The Boys' Club

Chapter 7

      Finally the day arrived. The day Carmen had waited for her whole life. She was going into space.
No passengers were being taken on this flight. The seats had to be vacant to bring back fifty two staff from the two moon bases for the Christmas break. Another flight was scheduled for late January to return them.
Phillip Hammond himself would be commanding the mission. As well as Carmen, Adam Bailey, Grant Morrison, Josh Williams and Michael Sinclair, along with two of the engineering staff would be crewing the space shuttle. In a final briefing the day before the flight Adam Bailey, who would be second in command, stood up at the front of the briefing room.

"We take off at eleven hundred hours tomorrow local time," he said, "So get a good night's sleep tonight." He looked at Carmen, "Taylor, Dr Hammond wants you in one of the flight deck seats so you can observe first hand what goes on during the launch phase of the flight. We'll be pulling about three g's, so try not to be sick everywhere."

Carmen sighed inwardly. This was just another example of Bailey and the others belittling her at every chance, making out she was a rookie who couldn't handle anything to do with the space flight. She would have no problem with three g's of acceleration, having experienced at least that much dozens of times in air force jets. She knew she would be classified as a trainee for at least a year, but was determined to hang in there. These chauvinistic males were not going to scare her off from her dream.

That night Tracy video called her from the holiday resort she and Angela were staying in at the Gold Coast. "Good luck," she beamed at Carmen, "You're going to love it. Dad will make sure you get as much experience with everything you possibly can on the spacecraft, and you're going to love the moon. It is so cool. Call me when you get back, I want details of everything, okay?"

After the call finished Carmen chuckled. Tracy talked like a teenager sometimes, but she was super smart. Carmen was lucky to have her as a friend. Tracy was like the sister she never had. But she could tell that Angela was Tracy's number one friend in the company. Well she hoped Tracy considered Carmen to be number two.

Phillip Hammond arrived early the next morning just as the space shuttle Iridium was rolled out of the hangar to be fuelled and loaded. As well as carrying food supplies for the lunar bases, the large cargo hold was also being loaded with constructions materials and hundreds of twenty five metre lengths of monorail track to be used in the extension of the moon's monorail.

Shortly before they boarded for take-off Adam Bailey approached Carmen. "It's your first flight into space so try not to get too overwhelmed by it all," he said with a smirk, "While you're observing what's going on just try and stay out of everyone's way and do exactly as you're told."
"Yes sir," she said, giving him a mock salute.
He scowled at her and walked away.

A short time later Philip Hammond came up to her with much kinder words. "Good morning, Carmen," he said, "For the trip out I'm going to be in the pilot's seat with Adam on my right. "You, Grant and Josh can sit in the three seats behind and you can observe as much as possible. For the moon landing and take-off I want you in the co-pilot's seat. You will have done all this in the simulator, now you can see it first hand. So how has the training been going? Have the boys been giving you a hard time?"
"Nothing I can't handle, Dr Hammond," Carmen answered.

He gave her a knowing look, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. "I know these men and I know they've been making things as difficult as they can for you. But I also know they will come around soon, even Adam Bailey. Just keep hanging in there. Remember I consider you a valuable addition to our team. We board in five minutes." He walked off.

Half an hour later the spacecraft, which resembled a Seven Four Seven Jumbo jet rolled down the three kilometre runway and lifted off into the sky, destination the moon.
In her seat behind the pilots Carmen was able to closely watch what was going on. It was exactly like her simulator sessions. They gradually increased height to the maximum altitude for conventional aircraft. At seventy thousand feet the rocket boosters were fired lifting the shuttle above the atmosphere into a low orbit. After twenty minutes the craft was lined up for lunar insertion. Another firing of the rockets and the Iridium was on its way to the moon where it would arrive in about twenty five hours.

During the whole time Phillip Hammond was continually giving Carmen a run down on what they were doing as well as allowing her to ask questions. Even Adam was being friendly to her explaining the co-pilot's role, although she knew he was only being helpful because his boss was sitting next to him. During the next twenty one hours very little was needed to be done on the flight desk so Carmen practised floating around the passenger cabin in her weightless state, carefully eating and drinking in space, and then having a seven hour doze in one of the passenger couches. 

When she awoke at seven am, Australian time, the moon was a huge white crescent in the viewing windows. A quick breakfast and then she was back in the flight deck, this time sitting in the co-pilot's seat with Adam sitting behind her. There wasn't really a lot to do, basically the computer fully controlled the orbit insertion and the landing at the research base.
Four hours later the shuttle drifted slowly down into a small crater at the north-eastern edge of Mare Fecunditatis, more commonly known as the Sea of Fertility. The research base, usually just called Mainbase had been built underground to protect it from solar radiation and micro meteorites, and also to insulate it from the searing hot temperatures of the lunar day, and the intense cold of the long two week night.

After the pilots were debriefed in the director's office Carmen was given a tour of the facility. She soon learned how to move around in the light lunar gravity, and was allocated a room for the two nights they would stay there until their return to Earth. Her room was not much bigger than a cupboard, consisting of a single bed, small desk and a chair. It also had a phone which allowed her to call Tracy that night. By inputting a code the call was relayed by satellite to the computers at the Silver Star complex on Earth where it was then interfaced with the normal phone system in Australia.
It took a bit of getting used to because of the one point three second delay it took the radio signals to travel between the moon and the earth, but she filled Tracy in on the details of the trip. Tracy told her that she would try and be on the next moon flight in seven weeks at the end of January so they could "hang out" together on the moon. The next trip would involve a longer stay at the base.

The following day Carmen got to travel in a moon rover which was a vehicle designed to travel on the lunar surface. She was also shown the greenhouses which were filled with leafy shrubs to assist with the air circulating system. Other activities including astronomy and the study of micrometeorites were also shown and explained to her.

The following morning the monorail arrived with eighteen staff from Farside Base. Along with another thirty four from Mainbase every seat on the shuttle was taken as the craft lifted off from the surface. Carmen was again in the co-pilot's seat. 

The trip back to Earth was uneventful. The computer was capable of landing the shuttle back at North Reef Island, but Phillip Hammond took over the controls and landed manually so Carmen could observe every aspect of the procedure. Once again Adam had to sit behind her, and she could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head hating her for taking his seat.

Another ten days at the island and most of the staff were allowed to return to the mainland for an eleven day break over Christmas. Tracy was still away having an extended holiday somewhere in Queensland, and Carmen returned to Sydney to have Christmas with her family who were so excited to have an astronaut in the family.

On the 2nd of January she and about half of the staff were back at the island preparing for the next moonflight on the 27th, when Dr Driscoll called all the available staff, both flight and maintenance, to the briefing room.
"This morning I received a call from Dr Hammond," he explained, "Something unexpected has happened and we have an urgent mission into space."

The action really starts in the next chapter. 
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