Free Brown, Dale - Independent 01 by Silver Tower (v1.1) Page A

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                No, damn
it, she wasn’t afraid to die. She knew it was possible, knew it could happen
any moment without any warning. But, to coin a cliche, it went with the
territory, and it was a territory she badly wanted.
                As her
attention drifted back to the security guard, she heard him saying he’d always
wanted to go up on the shuttle but didn’t have any specialized degree beyond a
B.S. Besides he was only an enlisted man...
                “All you
need is a technical degree and you can be any rank. Doesn’t matter. Hey, I
don’t have any rank. I’m a civilian. They need technical degrees and volunteers
willing to dedicate themselves to the program. Back in the seventies and
eighties they wanted experienced flyers and senior officers. Now, they need
crewmembers for a whole range of jobs....”
                Ann
realized she sounded like a NASA recruiter. Was she really as enthusiastic as
she sounded? Was it really so simple? Right now she needed to believe that this
flight into space was at once routine and a chance of a lifetime. That’s the
only way she’d get through this thing.
                As the jeep
pulled up in front of a low steel-and-concrete building, the Vandenburg Shuttle Flight Center ,
she took a final look overhead. The ebony sky was brightening to azure blue,
closing off the vastness that would soon enclose her.
     
     
            SPACE
SHUTTLE ENTERPRISE
     
                 Three hours later the crew of the
Space Shuttle Enterprise stepped into the elevator in the service tower and rode it to the orbiter entry
level. They walked across the service arm and into the “white room,” where
white-suited, surgical-masked technicians used vacuum cleaners to remove any
bits of dirt and gravel off their boots and uniforms that could accumulate in
the crew compartment during microgravity flight. Then, one at a time, they
walked toward the circular side hatch into the shuttle.
                When it was
her turn, Ann stopped and shook hands with one of the techs.
                “Thanks,”
she said quietly. They barely knew each other, but the emotions were the same.
No more words were necessary.
                Originally, Enterprise had been built for landing tests. In 1977 it had been released off the back of
a modified Boeing 747 carrier plane to test its ability to glide to a landing
with no power. It was never intended that Enterprise ever
be launched into space.
                The Challenger accident in 1986 had changed
that. It had been far less expensive to refit Enterprise for
space flight than to build a new orbiter, so the refitting process began late
in 1987. Enterprise inherited much of the new 1980s technology in space shuttle design. The first
difference was obvious as Ann stepped towards the entrance hatch—the absence of
the thermal protection system’s insulation tiles. Instead, the shuttle used a
smooth fabric blanket made of carbon-carbon—lighter, stronger and less
expensive than the silica tiles on Columbia and Atlantis. Earlier, only the shuttle’s nosecap and wing leading
edges had the extreme high-heat protection of carbon- carbon alloys—now the
entire surface had it. Whereas the old exterior had looked rough and scaly,
like a lizard’s skin, the new exterior was pure white, smooth and glassy.
                Ann was
helped through the entry hatch and into the middeck area of Enterprise 's crew compartment, where she looked
down at the storage compartments, personal hygiene station, and airlock hatch.
“Weird,” she said, “I’m standing on the wall, like Spider Woman.”
                Captain
Marty Schultz, the Enterprise 's payload specialist, was just stepping
up the ladder to the upper flight deck. “Wait till you get into orbit on Silver Tower ,” he said. “Walls,
ceiling, up, down—all gone. Silver Tower is