- Brennan, Gerald.
Zero Phase.
Chicago: Tortoise Books, [2013, 2015].
ISBN 978-0-9860922-2-0.
-
On April 14, 1970, while
Apollo 13
was en route to the Moon, around 56 hours after launch and at a
distance of 321,860 km from Earth, a liquid oxygen tank in the
service module exploded during a routine stir of its cryogenic
contents. The explosion did severe damage to the service module
bay in which the tank was installed, most critically to the
other oxygen tank, which quickly vented its contents into space.
Deprived of oxygen reactant, all three fuel cells, which provided
electrical power and water to the spacecraft, shut down. The command
module had only its batteries and limited on-board oxygen and water
supplies, which were reserved for re-entry and landing.
Fortunately, the lunar module was still docked to the command module
and not damaged by the explosion. While mission planners had envisioned
scenarios in which the lunar module might serve as a lifeboat for the
crew, none of these had imagined the complete loss of the service
module, nor had detailed procedures been worked out for how to
control, navigate, maneuver, and provide life support for the crew
using only the resources of the lunar module. In one of its finest
moments, NASA rose to the challenge, and through improvisation and
against the inexorable deadlines set by orbital mechanics, brought
the crew home.
It may seem odd to consider a crew who barely escaped from an ordeal
like Apollo 13 with their lives, losing the opportunity to complete a
mission for which they'd trained for years, lucky, but as many
observed at the time, it was indeed a stroke of luck that the
explosion occurred on the way to the Moon, not while two of the
astronauts were on the surface or on the way home. In the latter
cases, with an explosion like that in Apollo 13, there would be no
lunar module with the resources to sustain them on the return journey;
they would have died in lunar orbit or before reaching the Earth. The
post-flight investigation of the accident concluded that the oxygen
tank explosion was due to errors in processing the tank on the ground.
It could have exploded at any time during the flight. Suppose it
didn't explode until after Apollo 13's lunar module Aquarius
had landed on the Moon?
That is the premise for this novella (68 pages, around 20,000 words),
first in the author's “Altered Space” series of alternative
histories of the cold war space race. Now the astronauts and Mission
Control are presented with an entirely different set of circumstances
and options. Will it be possible to bring the crew home?
The story is told in first person by mission commander James Lovell,
interleaving personal reminiscences with mission events. The
description of spacecraft operations reads very much like a
post-mission debriefing, with NASA jargon and acronyms present in
abundance. It all seemed authentic to me, but I didn't bother fact
checking it in detail because the actual James Lovell read the
manuscript and gave it his endorsement and recommendation. This is
a short but engaging look at an episode in space history which
never happened, but very well might have.
The Kindle edition is free to Kindle
Unlimited subscribers.
October 2016 