Free Voyage by Stephen Baxter Page B

Module was fixed to the front of
that
.
    The idea was that the empty S-IVB would be used as a space station shell, a Skylab, once it had reached orbit. The S-IVB and the Apollo carrying its crew would be launched separately, by Saturn IB boosters, the smaller, cheaper cousins of Saturn Vs. The astronauts would dock with the booster by nuzzling the nose of their Apollo against the Docking Adapter, and then enter through specially fitted airlocks. The crew would clean out the shell, and settle down to live inside the big liquid hydrogen tank.
    This sim wasn’t painted, or finished in any way. It all looked ungainly, ugly, evidently lashed up in haste.
    The simulation supervisor’s voice sounded in his headset. ‘Good morning, Chuck, Adam.’
    Good morning to you, asshole
.
    Bleeker turned and waved at one of the ubiquitous TV cameras.
    The SimSup said, ‘I just want to review the basic parameters of the sim with you, before you start. Now, you know this isn’t an integrated sim.’ Meaning they weren’t hooked up to Mission Control. ‘This is just a preliminary trial of the checklist we’re going to have to use, when we fit out the workshop in orbit. Okay, let’s proceed.’
    The divers nodded to Jones, and they guided him closer to the Apollo mockup. It was just an open cone, fitted to the Docking Adapter. The simulation was supposed to start at the moment at which the crew were moving into the workshop to configure it for habitation.
    Their first job was to dismantle the docking assembly in Apollo’snose and open up the tunnel to the workshop. This part, at least, should go smoothly, because this sort of docking was standard operating practice on the Moon missions.
    Jones heard Bleeker’s breath scratching as he hauled at the heavy docking probe assembly. ‘Take it easy, kid. We’re being paid by the hour.’
    Bleeker laughed, and his posture relaxed a little.
    When they had the probe assembly loose, Bleeker passed it to a diver.
    Bleeker moved ahead of Jones into the Multiple Docking Adapter. The Adapter was a tight tunnel, lined with lockers. All the equipment for living quarters, clothes, food, experiments and the rest was stored in these lockers during the launch; when they’d fitted out the hydrogen tank for habitation, Jones and Bleeker would have to come back here, unpack the lockers, and move this equipment into the tank.
    Bleeker passed on, into the hydrogen tank itself.
    The metal walls of the tank opened out around him. It was pitch dark, and Jones had the feeling that he was following Bleeker into a huge, forbidding metal cave. ‘Hold up, Adam; let’s throw a little light on the situation here.’ Jones unclipped a portable light from his belt and fixed it to the fireman’s pole that passed along the axis of the tank.
    The lamp sent glimmering light through the water along the length of the tank, to a wall at the far end that bulged inward toward him. This was the bulkhead between the hydrogen tank and the booster’s lox tank beyond. Helium pressurization spheres clung to the walls like big silver warts. Handrails and poles looped across the metal cave, and folded-up partitions and other bits of kit were stowed neatly against the walls of the tank.
Too neatly. I wonder what those poor schmuckos will find when they meet this bird in real life, in orbit
.
    The Skylabs were just lash-ups, really, improvisation. But they would give NASA experience it needed of orbital operations and long-duration flights, before the real space station cans started flying later.
    ‘Okay, guys,’ the SimSup said. ‘As you know, in orbit the first job would be to check that the propellant lines are properly blocked. Today, we want you to skip over that and proceed straight to the assembly of the floor.’
    ‘We’ve read the checklist,’ Jones growled. ‘Come on, pal.’ He shimmied along the fireman’s pole, deeper into the tank.
    Bleeker and Jones manhandled packs of floor panels away from their stowage against