks’s questioning glare with a confident one of his own, then turned to Boomer. “Captain? Tell us about the flight.” They could all see Boomer’s face turn several shades of red and his mouth open. Patrick decided he was going to give him just one more chance: “Boomer, fill us in.”
“Uh…it was…well, it was pretty routine, actually…”
“‘Routine?’” Vice President Hershel remarked, trying to help the young Air Force officer out of his funk. “Boomer, less than three hours ago you were standing on a dry lake bed in southern Nevada — now, you’re sitting in the Oval Office. In between you orbited the Earth! What’s routine about that?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute — you say you went into orbit?” Sparks interjected, his eyes wide in surprise. “I didn’t know about this! Why wasn’t I briefed?”
“I knew the XR-A9 had the capability, sir,” Patrick said. “I decided to try it out.”
“You flew that experimental and still-classified spaceplane into orbit without permission, General?” Sparks thundered. “You ‘decided’ on your own to do it? You’re not even a pilot! Do you think that it is your own personal property, your own private conveyance? If so, you are sadly mistaken.”
“It’s okay, Jonas — this time,” the President said. “I didn’t authorize General McLanahan to go into orbit either, but I didn’t prohibit it either. What I asked for was a demonstration of the spaceplane’s capabilities, and I believe I got one.”
“I see,” Sparks said. “Thank you for the clarification, sir.” He turned to Patrick and added, “I’ve heard this about you for many years, General — now I see why.”
“What would that be, sir?” Patrick asked.
“Your proclivity to authorize yourself to take action; your willingness to take unnecessary and in many cases dangerous risks; your horse-blinder view of the world. Do you need me to go further, General?”
“I didn’t know you took such an interest in my career, sir,” Patrick said wryly. “I’m flattered.” Sparks gave him a look like a snake that was busy digesting a mouse, but said nothing.
“It’s still pretty incredible,” General Glenbrook commented, suppressing a grin at the quiet interchange taking place before them. “Climb into a jet, take off, and shoot yourself into orbit minutes later? Impressive.”
“I’ll say,” Maureen added. “And can it be done again?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Boomer said, finally relaxing a bit. “We’re parked over at Patuxent River now — we can gas up, do a flight plan, and be in space in about an hour.”
“No launch pad, no space suits, no massive boosters — none of that stuff?” the national security adviser asked, his voice skeptical.
That was just the right level of technical questioning and curious disbelief Boomer needed to ignite his brain. “That stuff is unnecessary and outdated technology,” he said. “We had to change our way of thinking about space flight first, and then we built the equipment to do the job.”
“What do you mean, Captain?”
“Government and military space was always predicated on lifting large payloads — big multi-function satellites mostly — into high orbits,” Boomer said. “Those payloads are very versatile and can stay in service for years, even decades, but are expensive, difficult, and take time to put into orbit. With the invention of small single- purpose satellites designed to be used for short periods of time — weeks or a month or two at the most — we don’t need a big expensive launch system to get them up. Black Stallion is designed to place small payloads into low Earth orbit quickly and efficiently.”
“Can’t we already do that, Captain?” Sparks asked, emphasizing the word “captain” to give Noble one more chance to remember who he was talking to.
“Yes, we can,” Boomer replied. “But Black Stallion can do it faster, better, and cheaper, and it’s more versatile.”
“How so?”
“The Stud — er, the Black Stallion — can not only insert payloads into orbit, but can also fly passengers anywhere on the planet in just a few hours,” Boomer said. “None of the other quick-launch systems, like Pegasus or Taurus, can fly passengers. Our other advantage is sustainability and quick-reaction capability: we can launch payloads into orbit once per day in normal use or twice per day in dedicated surge mode, where other so-called ‘quick launch vehicles’ could take weeks or months to prepare.”
“But how do you get that kind of power and thrust?” General Glenbrook asked. “The Space Shuttle orbiter needs two immense solid rocket boosters and a huge fuel tank to reach orbit, and then it has to glide back for a landing.”
“Because the empty weight of the orbiter is about three times heavier than the Black Stallion, sir,” Boomer replied. “It carries ten times the payload and four times as many crewmembers. The Stud is designed to get into orbit quickly from almost any military base in the world and carry small payloads. The Stud can’t replace expendable launch vehicles and the Shuttle, but it can do things that the others can’t.”
“The other difference is the ‘leopards’ engines Captain Noble developed, sir,” Patrick added. “The engines are very high-tech and at the same time remarkably simple, using upgraded designs first drawn up almost fifty years ago. The engines are hybrid jet-rocket engines that burn jet fuel and a hydrogen peroxide compound oxidizer…”
“Hydrogen peroxide? You mean, the stuff you use to clean wounds with?”
“The same, only highly purified and combined with compounds such as boron to increase the specific impulse,” Boomer explained. “But we can do it with regular hydrogen peroxide also. Outside of the atmosphere, the fuel and oxidizer are burned in a combustion chamber that uses laser pulses for ignition and to superheat the gases,
