CostLess Cosmos

"Ah."

I turned on the secondary radio I had, above my aviation one. Referring to the cheat-sheet I had duck-taped to the wall behind it, I changed to the right frequency and keyed the mike. "Houston Space Center, this is the independent spacecraft Fenn. Please acknowledge."

The crackle didn't last long. "Fenn, this is Houston Center. This is a restricted frequency. Please state the nature of your emergency, over."

"Houston, Fenn. I'm the spacecraft that just lifted from Cupertino, California. If you check Twitter by now it's got to be obvious that I'm not joking." I looked over at Ellen and we grinned at each other.

Below us, the Earth spun, in sunlight, gorgeous blue and white.

I warned her, "Cutting off the drive soon. If you have to puke, use your shirt or something. I don't have any... bags."

She laughed, "Okay...I'll... be careful, just do it slowly so I can get used to it."

I cut off the drive slowly, down to zero, and we started floating.

I was hungry, so I grabbed an energy bar and handed it over to Ellen, opening one myself.

"Fenn, Houston. We have seen the video. NORAD reports you are in a 50.3 degree orbit at 370 km altitude. Please confirm."

"Houston, Fenn. Approximately what I'm seeing, so thank you! My avionics aren't up to your standards, they're out of a Cessna. Great for flying in atmo, not optimal equipment for orbital operations."

A different voice came on, someone with a lot of gravitas. "Fenn, Houston. Sir. Please identify yourself, over."

"Houston, spaceship Fenn has two crew. Myself, Kevin Rand, Canadian citizen, and Ellen Clayton, lately of Cupertino California, US citizen." My eyes were raised as I said that to Ellen, she nodded yes. "...Over."

"Fenn, Houston, what is your intention, over."

"Houston, we intend to deliver a load of groceries and supplies to the international space station, donated by the good people of KostLess Corporation, and the citizens and excellent police department personnel of Cupertino, California. Over."

I was laughing as I said this, and Ellen laughed, too. I couldn't help blowing sunshine at the cops. They were good people.

"Fenn, hold one, over."

"Houston, we need directions to get there, or it'll take a long time to figure it out and meanwhile your pizza is getting cold, over."

Ellen looked at me, "Pizza?"

"They have a restaurant in the store. I saw some people just scooped up all the ready-to-eat they had there and put it into a garbage bag for us. I left it on top of the cases of beer."

Ellen burst out laughing. "Beer? We're bringing them beer?"

"Couldn't you see?"

"No! The cops were holding us back. I saw a bunch of stuff come in, but..."

"I think the toilet paper isn't needed, strictly, but, then, who knows..."

We laughed together.

"Fenn, Houston. Approximately how much are you carrying in supplies, and what kind of items, over?"

"Houston, it's about a tenth of a shipping container, hard to know the mass. I'd guess between 1 to 5 thousand kilograms, probably at the low end of that range. All items from KostLess. Oh - yeah, I've got a lot of extra oxygen and water containers, standard pneumatic connectors. I just had them aboard when I lifted off. You're welcome to most of my cargo, if you want it. I'd actually prefer to have less mass when I come down, really. Up to you. Oh, and we have Pizza. And Beer. Pop tarts. Trail mix. Good stuff, over."

"Fenn, copy that. Let us think on that, uh, a minute... Over."

I waited about 3 or 4 minutes, watching the beautiful Earth spin below us.

"Houston, requesting vector to ISS so I don't have to go into lunar orbit and wait for it to pass under me, to find it, over?"

The voice, laughing, said, "Fenn, huh, confirm that you need vector. Stand by for that, over."

"Houston, copy that."

Ellen and I waited. Her camera was still recording. "How much space you have on that camera?"

"About another half hour."

"Save it. Or, download what you have to my laptop over there. Oh - wait! I bought some go-pro cameras! Slipped my mind. Last minute thing. Right, they're... In that box. I forgot about those, tons of details, and I was really nervous about taking off. Please can you set those up?"

She was smiling, and I figured she was happy to be useful. I was happy she was happy. "Sure." Getting to work, she fished the cameras out of one of the floating mesh bags on the wall. The bags were an excellent buy at the laundry-bath store, and had precisely zero flight quality certifications from NASA bureaucrats.

Getting one going, with a card big enough for several hours, she clamped it on a shelf to aim at both of us and a little out the window. Floating near me in close quarters, her butt bumped my head and she apologized, but it was fine. I told her I hadn't been bumped by a pretty girl since I was an undergrad, and we, together, lamented the loss of good bumpage in the name of science.

Finally getting seated again, we set up the camera again and continued the interview. "You realize people are going to think I'm only here because you're horny. You know, this is kind of the ultimate in tricked-out hot-rod car."

I laughed, "Truth? Two reasons. I wanted a good, competent engineer along, for my safety, and mission success, all that. Second, I wanted a woman, because it's tight in here, and I've worked with a lot of male engineers who don't know when to bathe. I figured it'd smell less, if we're up here a day or two."

Her face got puzzled, "How long will this take?"

"Depends on Houston. I read up on it. There's an elaborate dance that they go through when docking craft to the ISS so that the approach path is never intersecting the station, and that means it's slow. It's totally stupid but it grew out of a near miss by, I think, a Russian cargo module."

She nodded. "And you... think we have to dance?"

"Maybe? The Soyuz ships just bypass it and claim the Soyuz can't take too long or it'll fail or some lame excuse. They own half the station, so they get away with it."

My distaste for Russians may have shown but I tried to keep it under control.

I continued, "The NASA launches have to take like 24 full hours. I don't want to wait. My trump card is that I could get bored and go home and demonstrate NASA management is more concerned with formality and who gets what aerospace contracts in what House and Senate districts than in science, but that's shooting fish in a barrel. Because, of course they are. It's how things are done. They know it, everyone knows it. So, not worth mentioning. But things are changing now, with my new reactors, and this new MHD thruster design."

"What's next?"

"Let's just work on this mission. I'll tell you my life plans later. I'm not quite sure what they are, so that may take a while."

We sat a while and watched the world spin below us, chatting every once in a while.

About an hour later, the radio spoke again. "Fenn, how do you read? Houston."

"Houston, 5 by 5." They were, indeed, very clear.

"Fenn. We're still hashing out what to do, what articles you have onboard based on security camera footage and live-streamed video from the KostLess. In the meanwhile, please state fuel onboard, or how much delta-v you have available for orbital maneuvering, over."

"Houston, thank you. Fuel onboard for..." I had to think, "...far more delta-v than we need, many hours at 1 g acceleration, if I need to. Just give us a vector, any acceleration zero to 3 g's, maybe, we shouldn't need that much, over."

"Fenn, come to 1000 km altitude in about 6 minutes? That is, Thrust vector directly towards Earth at 1 g for 6 minutes. This elliptical orbit will get you over, then arc you under the ISS. At 47 minutes after that, you'll aim your thruster at the sun, thrust at 0.7 g's for 3 minutes 12 seconds. Then, wait 1 hour. You will be nearby, and you'll get further instructions then, over."

"Houston, thank you for the simple instructions! You guys rock!!! Smart people there! Wilco on the instructions, getting set up now."

I set up the 'burn', doing the first and then the second, and sure enough, after the delays and much talking between Ellen and I, we could see the ISS glinting in the sunlight off in the distance. We were lower than they were, so we were approaching from underneath. Houston talked us through it, and another hour later, sure enough, we were sitting with them several km away and trying to decide what to do.

"Fenn, Houston. How long can you stay on station, in orbit, over?"

"Houston, we have supplies for a week, but our bathroom is diapers and it's not pretty. I'd like to drop this off in the next 4 to 8 hours if I can, it shouldn't take that long, maybe, over."

"Fenn, we're going to hand you off to the ISS crew, they'll help this out. Your delivery has been given the official go-ahead by Director Clemens. This is a one-time-only approval. All future visits must be arranged in advance with appropriate range-safety, policies and procedures approved and verified, directorates notified, etc. Is this understood and agreed, over?"

"Houston, roger that, agreed. Happy to be of help, Over."

A different voice, stronger and clearer tone, came over. "Fenn, this is 1-SS, Don Baker, say again your names, over?"

"Don, it's Kevin and Ellen."

"Good to have a visit."

"Glad to be here. How do you want to do this thing -- I hear you have an elaborate dance."

"Kevin, there's lots of eyes on this one. Lots of ears on the line, too, so let's keep things formal, if we can, but don't let that get in the way of your asking whatever question you have. We need excellent communications here, over."

"Don, you're 5-by-5, gotcha. We can follow any directions you give us, I think. We're here with gifts. Here's my thought. We have a nice-size airlock, in the form of a double-door system and some pumps. It opens half or the entire end of my left, uh, port-side, rear cargo container. If we get most of the stuff bagged and tied together, then open the container, you can snag it with Canadarm and tie it up to the station's outside, then get it when you want, over."

"Kevin, copy that, but I'm getting suited up with Jay now. We're coming out to meet you. You stay where you are. Use no thrusters, nothing, even if you're rotating, don't correct. We're going to pull the station over to you, then transfer all your stuff into the Grissom expandable cargo module we added last year. We have to ask, what temperature is your cargo bay? The beer cans could explode if they're put under vacuum while warm, over."

"Ellen?"

She looked, and said, "12 C and falling."

"Don, it's 12 C and falling in there. Not quite an icebox, but close. I didn't put any electric heaters or air-handling in that thing, it's... well, it's pretty basic, you probably saw that. We're going to go and tie up stuff, though. We have no automated thrusters or anything, we're just a hunk of metal in space now, and I won't touch the controls without your say-so, I know how nervous the planners are after that Russian Progress-M34 thing. So, feel free to come over. Over."

"Kevin, copy that, verify you will not move until directly instructed to do so, over."

"Don, confirming again, that we will not move at all."

"Kevin, good. Radio check in 10 minutes."

I acked, and Ellen and I headed back to the door to the hold. The pressure showed right, so I pulled the door open from our side, and pushed it open in there.

The place was a mess.

Things were floating everywhere. We found the garbage bags and started bagging things up, tying every two bags together to keep it simple. It took a while. Ellen went back for the radio check, and came back with a smile.

"They asked me if I could talk quietly, so I said yes, and then they asked if you kidnapped me, or if I was under duress in any way. I said, HELL no, I'm in space, this is awesome." She was grinning her ass off. She went on, "Then, they wanted to know if there was, quote, 'any kind of creepy vibe coming off you', unquote. I laughed and said, Hell, no, again, you're just a frustrated engineer who wants to do something good for the world, and this is a pretty kickass ship for being made by one guy on what had to be a shoestring budget."

"Less than a shoestring."

"Some of that is obvious." She looked around, "Any of that corner-cutting on safety systems?"

"Not really. I like being alive. My stuff is simplistic so it's not gonna fail. I sacrificed performance to get low cost, but brute force where needed. This set of containers is about 3 times as sturdy as any reasonable need for it to be. I had someone else go over my first welds and he said they were good but fixed a few. After that, I had a couple more to do, but they were tricky, so I hired a pair of oil field guys and they did a bang-up job. Total pro's, I was envious of their skill. They were my triple-check of the before-ones, too."

She nodded.

"They thought I was making a floating greenhouse, like for the ocean, and I said it had to stand up to heavy waves. No waves here!" I laughed, and she did, too.

Our job done, we went back into the primary container (the one with the cockpit), and closed off the other one, both doors, latched tight. I evacuated the air from there, pulling it into spare bottles with a pump I had for the purpose. When it was almost done, I realized there was still a tiny bit of atmo in there, that would vent when he opened the door. A quick radio call later, they said not to worry, we'd be grabbed by the Canadarm and immobile first.

Ellen said, "Should put a vent on that container, with two nozzles that aim opposite, so it doesn't go anywhere, like, the up offsets the down."

"I knew I had you here for a reason!"

We grinned at each other. It was pretty fun.

Watching this huge monstrous space station just get closer and closer, and knowing it wasn't us that was moving, that amazed both of us.

Finally, they grabbed us and pulled alongside. We were pressing up against the ISS, and outside the cockpit window we had two space-suited people. I instructed them on the outer hatch mechanism, but it was pretty obvious, a normal shipping container latch. He got the door open with little effort.

The bags he handed off to Jay. She (it turned out Jay was short for Jayne) put them in the open end of an expandable cargo structure, and despite it taking a lot longer than I thought it would (each move was very slow and deliberate), they finished up, and both Don and Jay wanted to come in to meet us.

There was also the photo op idea, too, I figured. They came in, closed the hatch, I pressurized the bay, and we went in to meet them.

His first comment was, "Wow! 10 psi!" He blinked.

I asked, "Too much?"

"Nope, just have to decompress a little when we get back. Not bad. What's your mixture?"

"Air. 80N2, 20-O2. I can't afford exotic gasses."

He nodded, and held out a gloved hand. Ellen was recording the whole thing, we had multiple go-pro's running. Jay uncorked her helmet and said hello. With gloves off, we talked a little about the moving operation, and Don wanted to know what was up with me, why this thing.

I explained as best I could, then went into humble mode and told him I really respected his work, having to know so many systems, very different from just building a ship.

He was equally complimentary, and once we got done with that, I showed him around the place, explained the big water tanks, lithium battery packs, dual reactors on active and a spare on hot-standby but unconnected unless I pulled a cloth rope. The pictures of this thing, I'm sure, were broadcast live. It was a big win for the space program, I was thinking, since they were getting attention.

They wanted to know what my next plans were, and I said maybe just to land in D.C. and present my working reactors for patent office approval, and my working thrusters, too, and maybe a couple of other things that could be written in as unique/novel, maybe.

I asked what was in his plan for the night. He said he was actually looking forward to the pizza and, once he was off duty tonight, maybe a beer.

At that point, I knew it was streaming live. That's not the way a test pilot talks, that's a politician talking, and he had aspirations. Well, hell, why not, let him. He seemed pretty capable, good that he has a Senator Glenn concept of life after space.

Jayne was a biochemical engineer and was working on a set of experiments on growing various things in zero g, and getting fun results, she was excited.

She asked what Ellen's background was. It was phrased nicely, so even if Ellen had just been a waitress, it would have been okay.

Ellen just said, "Student. Was aerospace, now I'm mechanical, working on it."

Our kibitzing fest wound down after about a half hour, I mentioned I had to pee and I didn't want company for that. Of course, they explained that was totally normal, and they'd be happy to wait. I was put off a little, but then decided human factors had to win the day and I went behind a rack of equipment, stripped down, put on a diaper, and urinated like it would be okay. My relief was big.

Ellen said, then, she had to do so as well, so she did the same maneuver. I showed her where to put the diapers in a firmly-latched garbage can I had bolted to the floor and wall. I knew I'd be going to zero-g so I'd make sure things weren't flying around when I did that, it could bang into something important and kill me.

Getting back, we laughed, and they described how we were going to separate the crafts -- mostly we'd wait, they'd decouple, and we'd figure out how to get home.

Again, mirthfully, I asked if they had any orbital mechanics guys in their phones I could call to ask when to do a de-orbit burn so I ended up over the D.C. area. Don politely suggested I aim for offshore, since there is a restricted airspace zone around downtown D.C. I hadn't seen the FAA map for that, but I believed him. I wanted to land somewhere visible so I could end up delivering my working prototype to the Patent Office.

Then, it occurred to me, I didn't need to. I could land in Ottowa. Canada had a patent office, and things patented in Canada might be patentable in the U.S. by some kind of agreement.

Importantly, I didn't say anything, though. Somehow I thought it would be a better idea if I didn't announce where I was going until I got there.

Jay and Don left after some handshakes and suiting up with a lot of cross-checks, meticulously going over their suits to ensure they were okay.

I understood that. It doesn't pay to be careless in space.

Back on tether lines and returning to their ship, I couldn't see much. My visibility wasn't that great. I decided my second ship would have video cameras so I could watch more than out my front window.

Waiting, and more waiting.

Eventually, they called over, announced everything, ran through checklists with us, and the huge space station moved away. We were falling, and though they were moving, the motion felt like we were doing the moving. Unhanding us from the Canadarm gave us a little spin, but I didn't dare do anything with it until they radioed from quite a distance that we were free to leave.

Don called over, last thing, and said he'd like to see us come back, but next time bring just the stuff that Houston wanted us to bring, there was a lot of science mission equipment they could use.

Lastly, he gave us de-orbit burns - thrust vectors for a short burst, then wait 33 minutes, slow at 2 g's for 6 minutes, aiming opposite direction of travel, slow to suborbital but keep altitude, and we'd end up over the Atlantic.

I thanked him and we set off, doing exactly as he recommended.

Chapter: Meeting The PM

As many times as we'd gone around the earth, enough hours had passed that it was 10 am in Ottawa, bright daylight. I'd missed a night's sleep, but it was a busy night. As we descended, I asked if Ellen minded if we stopped in Ottawa, Canada for a while. She said, sure, never been there.