First Steps (Founding of the Federation) Read online

  Then the polite mask broke into a small smile as his eyes twinkled. “Konnichiwa Doctor Irons. It is a pleasure to meet someone named after one of my countries greatest heroes.” The Ambassador bowed then the three of them sat.

  “I would like to thank you for convincing your country to open the Mars program to international support,” Luigi said. The ambassador nodded.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “Luigi, this is insane, we have countries bidding to help out. I mean Bolivia too!” Nick looked up eyes wide. “Everyone is in on it! They all want a piece of the action! The Chinese are matching us or giving us our debt bonds back in compensation! Russians and European Union are on board and the Japs are going nuts!” Luigi chuckled. “It is all over South America and Africa too. We already have a geologist from South Africa on board! He flew in out of the blue last night, just showed up at our door this morning!”

  Luigi chuckled again. “My god, we're really going to do this!” Nick looked flabbergasted.

  “Looks that way. We have enough for two flights, and part of our secondary agenda,” Luigi smiled.

  “Secondary agenda?” Nick asked confused.

  “Well, you don't think we're doing this as a single photo op do you? I agreed to do this, but I want to change the world,” Luigi replied lazily. Wendy smiled.

  “I think you already have,” Nick shook his head.

  “Maybe, but we have to make it work now,” Nick cautioned. Luigi chuckled. He could just imagine the egg on his face and his supporters if this failed. A lot was riding on this.

  “Oh, ye of little faith. We got the first mission already in the works. We took the plans to a full paper study last week. We should have the final blueprints by the end of the week. The first test flight is in four weeks.”

  “Luigi, did anyone tell you you’re nuts?” Wendy asked. She shook her head. Even she had been shocked by the speed things were going. Everyone wanted in on this.

  “All the time. Never stopped me then, won’t stop me now,” Luigi smiled as he retorted. There was steel in that smile along with the natural charisma he oozed.

  “Good. You’re going to need all you can get,” Doctor Zubrin replied from the doorway.

  “Boss this man is a genius,” Nick grabbed the young man's shoulders and shook them good naturally.

  “Why do you think I hired him?” Zubrin asked as they chuckled.

  · Chapter 2

  Politics and Planning:

  Bob studied the communications report and grunted. "Three minutes one way when the planets are closest together, up to twenty two minutes at opposition." He shook his head. "Damn."

  Luigi nodded. "Yeah I was reading that too. It's too bad we couldn't use that quantum entanglement teleportation device Vienna is working on." He'd been getting all sorts of hair brain propositions in his inbox lately.

  Zubrin looked up disgusted. "Not that thing. Teleporting to Mars?" He shook his head.

  "No, I was thinking more along the lines of information. Ones and zeroes..." Luigi gave Bob a look. "Here me out. According to the theory, it is instantaneous. An ansible or FTL communications method with no limit on distance. Now if we had it on both ends..." Luigi suggested.

  Bob nodded. "Okay, yeah, the first true ansible link. But that would be expensive."

  Luigi sighed. "Yes, and each time you use it, you use part of it up, so after a couple messages..." He shrugged.

  Bob nodded. "Right. I bet it would be expensive to replace too." Luigi nodded glum.

  "Not to mention the conspiracy nuts would have a field day with it." Nick laughed.

  "Yeah."

  Bob sighed. "Okay, back to the drawing board with that one, at least for now. We're just going to have to stick to good old fashioned methods until something better comes along,” he sighed. "You were talking about going totally paperless?" He looked over to Luigi who nodded.

  "As much as we can get away with. We can fit a lot in a memory card. E-books, manuals, interactive tutorials, movies, music, the works. They weigh a lot less too," Luigi replied. Nick nodded.

  "I am not sure how the astronauts will take to using e-books, but we could save a lot of weight." Nick looked down at his tablet and then up with a smile. "See? We're using them already. Luigi has instituted a paperless office for some of the departments and putting copies on a central server for public viewing within the agency has sped cross pollination and cut down on problems. We still have turf fights, but it is not as bad as I expected." Nick looked up and smiled.

  Mario chuckled. "Yeah, you mean it's not as bad as it was before I started threatening to butt heads."

  Nick chuckled. "Yeah, like that helped." He shook his head.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  "Wait, veggies? Fruit? No real food? No coffee?" Mario leaned over and stared at the suddenly nervous nutritionist.

  "Um.... I thought you knew, it is a requirement that you all go vegetarian."

  He wrinkled his nose. "Bully on that," he growled. Wanda sighed.

  He turned on her. "No honestly. No meat?"

  She patted his belly. "I've been meaning to put you on a diet anyway dear. You’re starting to put on weight," she teased. He looked hurt.

  She ignored the pout to turn to the nutritionist. "Well um ah..."

  Mario raised a hand, still locking eyes at his wife's eye line. "Point of order. No one has to eat what they don't want. Bag what they want chicken, meat, whatever. TV dinners if you have to." He watched as the nutritionist turned red.

  "Really! You’re going to be on a new world you would think you would want to set an example for the people back home to step into the future and stop harming animals." He turned to her.

  "Miss. I don't know you. What I do know is this. I am an omnivore. I eat veggies, but I also eat meat. I don't care about all the arguments that meat is bad for you. If I busted my tail all day, I want to come in to a dinner of my own choosing. It's that plain and simple." Luigi chuckled. Mario turned on him.

  Luigi had his hand over his mouth. "Sorry," he mumbled.

  "You’re no help," Mario growled. He turned back to Wanda.

  "Well really, it's no big deal. You could use less protein and caffeine anyway," Wanda said. He froze.

  "Okay. No meat, no sugar, no Caffeine, no CHOCOLATE."

  She froze with her mouth open. "Now that's not fair," she glared.

  "If we have to suffer for science dear, I don't see any reason you shouldn't as well," he replied sweetly. She held the glare. His eyebrow rose.

  "Not funny. You expect me to go three years without chocolate or caffeine?"

  He smiled. "We could use the weight for other things. It has no real nutritious value as the lady will point out." The nutritionist tried to back up to keep out of the argument.

  Wanda turned a look on her then back to her husband. "We'll discuss this later." She sat up straight and stared forward.

  He nodded. "Glad that is settled." He turned to the nutritionist.

  "Poll each of the astronauts. Have them fill out what they would like. Comfort food and or ethnic food. We can't bring it all in large quantities, but I am sure one or two meals a week won’t break the budget," he ordered. He'd had enough of her little political ax grinding. The lady sighed. "Besides, we are importing fish anyway." Mario sat back hands behind his head. "Think I should bring my fishing pole?" He turned to Luigi who shook his head.

  "Only you would want to fish in a fish tank. And no Mario, the fish come on the second flight, not the first."

  Mario sighed. "What we give up for science," he mock grumbled. Luigi chuckled.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  The squat heavily muscled balding man came into Luigi's office and stood at attention. Luigi looked up and shook his head. "Chief, this is a civilian post, and I happen to be a civilian. Why don't you cut it down to what we civies can handle?" Luigi asked with a slight smile. The chief scowled a bit, and then lightened up. "Beer?" Luigi turned and opened the fridge behind his desk.

 
; "Yes sir."

  Luigi tossed him a bottle. "Corona's all I got." Luigi took another out and popped the top. "Have a seat chief; we have a lot to discuss."

  The chief turned and sat down. "You wanted to see me? Something about training? I can train the guards but that is a bit of overkill sir."

  Luigi shook his head. "No some higher ups recommended you after I put in a request. I want you to work on the teams going to Mars."

  The Chief's eyebrows rose. "You’re kidding. Train those pansies?" He chuckled.

  Luigi smiled. "Well, I happen to be one of them and yes, I know I don't even come within a mile of your records." He waved as the chief looked startled. "Don't worry about it chief, we're not up to training for combat, I want you to work on unit cohesion and teamwork."

  The chief nodded. "You know, in the Seals we usually beat on buds until they get with the program."

  Luigi sighed. "Yes, you will also be in charge of the exercise regime. It looks like we will have a three week period for general training. Nothing that can cause permanent injury. I want you to go over the hardware and see if you can write a lesson plan that uses that," he waved.

  "I need additional eyes sir, one DI won’t cut it," the Chief said thoughtfully. He wasn't sure why he was going through with it. Right now it'd be something to tell his grandkids... and it'd look good on his resume.

  Luigi nodded. "Good point. If you know any former trainers who are willing to push around some NASA nitwits let me know. If not we can find other sources."

  The chief nodded taking a pull of the beer. "Budget?" he asked.

  "I budgeted twenty mil for physical training and trainers."

  The chief's eyes widened. "Bit much for one team."

  Luigi shook his head. “Six teams actually, about thirty six people." The chief looked confused. Luigi took a pull of his beer and sat back. "Go ahead and ask it Chief."

  The chief chuckled. "Okay, I'll bite, why so many?"

  Luigi smiled. "See that wasn't so hard. The primary team, back up, secondary team, their backups, third team, and alternates. We might as well get them all in one shot."

  The chief nodded. "Facilities?" he finally asked. Luigi sighed.

  "We can use the tanks here at NASA for water training, and I have some pull if you want a base. I am sure we can borrow some facilities, General Aster said we could."

  The Chief nodded. "Can do."

  Luigi nodded. "You mean must do. We need everyone ship shape and pulling together or it will all come apart in a crisis."

  The chief nodded thoughtfully. "Any chance I can go the Mars as well?"

  Luigi smiled. "I'll put in a good word for you Chief. I don't think we will be splattering any Martians though." They both chuckled.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “And in here we've got one of our fabrication rooms.” The hostess smiled politely as she opened the door for the journalists.

  Mario blinked in surprise as flashbulbs went off like lightening for a moment.

  “Ah folks can we not blind the staff...” he said dryly, rubbing his now watering eyes.

  “As you can see Dr. Irons is busy working on a part.” She waved to indicate the rows of 3D printers. “We have twenty printers of various sizes in this room. It is rather loud,” she said, raising her voice to cut over the clatter of the printers and ventilation. She hastily closed the door.

  “The ventilation is used to suck the plastic fumes up out of the room and through the air exchange system. Any waste materials from the machines are recycled. As you can see we're as green as we can be,” she said by rout and then smiled politely.

  “I noticed that with the wind farms and the solar panels on the roof,” One of the journalists said.

  Their tour guide nodded. “Yes typically a large building of this size with all this electronic equipment consumes a great deal of electricity. Megawatts in fact. This costs the tax payers tens of thousands of dollars each month. By going green from the beginning we're trying to keep costs down as low as we can,” the hostess said, glad someone had picked up a queue. “For instance the replicators. With those we can print a test part and the designers and engineers can look at it right away. This way they can streamline production. Once they are sure the parts work they order them up for fabrication and move on.”

  Irons opened the door and came out with a handful of parts. He paused as the group looked at him. He shrugged as he closed the door and fumbled a piece. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Quite all right doctor Irons, we were just discussing how we make test parts,” the hostess said genially.

  “So these parts are going to Mars?” a journalist asked. Mario Irons snorted.

  “No these are test parts. This is made out of ceramic powder and this one is made out of resin.” He showed them two of the parts. “I prefer to send my orders to be done at night when the work load is the shortest, but a few people caught onto that trick and now I've got to play catch as catch can with the queue like everyone else,” he said and then chuckled.

  The hostess smiled and nodded. “Here in the program we pride ourselves on thinking green and looking to the future. Thank you Doctor.” She nodded politely and moved off. The reporters trailed behind. “And we're walking...”

  Mario snorted, shook his head and headed off in the opposite direction.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Luigi and Doctor Roberts looked over the assembled group of scientists and engineers. "All right folks, we are looking at the Topaz four reactor. It has a quantum increase over the first generation, capable of four point nine megawatts of power. The original Topaz one had a top power output of five kilowatts." Several people murmured.

  "Now, the latest generation has been scaled up by a factor of three. That means it is just less than three tons in weight," Luigi explained. Luigi watched the crowd as they murmured.

  "Excuse me, but why do we need a nuclear reactor at all?" One of the older scientists asked. "It will interfere with our scientific instruments in orbit."

  Luigi scowled and held up a hand to a red faced Doctor Roberts. "Hang on a minute I will take this one." He leaned against the desk.

  "Folks the Topaz emits less radiation then a lump of coal, we checked. Furthermore we are going to add additional safety measures, and upgrade her with some American ingenuity to increase her efficiency before she leaves the ground. I don't want any crap about radiation; we don't need that hamstringing us like it did in the early 90's with the first experiments with the Topaz reactor. Solar just doesn't cut it for the applications we have in mind." He looked at the crowd. "The first person who goes running to the press wining about possible radiation will wish they were never born do you hear me?" he growled dangerously. He looked at the crowd. Several looked defiant. "I mean it folks; each of you signed the NDA. That's a NON DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT." He smacked the table hard with the flat of his hand making several jump.

  "Got a problem come to me or Doctor Zubrin. I will gladly accept your resignation." He looked them over. "Good, Get on with it." He turned to a startled Doc Roberts. "You were saying Doc?" he asked. He moved aside and sat down.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  "Were catching flack on the hill and from state over the repeal of the space launch law,” Zubrin said as Nick and Luigi entered the room. Things were really coming together and now that the the new class of freshman legislators had their feet under them they were starting to take notice.

  "Bad?" Zubrin sighed.

  "Hard to say, it's pretty early, but the big three are lobbying pretty hard to stop or delay it. They want us to build the launcher here and line their pockets."

  Doctor Zubrin sighed. "Well, I hear Boeing is getting in bed with the NPO Energia Company, last week a rep called asking for specs and help on the Uragan design." He shrugged. "Lockheed is getting the contract for the SSTO. I'm not too happy about that, their track record with the whole X-33 program isn't so hot." Zubrin scowled.

  "Carrot or stick?" Nick asked.

 
; "I think a little of both." Luigi sat down.

  "What do you have in mind?" Zubrin asked.

  "Well, we can get with Boeing and try to broker the deal to upgrade the Energia. That will get them in bed with us. Lockheed is playing games, but if we dangle the SSTO in front of them but give them a firm deadline and nonop contract," he said suggestively.

  Zubrin whistled. "They'd never go for it!" He shook his head. Cost over runs and delays were the bread and butter of the big three.

  "Well, we could go with a smaller contractor. I bet your old friends at Rocketplane Kistler would jump at the opportunity," Nick suggested.

  Zubrin winced but Luigi chuckled. "Oh, yeah, see there's the hint of a stick. Bird in the hand or two in the bush..."

  Nick nodded. "We can also make it clear through back channels that if the launch law isn't modified the program will shut down or go at a much slower pace, and lose a lot of punch."

  Doctor Zubrin nodded. "Yeah, and if we make it clear that if it does we will farm as many contracts as we can out to the smaller companies first..."

  Luigi nodded. "Yeah, they may get the message," Luigi said.

  Zubrin sighed. "Let's hope so, we need them on our side."

  ...*...*...*...*...

  "I am so getting tired of hotel rooms. Can't they set us up in a condo? Or rent a house?" Wanda grumped as she rubbed at her hair with her towel.

  He smiled. "Don't worry dear; when we get to Mars I will build you a castle."

  She chuckled. "Yeah, right."

  He looked up. "Honest, I promise."

  She grinned at him as she sat in his lap. "What are you looking at real estate?"

  He shook his head. "Architectural plans." She took it out of his hand and tossed it away. "Hey! I was reading that!” he protested. She kissed him to shut him up.

  "I have more important things for you to do," she said, looking into his eyes.

  He chuckled. “Hey, I wonder if the bed vibrates?” he teased. She started to giggle, hand over her mouth until his hands started to wander. After that coherent thought went out the window. After all, they had a lot of time to make up for.